COLIN CAMPBELL: NHS bill climbs higher after a sudden spell in Raigmore Hospital in Inverness
Last week here I considered the bill that I and a close relative have run up on the NHS this year through treatment and two necessary, but certainly not major, operations. Based on the available estimates I thought there'd be no change out of £50,000.
The purpose of this was to highlight the fact that more and more people I know are becoming all too well aware of the staggering cost of healthcare as they either contemplate very long delays for surgery or stare down the barrel of a £15,000 bill for something as basic but vital as a privately done knee or hip replacement. How long could cradle to grave "free" medical care continue for the payment of a national insurance contribution? A general monthly salary deduction that the vast majority of working people, if they were like me, would be wholly unable to put a figure on.
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I made my point and there the matter would have rested. But it didn’t. Quite soon after my thoughts were drastically upturned and steered in a very different direction - the urgent necessity of occupying a bed in Raigmore Hospital.
What I’d thought was a nasty dose of the flu and which I tried to just sweat out turned out to be something altogether different and a lot nastier. After a Sunday afternoon blood test at Raigmore, I received a surprise call a few hours later from the hospital to check in that night. I was there for five days, the longest I’ve been in a hospital.
And after spending time there I'm more convinced than ever that “free” healthcare is not sustainable.
Not because the system is bad. But because it's so good.
It's decades since I spent more than a single night in hospital. I remember how basic the old RNI was.
Raigmore is like a top-class hotel where you're attended to round the clock by people who not only serve and care for you but who also have the expertise and equipment to save your life.
How much would that come in at on booking.com?
Adding another £5000 or so to my NHS costs for the year for my Raigmore stay may seem like labouring the point - it's not all about money. But ultimately it is. It all has to be paid for somehow.
And for the avoidance of doubt, I'm in pretty good shape for my age. But it's a simple fact that the older you get the more things can and will go wrong.
There are extraordinary financial pressures on the NHS and a quarter of the population of the Highlands is now over the age of 65. The statistics are daunting. No wonder the future of the NHS and how soaring care costs can be paid for is at the top of the national agenda.
But there’s a more positive note to be struck. In a long newspaper career, countless letters of tribute from grateful Raigmore patients passed through my hands to go into print, all the way back to when I started in 1975. Fifty years on we have new staff at Raigmore deserving the highest praise. Maybe in some cases the young nurses who serve just now are the granddaughters of those who served back then. Nursing can run in the family.
In any case, they are superb and the tradition where stricken patients can't thank them enough continues. Young people take up the calling to serve in hospitals, as generations have done before them, and it is not "just a job". Patients will recover from their illnesses after being in Raigmore. The bad memories fade. But the gifted staff who helped them with such dedication and compassion and kindness in their hour of greatest need are surely never, ever forgotten.
