War Hero - Can't have jabs until half blind
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War Hero - Can't have jabs until half blind
Don't think this has been posted before - apols if it has
Mail on Sunday article
Speechless here - well not really but.... 
Mail on Sunday article
War hero told: You can't have jabs to save sight until you are blind in one eye
Doctors have launched an internet campaign to shame Gordon Brown over a war hero who has been told he will have to go blind in one eye before he will get NHS treatment.
More than 100 GPs have sent £5 cheques to Downing Street, made out to the Prime Minister, which they want to be put towards the cost of a cure for Second World War pilot Jack Tagg.
Mr Tagg, 88, suffers from "wet" macular degeneration, the main cause of sight loss in Britain, affecting a quarter of a million people. It can lead to blindness in as little as three months - but with prompt treatment it can be reversed.
Now he and his wife Gabrielle, 77, are selling their house to pay for an £11,000 course of injections.
Last week, Mr Tagg was told by a consultant at Torbay District General Hospital in Torquay that a course of injections of the Lucentis drug could save his sight.
But at £760 a shot, for a course of between three and 14 injections, he was told that under Government guidelines it was regarded as "too expensive" unless he was already blind in one eye.
Mr Tagg, who was a member of the RAF Balloon Command during the war and flew Wellington bombers, went for his first privately-funded injections on Friday.
He said: "I am selling up under protest. If I have to go for the full treatment it will end up costing me about &£11,000."
Martin Wrankin, a friend and GP, placed an open letter to the Prime Minister on a doctors-only internet site, saying the case typified "the incompetence of your Labour Government in managing the NHS".
The letter continued: "Jack is not a wealthy man but his wife has decided that they must sell their house to pay for the treatment. He risked his life for us ...we believe that our patients would prefer you to spend a few thousand pounds on Jack in his hour of need.
"The doctors who have added their names to this list will all post on a cheque for £5 payable to Mr Gordon Brown. We don't expect you to get Jack his treatment on the NHS. We would simply ask you to cash our cheques and forward the lump sum to Mr Tagg."
More than 120 doctors have signed up to his campaign so far. Many have also posted messages of support, including one who wrote that "it has got to be worth a fiver to kick Gordon's gluteal muscles".
The row will be embarrassing for Mr Brown, who suffered from eye damage when he was a 17-year-old student at Edinburgh University.
Despite three operations to repair detached retinas, aggravated by a rugby injury, he was left blind in his left eye, although a fourth procedure successfully saved the sight in his right eye.
The cost today to the taxpayer of his four NHS operations would be £5,588.
Mr Tagg added: "When I went for my treatment, there was a lady of 60 with the same condition who had been forced to wait until one eye went. They referred to her injections as 'treating the last eye'."
Mr Tagg said he blamed the Government for his predicament --not the hospital staff.
"The frontline staff are amazingly good. It's the system which is at fault.
"I was told that you can't put two pints into a pint pot, meaning there was not enough money to pay for everything."
But Dr Wrankin said that Mr Tagg's sight could be restored by the NHS for substantially less than the projected amount.
He said: "There is a treatment for bowel cancer which is also effective for macular degeneration and could be delivered for a fraction of the cost, but the organisation of the Health Service is too poor to achieve it."
Last night, a spokesman for the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence said: "Until we issue our guidelines on the drug treatment of wet macular degeneration in six weeks' time, hospital trusts should make their own treatment decisions."
A spokesman for the Royal National Institute of Blind People said: "People are having to face a stark choice - either pay for private treatment, or risk going blind. How can we be allowing this to happen in Britain in 2008?"
Doctors have launched an internet campaign to shame Gordon Brown over a war hero who has been told he will have to go blind in one eye before he will get NHS treatment.
More than 100 GPs have sent £5 cheques to Downing Street, made out to the Prime Minister, which they want to be put towards the cost of a cure for Second World War pilot Jack Tagg.
Mr Tagg, 88, suffers from "wet" macular degeneration, the main cause of sight loss in Britain, affecting a quarter of a million people. It can lead to blindness in as little as three months - but with prompt treatment it can be reversed.
Now he and his wife Gabrielle, 77, are selling their house to pay for an £11,000 course of injections.
Last week, Mr Tagg was told by a consultant at Torbay District General Hospital in Torquay that a course of injections of the Lucentis drug could save his sight.
But at £760 a shot, for a course of between three and 14 injections, he was told that under Government guidelines it was regarded as "too expensive" unless he was already blind in one eye.
Mr Tagg, who was a member of the RAF Balloon Command during the war and flew Wellington bombers, went for his first privately-funded injections on Friday.
He said: "I am selling up under protest. If I have to go for the full treatment it will end up costing me about &£11,000."
Martin Wrankin, a friend and GP, placed an open letter to the Prime Minister on a doctors-only internet site, saying the case typified "the incompetence of your Labour Government in managing the NHS".
The letter continued: "Jack is not a wealthy man but his wife has decided that they must sell their house to pay for the treatment. He risked his life for us ...we believe that our patients would prefer you to spend a few thousand pounds on Jack in his hour of need.
"The doctors who have added their names to this list will all post on a cheque for £5 payable to Mr Gordon Brown. We don't expect you to get Jack his treatment on the NHS. We would simply ask you to cash our cheques and forward the lump sum to Mr Tagg."
More than 120 doctors have signed up to his campaign so far. Many have also posted messages of support, including one who wrote that "it has got to be worth a fiver to kick Gordon's gluteal muscles".
The row will be embarrassing for Mr Brown, who suffered from eye damage when he was a 17-year-old student at Edinburgh University.
Despite three operations to repair detached retinas, aggravated by a rugby injury, he was left blind in his left eye, although a fourth procedure successfully saved the sight in his right eye.
