No money for UK cancer patients-£10 billion for Africa

[Elroy Blue]

If you've got liver cancer, you're condemmend to death because they drugs are too 'expensive'!

Winky has just given £1.5 million to Africa to install traffic lights and pedestrian crossings because 'too many die in road accidents'.

That's on top of the £10 billion 'overseas bribe' (sorry aid) budget.

If I say anymore, I'll get banned.

[Digga]

Elroy Blue said:

If I say anymore, I'll get banned.

You're entitled to a reasoned opinion. Sadly I don't fully agree with it.

There is a single problem that relates to the UK, Africa and the whole world - overpopulation.

Aid to Africa is notoriously misappropriated - I agree we should stop it now.

The health care sector should be devoting money to keeping fit people alive, but not for propping-up corpses. Vets put animals down with good reason.

Edited by Digga on Thursday 19th November 10:07

[grumbledoak]

Digga said:

The health care sector should be devoting money to keeping fit people alive, but not for propping-up corpses. Vets put animals down with good reason.

Except the health care sector are perfectly happy to pay their own wages, expenses, and pensions from the punitive taxes on e.g. cigarettes and alcohol. Then decide it is a bit too expensive to treat.

Just as with our pensions system, for more than a few it is indistinguishable from advance fee fraud.

[Davel]

I'm all for helping third world countries, especially in times of disasters and famine etc but we do have to set a reasonable budget for this and prioritise the needs of our own folk.

[Fittster]

Elroy Blue said:

If you've got liver cancer, you're condemmend to death because they drugs are too 'expensive'!

You're dead if you get the drugs, they are not a cure.

[Digga]

Davel said:

I'm all for helping third world countries, especially in times of disasters and famine etc but we do have to set a reasonable budget for this and prioritise the needs of our own folk.

In times of disaster yes, but drought and famine in Africa are neither novel nor curable with aid. This is not a white, Western European veiwpoint, but an opinion which many black Africans express.

We are no more the world's polic than we are it's fire and ambulance service and we should stop acting as such. Our colonial past (and the ensuing post-colonial guilt) have perpetuated the acceptance of large sums of public money being squandered overseas without any democratic consensus.

Edited by Digga on Thursday 19th November 10:51

[esselte]

Fittster said:

Elroy Blue said:

If you've got liver cancer, you're condemmend to death because they drugs are too 'expensive'!

You're dead if you get the drugs, they are not a cure.

Using that logic you're dead anyway, why bother with a health service..?

[Digga]

esselte said:

Fittster said:

Elroy Blue said:

If you've got liver cancer, you're condemmend to death because they drugs are too 'expensive'!

You're dead if you get the drugs, they are not a cure.

Using that logic you're dead anyway, why bother with a health service..?

Errr, perhaps to fix healthy people and cure 'cureable' patients?

[esselte]

Digga said:

esselte said:

Fittster said:

Elroy Blue said:

If you've got liver cancer, you're condemmend to death because they drugs are too 'expensive'!

You're dead if you get the drugs, they are not a cure.

Using that logic you're dead anyway, why bother with a health service..?

Errr, perhaps to fix healthy people and cure 'cureable' patients?

I'm just using Fittster's logic...we all die of something anyway..

[G_T]

Digga said:

esselte said:

Fittster said:

Elroy Blue said:

If you've got liver cancer, you're condemmend to death because they drugs are too 'expensive'!

You're dead if you get the drugs, they are not a cure.

Using that logic you're dead anyway, why bother with a health service..?

Errr, perhaps to fix healthy people and cure 'cureable' patients?

I thought he was pointing out the fact that chemotherapy does not "cure" cancer. It simply seeks to control it?

As an aside many cancer treatments are believed to be so aggressive that they are suspected to cause cancer later in life.

Hence a doctor will never tell you "your cancer is cured", unless they have made an honest mistake of course. ETA- Not that that's the only reason for the term not being used.

Edited by G_T on Thursday 19th November 11:11

[Digga]

G_T said:

Digga said:

esselte said:

Fittster said:

Elroy Blue said:

If you've got liver cancer, you're condemmend to death because they drugs are too 'expensive'!

You're dead if you get the drugs, they are not a cure.

Using that logic you're dead anyway, why bother with a health service..?

Errr, perhaps to fix healthy people and cure 'cureable' patients?

