I scammed the system... and YOU can TOO!’’
TO LOOK AT HIM, you’d think there was nothing wrong with him. And you’d be right, because there isn’t! But over the last 5 years, Llandudno-born Mostyn Orme has taken the national Health Service for a spectacular medical rollercoaster ride worth a MILLION POUNDS!
The 42-year-old amusement arcade change booth operator has treated himself to an impressive array of expensive and unnecessary treatments all at the taxpayers’ expense, and it hasn’t cost him a single penny.
“Back in 2012, I read on the internet that the average appendectomy operation cost more than £5,000,” he told us. “I thought to myself, ‘I’ll have a bit of that,’ and immediately phoned my doctor to make an appointment.”
acute
“I told the GP that I’d been awake all night with a horrible stabbing pain in my lower abdomen and he immediately started feeling around, asking me where it hurt,” he continued. “I’d researched the symptoms of acute peritonitis on Wikipedia, sowhenhe poked the right spot I hit the roof. Goodness knows what the people in the waiting room must have thought. Needless to say, the doctor called an ambulance there and then to take me to the hospital. Within the hour I was in the operating theatre being catheterised ready for the five-and-a-half grand emergency surgical procedure. Ker-ching!”
obtuse
Mostyn couldn’t believe how easy it had been to con the NHS out of such an expensive proceedure. Two weeks later, he tried his luck again, this time with an even more audacious hustle. “I’d seen in the paper that exploratory liver biopsies cost the thick end of ten grand each, so off I went to the local walk-in centre, complaining of chronic fatigue, swelling in the legs and ankles, and tar-coloured stools,” he told us. “The triage nurse told me I should probably see my own GP first to get referred to a specialist, so I fell on the ground complaining of abdominal pain and swelling.”
When the nurse left the room to fetch help, Mostyn took the opportunity to stick his fingers down his throat to make himself sick. Medical staff immediately called an ambulance and he was rushed to the specialist Liver Unit at nearby Bangor University Hospital. “Consultations at the walk-in centre come in at £50 each, the ambulance ride must have been another £150 easy. There was two hundred quid before I’d even been admitted to hospital.”
“It was almost too easy, like taking candy from a baby.”
kurt
When he got to Bangor, Mostyn pretended to scream in agony due to internal bleeding, and staff had no option but to send him for emergency surgery. Hetold us: “It was a weekend, so they had to bring the consultant anaesthetist in on his day off. He must have been on double time, so that was a nice little bonus for me.”
“By the time they’d opened me up, found nothing and stitched me back together again, the docs must have been the thick end of twelve grand out of pocket,” he added. “Not bad for an afternoon’s play-acting.”