I have, down the years, been asked by various patients about non-cancer-related breast surgery. Generally, the requests for breast reduction surgery outnumber the requests for enhancement. Each case needs to be assessed on individual merit (physical and psychological effects are considered), and this is where the GP Gatekeeper role is evident.
I am one of the minders of the public purse, and will take a view on whether a case has medical merit or not, especially as decisions on referral involve the spending of taxpayers' money: in today's consumer-orientated society, this approach seems rather paternalistic, but as the ramifications of the new health bill roll out, you will find that even that element of individual decision-making disappears. No breast enhancement surgery will be available from the public purse.
On an individual level, I can understand the misery that this will cause to some patients: on a corporate level, my hands are tied.
The only patients in my experience who have had breast enlargement surgery have done them privately. Even then, I have a role to advise people who I think would be best to do this. I have a list of around 6 surgeons in my region that I give to patients. These are people who have demonstrated the highest levels of ability, and the outcomes are known to me. I don't know anyone who has had one of these inferior PIP-silicone implants that have been made on the cheap by a private firm.
If any of my patients has had an implant inserted on the NHS, then I feel I can justify them being referred back for removal/replacement on the NHS. If it was done privately, then it should be removed privately.
Market forces do not always benefit people's health decisions.
8 comments:
It's a funny one this. I am one of the rare ones who had it done on the NHS (for more than simple cosmetic reasons).
I suspect many, like myself, have absoultely no idea what brand is nestling in their chests. Its not as if they come with a designer label!
I will probabaly make enquiries to my colleagues in plastics, but I suspect the poor secretaries are also being inundated with calls at the moment so will give it a week or 2 for the bruhaha to settle.
7% rupture rate? so 93% are OK. I prefer those odds to more surgery!
Is it not usual practice to give any patients who has had any sort of prosthetic a card with the full details of such prosthetic?
'...the outcomes are known to me'
Does this mean that you have access to their independently audited results and can advise patients accordingly?
Or is it yet again cause for warning that the plural of anecdote is not data?
No, Matt. Surprisingly that is not usual practice.
FWIW I phone NHS PlasticsHospital today ans before I asked the question was told "NHS PlaticsHospital does not use nor has it ever used PIP implants". Result.
The issue on implant ruptures and mass removal has spread worldwide and caused a widespread fear of having tumor. I suggest the affected patients consult their doctors first for screening and approval for possible surgeries.
I sympathize to those who wish to take breast implant. They are not satisfied. This is not tolerating them but giving them the chance.
breast reduction surgery
Please give me a some advice to using this.
Grobust
It has been treated in a wrong that people think that it causes more for cancer than other diseases but i feel that its all about of misleading from the physicians when patients dont know the whole story and circumstances in which it should treated.
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