My TL;DR:
Charles is already receiving expert care for his cancer within days of diagnosis. His speedy treatment should draw fresh attention to the long cancer treatment waiting times that most British people experience with the NHS.
The proportion of patients in England waiting less than 62 days from an urgent suspected cancer referral or consultant upgrade to their first definitive treatment for cancer is 65.2%.
Amid growing frustration at NHS waiting lists, record numbers of people are paying for private healthcare. Nearly 300,000 people in the UK have paid for chemotherapy in the last five years.
Survival rates for cancer in the UK lag behind those of other European countries for nine out of 10 of the most common types of the disease.
Researchers said cancer waiting times across the country were among the worst on record, too many cancers were diagnosed at a late stage, and access to treatment was unequal.
Buckingham Palace has not specified whether the king is receiving private healthcare or being treated on the National Health Service.
Lmaydev@programming.dev 4 months ago
This is all intentional. They can’t outright privatise the NHS without major outcry so they’ve made it unusable for as many as possible.
RobotToaster@mander.xyz 4 months ago
“That’s the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.” — Noam Chomsky.
Jho@feddit.uk 4 months ago
Just to add to this, there’s been quite a lot of public services which have been privatised in the UK by the Conservative party, for example water (1989), railways (1994 - 1997) and more recently the Royal Mail (2014). All of these services are in absolutely terrible states today, privatisation didn’t make them better. And yet it seems we are not learning from history and continue to vote in the Conservatives anyway. I do really worry about the future of the NHS.
xhieron@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Indeed. As a Yank who always has to pay for healthcare anyway, it’s easy to see the parallels in labor/employment, civil rights, and financial security: We’re facing a global regressive movement from the political right, and those people have no scruples. They absolutely want to claw back every single gain the general public has made in rights and benefits over the last 75 years, and making benefits unpopular is the first step to privatizing them.
Never forget the NHS, warts and all, is a thing that we Americans would die to have, and for want of it many of us too often literally do.
Jaysyn@kbin.social 4 months ago
FYI, an anecdote for anyone in the UK that is leaning towards abolishing your NHS.
I had an appendectomy last year, you know, a surgery that something like 40% of the population will need at some point in their lifetime.
It cost me $7000, with "decent" insurance.
The final bill pre-insurance was a smidge under $170.000.
You guys need to burn the Tories down before do get the same.
feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world 4 months ago
The Conservatives did that. I don’t think Charles actually likes them much.
soggy_kitty@sopuli.xyz 4 months ago
Does anyone care about major outcries in UK anymore? What do they ever achieve?
People forget and move on after a couple weeks of anger
andthenthreemore@startrek.website 4 months ago
The Tories haven’t recovered in the polls since partygate and Truss, something has finally stuck.
Lmaydev@programming.dev 4 months ago
They still need to get elected to carry out their plans. Even the most zealous Tories I know are planning to vote against them this time.
not_woody_shaw@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I’m still waiting for the follow-up on the Panama Papers.
echodot@feddit.uk 4 months ago
I don’t know what you mean people are still very hungry but we’re not going to have riots in the street over it. I kind of wish we would in a sort of way, but realistically simply voting the idiots out is probably the best way to deal with the problem.
Of course Labour have their own issues but I feel like their issues that might actually be fixable, whereas the Tories just don’t care.