Wednesday, 3 September 2008

NHS versus private

Jo has been accepted her for treatment locally in the NHS hospital. However the Neurological physiotherapy treatment ward there has no beds at present. It appears the local private hospital is only equipped for rehabilitation, not acute neurological physiotherapy, which is what she needs. Private medicine in the UK is largely confined to vanity treatments, with the NHS shouldering the burden of acute care. My concern is that the NHS is great when dealing with acute, immediate crisises, as they did when Jo first suffered the subarachnoid haemorrhage in 2000, but is woefully inadequate when dealing with chronic care. Jo’s condition still falls into the former category nominally but, unless there is an immediate danger to her health she will slip into chronic care and be neglected.

Posted by Unknown at 13:16

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Different strokes...

It has been nearly seven years since Jo suffered a "controlled" stroke whilst undergoing brain surgery to clip the blood vessel that had caused a subarachnoid haemorrhage in 2000. Sadly two successive coilings did not occlude the bleed and so Jo had a craniotomy in August 2008. During surgery the surgeon discovered the coiling had penetrated the rear of the aneurysm, occasioning emergency repair procedures. Consequentially they spent one and a half hours longer in surgery than expected, leading to the right half of Jo's brain forgetting it has to look after the left side of her world.