NHS will struggle to get off the ground

There is a good measure of uncertainty over whether the National Health Scheme ( NHS) will ever get off the ground, despite the two-phase implementation timeframe of summer 2019 and 2020. There is still a high level of mistrust among private sector doctors that they will not be fairly compensated, while the issue of autonomy of state hospitals is still dragging behind, casting doubt on the tight deadlines being met.

Some doctors rake in a good EUR 8,000 to EUR 10,000 a month, some much more, with patient visit fees very often off the books. In other cases, they are properly logged, and receipts are properly issued, but the “employee” doctor declares a low income yet owns a disproportionate amount of assets (luxury cars, large homes, extravagant holidays and other conspicuous spending).

What will happen in the NHS is that all doctors who register as a general practitioner (GP) will have a ceiling of 3,000 patients, not limited to geographical boundaries, for which the state will pay them an accumulated fee, rising to EUR 100,000 or even EUR 150,000 a year. That amounts to a flat fee of between EUR 33 to EUR 50 per visit, if a patient sees their GP up to three times a year.

In the case of paediatricians, these visits could be around 12 times a year, while gynaecologists see their patients slightly less frequently. Even specialist physicians – orthopedics, cardiologists, ENT, opticians, etc. – try to see their patients at least three times a year.

Doing the simple arithmetic, private sector doctors will be earning far less than they do today, so why should they join the NHS, they argue?

At present, state hospitals are in disarray, due to the lack of proper management, and good doctors are abandoning the public sector to opt for better earnings in the private domain.

With the dilapidated state of many hospital wards and neglected or underused equipment, it is doubtful that these hospitals will be properly restructured and become autonomous in time, with their future budgets depending on performance and quality of care.

Whatever the outcome of ongoing talks with private sector doctors to accept the NHS fees, the government needs to compromise a little and the physicians need to put some water in their wine, otherwise, it will never work.

The whole point about introducing the NHS is to give patients more choice and a better quality of standard care by fusing the good bits of public and private health care.

Let’s not forget when elections take place inevitably public sector employees are manipulated by trade unions and political parties alike, while the ultimate loser is the patient, for whom “decent care” has become a thing of the past.