I thought he was pointing out the fact that chemotherapy does not "cure" cancer. It simply seeks to control it?

As an aside many cancer treatments are believed to be so aggressive that they are suspected to cause cancer later in life.

Hence a doctor will never tell you "your cancer is cured", unless they have made an honest mistake of course. ETA- Not that that's the only reason for the term not being used.

Edited by G_T on Thursday 19th November 11:11

That was the point that I was also making.

If it can be cured, fine, but if we are talking of an indeterminate amount of treatment which can only postpone a definate defeat, then that is of marginal benefit.

The welfare state was set up as a safety net, not a support system. In the same way as it should not provide an income to those too idel or feckless to work, so it should not be burdened with impossible health issues. I would bet that a significant proportion of the actual healthcare (not overhead) costs of the NHS are incurred by a relatively small number of patients. The rest of us are, on average, only 'occasional' users and many of us have private cover too.

[ShadownINja]

From what I hear, this liver cancer drug prolongs the life for about 6 months and is very expensive. That's the problem. You could spend it on this or another drug for a different cancer for someone else that can hold back the cancer for years.

Edit: I was wrong. It was just 3 months.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/6604974/Nices-d...

Edited by ShadownINja on Thursday 19th November 11:19

[Eric Mc]

Aah - the simplistic world of PH.

[esselte]

Digga said:

If it can be cured, fine, but if we are talking of an indeterminate amount of treatment which can only postpone a definate defeat, then that is of marginal benefit.

.

Playing DA here...any treatment for any illness can only postpone a definite defeat....I suppose the question is where the line is drawn...

[B Oeuf]

I've only just heard, a friend of my son has just lost her baby at 15 hours of age due to Streptococcous B (sp) it costs the NHS £10 for a test, is as common as Downs Syndrome and we seem to be the only European country who doesn't test for it.

Edited by B Oeuf on Thursday 19th November 11:29

[G_T]

Digga said:

it should not be burdened with impossible health issues. I would bet that a significant proportion of the actual healthcare (not overhead) costs of the NHS are incurred by a relatively small number of patients. The rest of us are, on average, only 'occasional' users and many of us have private cover too.

The problem is that the economics of life is are a complex moral issue and whilst instiutions like NICE do their best drawing a line in the sand is incredibly dificult.

What authority does any human being have to willingly not treat another?

Edited by G_T on Thursday 19th November 11:30

[Digga]

esselte said:

Digga said:

If it can be cured, fine, but if we are talking of an indeterminate amount of treatment which can only postpone a definate defeat, then that is of marginal benefit.

.

Playing DA here...any treatment for any illness can only postpone a definite defeat....I suppose the question is where the line is drawn...

Nonsense - you statement is a non-sequitor.

There are planety of illnesses and conditions which - depending on the individual patient - are cureable. But doctors, despite what many of them like to beleive are not Gods and they can't do it all and shouldn't try to either with public money.

[esselte]

Digga said:

esselte said:

Digga said:

If it can be cured, fine, but if we are talking of an indeterminate amount of treatment which can only postpone a definate defeat, then that is of marginal benefit.

.

Playing DA here...any treatment for any illness can only postpone a definite defeat....I suppose the question is where the line is drawn...

Nonsense - you statement is a non-sequitor.

There are planety of illnesses and conditions which - depending on the individual patient - are cureable. But doctors, despite what many of them like to beleive are not Gods and they can't do it all and shouldn't try to either with public money.

You're not saying that we don't all die are you..

[G_T]

ShadownINja said:

From what I hear, this liver cancer drug prolongs the life for about 6 months and is very expensive. That's the problem. You could spend it on this or another drug for a different cancer for someone else that can hold back the cancer for years.

Edit: I was wrong. It was just 3 months.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/6604974/Nices-d...

I don't work for NICE but 3 months presumably does not represent a good investment of the limited budget the NHS has to deal with.

Especially when as mentioned it can't even afford to due simple tests for bacteria in new borns.

[Digga]

The sooner the public realise that the we're not funded by an unlimited pot, the better in my opinion. That goes for everything; government, defence, public sector and welfare, you name it, we have to spend wisely.

A but leg is cureable - fix it. A gash is stitchable - fix it. Apendicitis is operable on a fit patient - get on and do it- but blowing huge chunks of cash to re-animate carcases is a bad and expensive joke.