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I agree strongly with your correspondents who call for women to be
enabled to make more informed choices about screening (of any kind). One
thing that needs to be taken into account when considering the harms of
receiving a false-positive result is the state of the services provided
once this has happened. In the UK at present patients (of any gender) with
suspicious results must often wait for long periods of extreme anxiety.
Add to this the depressing surroundings in which waiting for treatment,
consultation, the screening itself and any treatment will then take place.
My recent experiences of the NHS made me doubtful of the desirability of
long term survival with any serious chronic condition. Not just because of
the disease itself, but because it would involve being subjected to the
conditions of NHS hospitals. I frequently attend meetings at academic
medical centres in mainland Europe. If these represent the conditions a
visitor would expect, the contrast when attending hospital in the UK must
be quite frightening. Debates on
euthanasia and assisted suicide as well as screening also need to take
this kind of thing into account. How do people feel about prolonging their
lives at the cost of constant attendance in dirty, depressing and
seemingly chaotic institutions?
Harms of screening in a choatic health service
I agree strongly with your correspondents who call for women to be
enabled to make more informed choices about screening (of any kind). One
thing that needs to be taken into account when considering the harms of
receiving a false-positive result is the state of the services provided
once this has happened. In the UK at present patients (of any gender) with
suspicious results must often wait for long periods of extreme anxiety.
Add to this the depressing surroundings in which waiting for treatment,
consultation, the screening itself and any treatment will then take place.
My recent experiences of the NHS made me doubtful of the desirability of
long term survival with any serious chronic condition. Not just because of
the disease itself, but because it would involve being subjected to the
conditions of NHS hospitals. I frequently attend meetings at academic
medical centres in mainland Europe. If these represent the conditions a
visitor would expect, the contrast when attending hospital in the UK must
be quite frightening. Debates on
euthanasia and assisted suicide as well as screening also need to take
this kind of thing into account. How do people feel about prolonging their
lives at the cost of constant attendance in dirty, depressing and
seemingly chaotic institutions?
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests