A senior civil servant has called for there to be passport checks to be carried out on users of certain NHS services to ascertain whether or not the person is entitled to taxpayer funded treatment. This is in my view an eminently sensible suggestion to counter what is a growing problem with health tourism. This suggestion has of course brought howls of protest from the usual suspects from the Labour party and the medical establishment. Dianne Abbot whined that NHS staff should not be acting as ‘border guards’ and Taj Hussain of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine got all heated up about the ‘ethical issues’ involved in this plan.
However neither Abbot nor those who bang on about ‘ethical issues’ seem to be at all concerned with the plight of Britons who find themselves having to cope with an NHS that is being ruthlessly exploited by health tourists. Their selective compassion shows that they don’t care about the elderly Briton who has paid in to the NHS all their lives but find themselves at the back of the queue for treatment. They obviously don’t care that the hospitals that we’ve paid for are treating those who haven’t paid in to the communal pot and are thereby depriving others who may be more deserving of that treatment in order to care for those who are flying in merely to get ‘free’ treatment.
There have been a number of high profile and well publicised cases where those who are not in any way morally or financially entitled to NHS treatment abusing the service to get cared for on our cash. We are not talking about merely stitching up cuts or treating broken legs here but advanced treatment where the cost to the taxpayer can run into the hundreds of thousands of pounds. Kidney dialysis, pregnancy complications and eye surgery have all be cited in the press as areas where health tourism is a growing problem and it is right that the UK protect the NHS from those who would abuse it. I would not dream of travelling to the USA without health insurance because I know that if something should happen to me whilst in the USA then not only will I be landed with a substantial medical care bill, but I will be chased up in order pay that bill. At present people can come to the UK without proper medical insurance and soak up a considerable amount of health resources with virtually no comeback whatsoever. This impacts on the availability of healthcare for those who have done the right thing and paid their taxes and National Insurance. The problem of health tourism affects both those who are born here and those who have migrated here and who have done the right thing by paying the tax and NI. Health tourism is helping to destroy an NHS that was created for the British people and by the British people.
Although health tourism is but one example among many of waste in the NHS that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be sorted out. Health tourism is the equivalent of allowing a burglar to walk away with your property merely because they’ve managed to get into your house and it should be treated as a form of theft.
I like the idea of requiring passport ID to be presented prior to treatment but the proposals in my view don’t go far enough. They don’t for example extend to Accident and Emergency departments of hospitals which in some areas, especially areas where there are a lot of illegal Muslims, such as Newham, Bradford, Tower Hamlets etc, are being used as a form of impromptu GP surgery. Foreigners can rock up at an A and E get their minor ailments diagnosed and treated and then walk away. Using A and E in this way means that illegals can avoid having to disclose their illegal status which they may have to do if they registered with a GP. If this proposal is to be anything like successful it must extend to ALL National Health Service areas, including maternity and Accident and Emergency.
Health tourists should have zero rights to free NHS services just as a burglar has zero rights to my property. It’s time to tell the Left and the medical profession that health tourists should not have any rights to take what we’ve earned, built and paid handsomely for. In this case I’d say ‘ethics be damned’ and the NHS should only be treating those who are entitled to treatment because to do otherwise short changes us all. After all how ethical is it to take money of all of us yet waste it in this manner? The taxpayer has a right to be angry that the state, which holds a gun to our heads and forces us to pay taxes to fund the NHS, is giving that money away to those who have no intention of paying for the treatment they get or supporting the service financially in any way shape or form.
Links
Guardian article on how medical staff and others are condemning proposals to require passport ID before NHS treatment
Daily Mail article on how senior health civil servants want to require people to show entitlement to NHS treatment
The Labour party oppose plans to monitor health tourism
St George’s Hospital in Tooting South London afflicted by serial abusers of the NHS
Cue for shroud-waving by the usual suspects.
Dianne Abbot and the other usual suspects are already shroud waving over this.
Dead simple – everyone has to supply their full name, address and National Insurance number, plus other PoD. I’d have thought that this was an automatic requirement anyway – how else can a hospital forward details of treatment to your registered doctor ?
That is one way that the problem of health tourism could be tackled. Unfortunately these details are sometimes not taken by staff especially in areas where there are many migrants. As I said in teh artielc A and E is especially vulnerable to health tourists and is used by illegals to get treatment without giving details to a GP.