HEALTH MATTERS
HEALTH is of vital significance to every person on this planet. Our ability to enjoy life and make the most of the opportunities that come our way often depends on our wellbeing. In that regard, the quality of health care where we live matters.
Growing up in Britain, my family and I have been regularly treated by the National Health Service (NHS), which this year is celebrating its 70th year. It is an amazing and vital institution.
When it was launched by the then Minister of Health, Aneurin Bevan, on July 5, 1948, the NHS was intended to provide good health care for all, regardless of wealth. The vision of the ruling Labour Party at the time was that the NHS should fulfil three core principles: that it meets the needs of everyone; that it be free at the point of delivery; and that it be based on clinical need, not ability to pay.
Today, while these founding principles still shape the way the NHS is run, it is struggling on numerous fronts. The record demand for its services, Britain’s ageing population coupled with a lack of adequate social care, and its inability to fill chronic staff shortages are all adding to the problems, even though record amounts are being spent on the service.
There is also huge wastage in this mammoth public sector, which annually costs Britain £140 billion and accounts for 30 per cent of the entire public purse. There was an outcry last year when the findings of a study by Good Health were published, indicating the NHS wastes £7.6 billion from poor procurement — which includes everything from overpriced medicines to toilet paper – and an inability to track NHS assets, resulting in lost crutches and wheelchairs that cost the taxpayer millions of pounds spent to replace. Then there are growing negligence claims and longer hospital stays because of poor care resulting in things like infections that keep patients in hospital beds for longer.
Change is happening, as it must, to reform this essential service. Bar an emergency, foreign visitors to Britain can no longer get free health care, while the NHS is fighting back against pharmaceutical brands who happily and regularly rip the service off with extortionately priced medicine.
Earlier this month, the NHS won a landmark legal case enabling cheaper treatment for thousands of wet AMD vision-loss patients. The condition, which affects tens of thousands of people in the UK, is currently treated using either Lucentis, sold by Novartis, or Eylea, sold by Bayer. The two pharmaceutical giants had tried to stop Clinical Commissioning Groups in the north of England from offering Avastin, described by NHS bosses as an “undeniably effective” alternative treatment, which is also vastly cheaper: each Avastin injection costs just £28, compared to Lucentis, which costs £561 and Eylea a whopping £800! The court decision paves the way for many other cheaper alternatives to be used to treat a host of other ailments that can no doubt save the NHS billions in the long term.
The lack of ethnics across the pharmaceutical sector needs to be vigorously challenged, but so too the NHS for its poor approach to many long-term illnesses, preferring to constantly pump patients with pills rather than explore alternative or complimentary methods of care. All too often I have observed the lack of a holistic approach by NHS physicians (from GPs to consultants), probably through shortage of time to spend with patients, who regularly opt for chemical treatments that routinely leave patients with new health issues through the sideeffects of prescribed medicines.
Having seen my mum nearly die several times through medicines promoted and prescribed by British physicians for her rheumatoid arthritis, I no longer trust their advice. In the 1980s, she was told to take the “golden needle” that far from curing her, instead gave her blood cancer. She was then told it was vital to be a long-term user of drugs like Sulfasalazine, Celebrex and steroids to control her inflammatory arthritis. The results are her condition has deteriorated, while she has also suffered bowel failure and major problems with her stomach and kidneys.
Each time, it has been Turkish physicians who have helped reset mum’s health care, offering medicines and care programmes that are less debilitating and in many instances life-saving. It was for this reason mum recently chose to have a procedure on her urinary tract here in North Cyprus.
I was given raised eyebrows by multiple friends who were shocked by this decision, asking me: “Really, your mum is going to have her operation in Kıbrıs?” Yes, and we are truly glad she did.
From the initial tests done at our local state-run Cengiz Topel Hospital (a real credit to the TRNC health care sector), near Güzelyurt, to those undertaken privately under the expert eye of leading TRNC urologist Dr Necmi Bayraktar, who subsequently carried out the operation, we discovered so much that was hidden from us by the NHS or somehow just missed. Among this was the fact mum’s gallbladder had been removed without her prior permission or subsequent awareness — and all along she was told that her severe acid reflux and acute stomach problems were “a natural part of ageing”!
A few weeks ago, simple keyhole surgery turned into major open surgery at Medicalport Hospital in Girne. In the words of Dr Bayraktar: “Your mum’s insides were a mess. Nothing is where it’s supposed to be. Her kidneys were stuck to the front of her stomach.”
Those problems arose because of earlier NHS operations: one doctor had decided to use “pioneering” laser surgery on mum in the 1970s to clear a stomach ulcer. He botched it and they had to use conventional surgery to correct it. And then, after heavy use of medicines, mum’s bowels stopped working, forcing emergency surgery.
We are, as a family, truly grateful to Dr Bayraktar and the staff at both Cengiz Topel and Medicalport hospitals. While there are valid issues with the TRNC health care system (as with any system), our experience has been of first-class care at all levels. Turkish Cypriots should feel proud of their excellent health care facilities and services.