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Patients should be blamed for the long waiting list
- Victor Chong (2 November 2002)
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Victor Chong, Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon King's College Hospital, London, SE5 9RS
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Mr Harrad's story is so sad. The worse thing is that it is not a story but real life. More sad is that it is not an isolated incident.
What I do not understand is that why does the Labour government need to do all these spinning. There is currently no effective opposition. They should go and deliver the service.
The concept of consultant deliberately trying to maintain a long waiting list amaze me especially in cataract surgery. Can someone tell me how can I do that?
The manager (with the consultant - ha ha!) decides how many cases we do in a list. The manager decides how many session of theatre time that we get. If the operating session is over-run because we have a difficult case, the manager decides that we cannot carry on (Thankfully, we are allowed to carry on in King's!). The manager decides how many consultant we have in a unit. All we decide is to put a patient who need cataract surgery onto the waiting list. Alright, we are guilty of doing that. If we do not put anyone on the waiting list, whether they are blind or not, our waiting list is going to be short. Or even better, if we do not even see any patients, the waiting list is even shorter. Ah! I forgot that the GP wrote to us and asked us to see these patients, so it was the GP! Wait a minute, it was the patients who went to see the GP in the first place. They should be blamed for the long waiting list.
Let face it, there is not enough consultants. There are less than 1000 consultant ophthalmic surgeons in the UK as compared to 5000 in France with a similar population. Surprise, surprise that there is no waiting list in France.
Competing interests: None declared |
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