The cost today to the taxpayer of his four NHS operations would be £5,588.
Mr Tagg added: "When I went for my treatment, there was a lady of 60 with the same condition who had been forced to wait until one eye went. They referred to her injections as 'treating the last eye'."
Mr Tagg said he blamed the Government for his predicament --not the hospital staff.
"The frontline staff are amazingly good. It's the system which is at fault.
"I was told that you can't put two pints into a pint pot, meaning there was not enough money to pay for everything."
But Dr Wrankin said that Mr Tagg's sight could be restored by the NHS for substantially less than the projected amount.
He said: "There is a treatment for bowel cancer which is also effective for macular degeneration and could be delivered for a fraction of the cost, but the organisation of the Health Service is too poor to achieve it."
Last night, a spokesman for the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence said: "Until we issue our guidelines on the drug treatment of wet macular degeneration in six weeks' time, hospital trusts should make their own treatment decisions."
A spokesman for the Royal National Institute of Blind People said: "People are having to face a stark choice - either pay for private treatment, or risk going blind. How can we be allowing this to happen in Britain in 2008?"
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If you read some of the readers views, a couple of them know relatives that have had this procedure done on the NHS....the infamous post code lottery strikes again!!
Strikes me as very unfair
Strikes me as very unfair
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I heard on the radio news this morning that GPs around the country are sending £5 notes to No 10, principally to pay for the jabs but also to shame this wretched Govt into doing something about it. Bloody abysmal.
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How many people could get life saving or life improving treatments, for which they have already paid over the years, for the money that has been squandered on Domes, Olympics and Northern Banks? Truly a 3rd world country with a 3rd world, self-serving bunch of wasters and incompetents at the top!
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I think I'm going to write a letter to my M.P. refusing to pay my National Insurance, what's the point if they aren't there when you need them? I'm sure Mr Tagg has paid into the pot for most of his life, only to be refused treatment when he needs it. It infuriates me that the government can find 25bn to bale out a certain bank, and throw £750m (IIRC) at that god awful dome, (which credit where it is due, O2 seem to have turned around into a profitable venue) and yet a war hero can't get his eyes fixed on the NHS.
Every time I read a story like this about the government failing those who deserve better, I get just a little bit more tempted to emmigrate. I know there are people in the world far worse off, that require aid in many ways, but my god I wish we would look after our own house first.
Find an address or set up a paypal fund or something, I'd gladly send £5.
Every time I read a story like this about the government failing those who deserve better, I get just a little bit more tempted to emmigrate. I know there are people in the world far worse off, that require aid in many ways, but my god I wish we would look after our own house first.
Find an address or set up a paypal fund or something, I'd gladly send £5.
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I'm still trying to work out just how much **** the Brits are willing to swallow. I honestly don't get why this should be going on in the fourth/fifth/sixth biggest economy in the world : what kind of kicking has to be doled out to the truly deserving before enough people realise how fg pathetic this is ?
Rather than the usual GBP hand-in-pocket reaction, how about a flood of e-mails to the MPs, informing them of the case, suggesting either immediate intervention through parliamentary channels or direct contribution from their own tidy incomes, and perhaps a gentle reminder that standing up for men who've risked all is a) the right thing to do and b) in their own self-interest.
Failing that, if there's a fund set up slap the details up here.
g pathetic this is ?Rather than the usual GBP hand-in-pocket reaction, how about a flood of e-mails to the MPs, informing them of the case, suggesting either immediate intervention through parliamentary channels or direct contribution from their own tidy incomes, and perhaps a gentle reminder that standing up for men who've risked all is a) the right thing to do and b) in their own self-interest.
Failing that, if there's a fund set up slap the details up here.
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I read the article as well. Good luck Mr Tagg, I'm sure that the money will be found. How the hell have we allowed this country of ours end up in such a state. My daughter's 12 and my son is 10 and they're asking me why does this sort of thing happen. How can I stay calm when I tell them that the people in charge of us at this time are simply not capable of running the country and have the morals of sharks. The daughter already thinks that life in Australia/New Zealand is ten times better than here because her friend used to live there and is moving back with her family. I'm so bloody disillusioned with it all.
Good luck again to him and may the fools that "lead" us finally see the light.
Good luck again to him and may the fools that "lead" us finally see the light.
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Obviously Swiss Gordons eye operations were to no avail as he still seems to be blind as to what he is doing to Britain. Oops no, sorry, just England, everywhere else is doing very well at the English taxpayers expense.
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Mr Tagg should go back to his doctor and just say "Sorry, I can't see a thing in this eye. Can't tell the wood from the trees".
Just like this terrible, morally corrupt government.
Just like this terrible, morally corrupt government.
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Outraged with this story, I wrote to my MP a couple of days ago, and a reply from him dropped onto my doormat this morning. I have cut the text from it.
It's the first time I've used www.theyworkforyou.co.uk and I'm impressed by the speedy response. I'm also glad that i've put it on his radar so to speak. I'm about to go on a desert exercise for a few weeks, but I shall dig up this thread and post any further communication I recieve here.
be
It's the first time I've used www.theyworkforyou.co.uk and I'm impressed by the speedy response. I'm also glad that i've put it on his radar so to speak. I'm about to go on a desert exercise for a few weeks, but I shall dig up this thread and post any further communication I recieve here.
be
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Patrick Moore has joined the fray on this one.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...on/7257146.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...on/7257146.stm
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Good luck. His crime?
Living in the wrong area and spending a lifetime making National Insurance contributions. He should have been an unmarried pregnant illegal immigrant. Lots of NHS care there to be had.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/7259246.stm
Living in the wrong area and spending a lifetime making National Insurance contributions. He should have been an unmarried pregnant illegal immigrant. Lots of NHS care there to be had.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/7259246.stm
