Someone in my local NHS needs to hang their head in shame!

[Kermit power]

There was a story in our local paper this week about Franco Gasparotti, someone who has been refused operations on the NHS to remove excess skin after they dropped from 27 stone to 11 stone.

So what, you might say? Why should the taxpayer fund something like that? Under normal circumstances, I might well agree.

However, when you find out just how Franco Gasparotti came to gain and then lose 16 stone, I hope people will agree that his circumstances were far from ordinary.

Franco Gasparotti is an ex Coldstream Guard. In 1989, he went to the assistance of two members of his patrol when they were attacked by a mob in Belfast. As a result of the injuries he received in doing so, he was invalided out of the Army. Suffering from PTSD, he lost his career, his family and pretty much everything else. Hardly surprising he ended up putting the weight on really.

So move on a bit, and with help from Combat Stress, he gets his life back together and loses 16 stone. And after going through all of that st, then getting his life back on track and losing the weight what happens? Some little st in Epsom hospital finds a loophole to let them get out of paying for operations to remove the excess skin left over.

The story, in his own words, can be found here

We live in a country where people can get NHS funding to have bloody fertility treatment, for God's sake, but someone who has gone through an unbelievable amount of st as a result of stepping up to serve his country isn't considered deserving??? How on earth can that be considered acceptable? How on earth does the NHS bureaucrat in question sleep at night?

I'm just sitting here fuming at it, and wishing there was something that could actually be done about stty situations like this.

[davepoth]

The MOD should be paying really.

[Kermit power]

davepoth said:

The MOD should be paying really.

Possibly so. Either way, I think the nation should be funding it rather than leaving the poor sod to find the cash himself.

[pokethepope]

How much excess skin is there? Looking at his profile pic, and considering his job is listed as 'Fitness Coach'. Or has he financed it himself?

[Kermit power]

pokethepope said:

How much excess skin is there? Looking at his profile pic, and considering his job is listed as 'Fitness Coach'. Or has he financed it himself?

I did wonder that too. He says in the Facebook thing that one of his clients helped him fund the first operation, but I've not been able to find many more details. He says in the article in the paper "Every time I see these skin folds, it takes me back to that Northern Ireland night", so one assumes it's still a problem.

[shouldbworking]

pokethepope said:

How much excess skin is there? Looking at his profile pic, and considering his job is listed as 'Fitness Coach'. Or has he financed it himself?

A friend of mine is a reformed fatty albeit not from such extreme levels and it's not apparent until you see the areas where blokes tend to store fat - the 'love handles' and stomach.

[Ginetta G15 Girl]

davepoth said:

The MOD should be paying really.

Quite how you can say that beggars belief! You really have no idea do you?


Let me explain.

25 years ago I would have agreed, but then 25 years ago we had Military hospitals.

Under the last Tory Government we had the 'slash and burn' ('Options For Change' and 'Front Line First') cuts that removed all Military hospitals bar one - RN Haslar.

The last Labour Government binned Haslar with the promise that the NHS would look after Servicemen/Women.

Therefore it is incumbent on the NHS to look after people who have put their little pink bodies in danger on behalf of HMG.

I take it that you are happy for Servicemen/women to get hurt on Operations - Operations that they have no choice in whether they take part or not, yet you care little that they are looked after.



MUPPET

[Kermit power]

Ginetta G15 Girl said:

davepoth said:

The MOD should be paying really.

Quite how you can say that beggars belief! You really have no idea do you?


Let me explain.

25 years ago I would have agreed, but then 25 years ago we had Military hospitals.

Under the last Tory Government we had the 'slash and burn' ('Options For Change' and 'Front Line First') cuts that removed all Military hospitals bar one - RN Haslar.

The last Labour Government binned Haslar with the promise that the NHS would look after Servicemen/Women.

Therefore it is incumbent on the NHS to look after people who have put their little pink bodies in danger on behalf of HMG.

I take it that you are happy for Servicemen/women to get hurt on Operations - Operations that they have no choice in whether they take part or not, yet you care little that they are looked after.

Erm, aren't you sort of agreeing with him? After all, if the forces hospitals hadn't been cut, then effectively the MOD would be paying for it, so you do want the same thing?

Ever the curse of the armed forces, really. It's all well and good having them when the country needs them, but bring along a bit of sustained peace, and the covenant gets lip service at best.

Ginetta G15 Girl said:

MUPPET

Oi!

[davepoth]

I am heartily confused by that. The MOD's fault, the MOD's responsibility I should think. They (now) give quite generous (although not generous enough IMV) payments to those soldiers who are physically injured to cover their ongoing needs, but I'm not so sure if psychological trauma does or did fall under the same regime.

Besides, with the NHS' big push on getting rid of obesity, quite a lot of people are going to need this op...

[Jasandjules]

So, let me get this straight.

If you were just a pie eating maniac who turned into Orca the NHS would not only help you lose weight but then install a gastric band and maybe even send you to fat camp in the USA BUT if you've fought and been injured for this country, lost the weight yourself, we don't even help you remove the excess skin?!!?

FFS.

[Smiler.]

Yes, but given the history of men women genderly confused getting £000's off the NHS for tit implants & gash conversions, it's a bit rich to deny this poor bloke the treatment he so clearly needs.

It's not up there with cancer, but then how much is wasted on the great unwashed of a Friday/Saturday night over self-inflicted alcohol related injuries.

I think he should get the treatment as he does seem to have turned things around for the better.

[shauniebabes]

Treatment should be given according to clinical need.
This is non essential cosmetic treatement that he wants to NHS to pay for because he has a sob story. Losing a leg in combat would be worthy to treatment. All he did was fill his face with pies.

[Jasandjules]

shauniebabes said:

Treatment should be given according to clinical need.
This is non essential cosmetic treatement that he wants to NHS to pay for because he has a sob story. Losing a leg in combat would be worthy to treatment. All he did was fill his face with pies.

Have you experienced half of what this man went through?

[Chainguy]

Ginetta G15 Girl said:

Quite how you can say that beggars belief! You really have no idea do you?


Let me explain.

25 years ago I would have agreed, but then 25 years ago we had Military hospitals.

Under the last Tory Government we had the 'slash and burn' ('Options For Change' and 'Front Line First') cuts that removed all Military hospitals bar one - RN Haslar.

The last Labour Government binned Haslar with the promise that the NHS would look after Servicemen/Women.

Therefore it is incumbent on the NHS to look after people who have put their little pink bodies in danger on behalf of HMG.

I take it that you are happy for Servicemen/women to get hurt on Operations - Operations that they have no choice in whether they take part or not, yet you care little that they are looked after.



MUPPET

You need to reign that in. Nearly everyone outside the sphere of the MOD i.e. your average man in the street, is under the impression that the MOD has a medical base.

Your attack there is uncalled for and unbecoming.

Before I was released back into society I spent some time at Haslar, and a fine institution it was as well. Sad that it had to die under the New Labour socialist hammer, as the slack certainly has not been taken up by the NHS judging by those I know who should be receiving care from injuries and ailments picked up while in service.

[davepoth]

Buggles said:

I'm not sure that it falls under this category either. Stress was hugely misunderstood back then and probably explains why he had no help. Whether he wants to or should be able to claim damages against the MOD is a different thing.

I don't really see how the MOD should pay for the Operation however, it's what the NHS is for.

If the obesity is definitely as a result of the PTSD, then the MOD have responsibility for it really. And as has been mentioned a bit above, up until quite recently, the MOD had full responsibility for looking after injured servicepeople.

[carreauchompeur]

shauniebabes said:

Treatment should be given according to clinical need.
This is non essential cosmetic treatement that he wants to NHS to pay for because he has a sob story. Losing a leg in combat would be worthy to treatment. All he did was fill his face with pies.

Sob story? Fecking hell, I hope you're in a position to make that statement quite so glibly. I've been a civilian Police officer for nearly 10 years and I couldn't imagine the additional levels of bravery required to go through what he did.

[7mike]

shauniebabes said:

Treatment should be given according to clinical need.
This is non essential cosmetic treatement that he wants to NHS to pay for because he has a sob story. Losing a leg in combat would be worthy to treatment. All he did was fill his face with pies.

Does that mean knob lob ops on the NHS have never taken place? Or was it a case of the mental suffering the poor mixed up sole was suffering in 'the wrong body'?
A mental illness suffered through combat is less important than a physical one? Just as well the NHS don't employ people as stupid as you

[davepoth]

I'm having trouble finding the clinical guideline for it, but generally the NHS would only pay for cosmetic surgery if it was to correct for an injury, or if the cosmetic surgery would help to solve a severe psychological issue. they've decided, for whatever reason, that he falls outside of those guidlines, possibly because he's now worked through his PTSD and they don't perceive the loose skin itself as a problem.

as I said above, this surgery is going to become more and more common as the NHS starts to really attack obesity, so it's something they may need to consider in future. But if the NHS cannot deal with this within their clinical guidelines (and remember for every loose skin removal they do it's something like a breast reconstruction, or a cleft lip that they can't do) I think the MOD should really pick up the tap for going private if his medical records show the obesity was a symptom of the PTSD.

[shauniebabes]

Jasandjules said:

shauniebabes said:

Treatment should be given according to clinical need.
This is non essential cosmetic treatement that he wants to NHS to pay for because he has a sob story. Losing a leg in combat would be worthy to treatment. All he did was fill his face with pies.

Have you experienced half of what this man went through?

No, but then neither have most burns victims.
All of which deserve more priority than the victim of comfort eating

[shauniebabes]

carreauchompeur said:

shauniebabes said:

Treatment should be given according to clinical need.
This is non essential cosmetic treatement that he wants to NHS to pay for because he has a sob story. Losing a leg in combat would be worthy to treatment. All he did was fill his face with pies.

Sob story? Fecking hell, I hope you're in a position to make that statement quite so glibly. I've been a civilian Police officer for nearly 10 years and I couldn't imagine the additional levels of bravery required to go through what he did.

As a copper I bet you could imagine what the compensation claim form looked like.