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This cant be right
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
GPs 'cutting patient lists to make room for asylum seekers'
Doctors are being forced to strike hundreds of patients off their lists to make way for asylum seekers.
Thousands of refugees are being assigned to GPs by health authorities each month, giving them little option but to remove long-standing patients from their registers.
Officials are blaming the Government for a shortage of fully qualified doctors to cope with the influx of people into the country.
The problems emerged after an 88-year-old widow was turned away from a surgery she had attended all her life because a GP had been ordered to take residents of a nearby refugee centre.
Lydia Perry, of Stoke-on-Trent, was told by her GP, Dr Uday Pathak, that he no longer had a place for her at his practice.
Dr Paul Golik, secretary of the North Staffordshire local medical committee says it was a problem facing many doctors in the area.
He says GPs in the area were being forced to accommodate up to 200 asylum seekers each month in an area which already has a major shortage of doctors.
As health officials placed more and more people on their lists they often had no option but to get rid of existing patients.
Dr Golik says asylum seekers cause an extra workload for GPs because they often came from quite traumatic backgrounds and the language barrier make consultations more difficult.
"They are very time consuming in terms of the problems they have got and in terms of dealing with them."
Story filed: 12:40 Sunday 19th January 2003
Now what do you make of this? An 88 year old widow could not see her own doctor at a surgery which she had attended all her life?
This is the problem why so many people are against refugees coming to this country. Why should this lady be turned away and refugees be accepted? so her health is not important anymore?
This cant be right...........can it
Edited to add I still have not learned how to post the link I read this information:)
Doctors are being forced to strike hundreds of patients off their lists to make way for asylum seekers.
Thousands of refugees are being assigned to GPs by health authorities each month, giving them little option but to remove long-standing patients from their registers.
Officials are blaming the Government for a shortage of fully qualified doctors to cope with the influx of people into the country.
The problems emerged after an 88-year-old widow was turned away from a surgery she had attended all her life because a GP had been ordered to take residents of a nearby refugee centre.
Lydia Perry, of Stoke-on-Trent, was told by her GP, Dr Uday Pathak, that he no longer had a place for her at his practice.
Dr Paul Golik, secretary of the North Staffordshire local medical committee says it was a problem facing many doctors in the area.
He says GPs in the area were being forced to accommodate up to 200 asylum seekers each month in an area which already has a major shortage of doctors.
As health officials placed more and more people on their lists they often had no option but to get rid of existing patients.
Dr Golik says asylum seekers cause an extra workload for GPs because they often came from quite traumatic backgrounds and the language barrier make consultations more difficult.
"They are very time consuming in terms of the problems they have got and in terms of dealing with them."
Story filed: 12:40 Sunday 19th January 2003
Now what do you make of this? An 88 year old widow could not see her own doctor at a surgery which she had attended all her life?
This is the problem why so many people are against refugees coming to this country. Why should this lady be turned away and refugees be accepted? so her health is not important anymore?
This cant be right...........can it
Edited to add I still have not learned how to post the link I read this information:)
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Comments
I would also be interested to know what the particulars of the situation is. For example, in an emergency waiting room, they try to respond to patients in order of urgency, not in the order they come in. I wonder how much of that kind of factor applies here? If you're talking about a mass number of refugees, chances are they are dealing with various forms of trauma. Plus, a lot of these refugees are dealing with a life time of neglected health care, which can take an ugly toll on a body. Now don't get me wrong, I don't like the idea of a poor senior citizen getting left out in the cold, but if she's just going in for a sniffle and a check up, I'd rather the doctor look at the little girl from Bosnia dying of malnutrition first. Plus, I imagine the older lady would have a better chance at finding another doctor in her community than the refugee would, considering that popular opinion tends to look on the foreigner with suspicion and disdain.
I dunno. Maybe I'm just reacting to the fact that I'm not a fan of anecdotal evidence to colour an entire arguement. I need to know about more than just the one 88 year old lady before I can buy that the locals are getting a raw deal.
Lets take this 88 yr old woman, she has had that practice all her life. She has got used to the routine of going to that practice, she will be very aware of how things work within that practice. She will know which way her doctors room is, she will probably know some of the staff there. It did state that in that area alone they had to accomodate 200 refugees thats fine long as our own residents are NOT getting kicked out.
Elderly people DO NOT like change, I have worked with them so I know that the majority like everything to be done a certain way. Now what gives them the right to tell her that although shes been in that surgery all her life because of refugees she will no longer be seen.
This woman has probably worked hard all her adult life, she will probably have paid taxes, her husband (if she was married) will have paid his taxes. So why then should people from another country get treatment and her be refused? This is just not on !!
That is the problem with this government. Its a case of "oh lets help them who need it, long as they arent a British Citizen. Let the other countries see how nice we are to refugees we look after the refugees but stuff our own " to me its time to step back and look after our own.