Health Insurance -
NHS, Superbugs and Private Health Insurance
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About six months ago, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, amidst growing concern over the menace of hospital-acquired infections, promised a complete cleansing of all hospitals in the UK. By government’s estimation, at least 93 per cent of NHS trusts would complete the process by midnight of March 31, 2008.
Dubbed deep clean, the programme was expected to ensure the massive reduction of the spread of MRSA and Clostridium difficile, also called C diff, following major outbreaks that led to serious casualties. So confident was the government in achieving this target that £57.5 million was earmarked for the programme. But at the expiration of the deadline a few days ago, clearly, the goal was far from achieved.
Recently, in a poll conducted by the private health insurance company BUPA, many people who participated had, being conscious of the failure to achieve the deep clean target, mentioned the fear of superbug as their main reason for taking out private health insurance. They had based their argument on the belief that private hospitals, given that they deal with fewer groups of patients, were more likely to be cleaner and safer from MRSA and other infections. In the same manner most of the respondents had blamed the superbug problem on hospital managers.
The results of the survey are a pointer to the growing disenchantment of people with the NHS and the attempt by the government to douse people fears over its failure to curtail superbug.
From the onset, academics, politicians and a number of other pundits had warned the whole talk of deep clean would end up achieving nothing. One of such people is Professor Hugh Pennington of the Aberdeen University. The academic said when the initiative to fight superbug was announced last September by the Prime Minister he knew it was only going be “an expensive waste of resources. He disagrees that the major problem is the environment, but strongly believes it is those bringing the bugs into hospitals that should be attacked.
If I get the respected scholar right, those patients and their carers, maybe, who troop in and out are the culprits. While he may be right, it still calls to question the attitude of those running the hospitals to handling the problem. One thing they could do, but have so far failed to, is to encourage people to disinfect themselves right from home. At a time like this, with financial crisis taking a toll on everyone, I doubt if anyone will be ready to spend from their already overstretched resources to fight superbugs on their own. Everyone knows it is the duty of the government to do this.
As Professor Pennington suggested the environment may not be the problem and even if it’s the people, as he suggests, how does the government fight it? I often see in hospitals notices reminding visitors to always wash or clean their hands with disinfectants. This campaign could be extended to households telling people how they could neutralise the menace of superbugs by maintaining a high level of hygiene. Perhaps the £57.5 million already spent on deep clean could have gone a long way in ensuring this.
Irrespective of who gets the blame in the end, the more important thing is how to solve it. And if people, in their personal capacities, think the best possible solution at the moment is buying health insurance, they should be allowed to do so without any hindrance.
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