Saving on the dying

The British Experience

Peter Garin, Vesti FMBritish doctors are increasingly refusing cancer treatment to patients over the age of 75.

Doctors directly discourage patients from expensive therapy paid for by the state. If treatment is still prescribed, the patient is prescribed the cheapest and already outdated drugs. After the publication of fresh statistical data, activists began to solve this problem. In their opinion, such a healthcare system violates human rights. Details are available from Vesti FM's own correspondent in London, Peter Garin.

The selectivity of British doctors, who to treat for cancer and who not, might not have been so noticeable if not for statistics. Compared to other European countries, the survival rate of cancer patients among those over 75 is much lower. If a patient, for example, lives in France, his chances of survival are much greater than in Britain. And it's not the air or the climate at all, but the fact that British doctors simply refuse to treat cancer patients when it comes to the elderly. Doctors even convince patients to refuse treatment themselves, ostensibly in order not to torment loved ones and die with dignity.

If in other European countries doctors are fighting for patients with liver damage so that about 50% live 5 years or longer after the diagnosis, then in Britain the survival rate is only 30%. Such an approach to the problem of cancer is unacceptable, activists of one of the charitable organizations involved in helping sick people believe. Doctors of public hospitals should not deprive people of hope, even if they are over 65 years old.

Studies show that even at this age, patients with the right drugs can not only prolong their lives, but also completely defeat cancer. And we are not talking about isolated cases. Official data collected by various organizations to combat this terrible disease show that at least 130 thousand Britons aged 65 and older who received anti-cancer therapy lived longer than 10 years after they were diagnosed.

And moreover, there are at least 8 thousand patients living in Britain now who were diagnosed with a similar diagnosis 10 years ago, when they were 80. Activists urge doctors to change their position and give the elderly the same chance as the young. Experts also explain the current situation by the peculiarities of the English mentality. Fearing to seem intrusive and weak-willed, the British do not complain about painful symptoms and never argue with a doctor. In this regard, the director of the British National Institute for Improving the Quality of Health even advised the British to adopt the American approach and put pressure on the doctor to prescribe the necessary pills. However, this is unlikely to appeal to the leadership of the national health system, which requires doctors to prescribe only the cheapest medicines to patients for free, which doctors in other countries have already refused.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru28.01.2014