Christine Asher
I recently contacted our GP to get a repeat prescription for my son’s eczema cream but was told this is no longer available on prescription, free for children. We will need to buy it over the counter.
My son has chronic eczema, triggered by several environmental allergens which, if not managed, can result in stubborn patches of damaged skin, vulnerable to infection. We will now need to pick up the cost of his treatment, even though we have been seen by a specialist paediatrician who advised we should apply emollient several times a day to prevent flare-ups.
The effect of the extra cost on our finances will be significant, but what option do we have except to pick up the bill? I asked if any help with costs was available and was told we could ask to be referred to a specialist dermatologist to prescribe the creams.
The NHS was founded on the principle that all medical care would be free at the point of use, for everyone, including for all prescriptions plus dental and eye care. It meant an end to working-class families having to chose between medical care or a roof over their heads. With the NHS in the state it is, increasingly people are being faced with those types of impossible decisions.
Too expensive
How many people skip dental and eye check-ups because of the cost? One NHS survey found 372,000 people haven’t had a dentist appointment in the last two years because it is too expensive.
We know there is a funding crisis in the NHS. The NHS bosses’ solution is making more people pay for services and cutting the numbers of treatments and medicines available. But it’s a false economy.
An appointment we don’t need with a specialist dermatologist is surely a waste of resources. So is cutting preventative treatments. Not long ago, our son was hospitalised for an unknown infection which could well have been related to his skin. Hospital admission can cost anywhere between £345 and £2,349 a day!
Pharmaceutical companies are known to inflate prices when selling to the NHS, which means sometimes treatments are more expensive to the NHS than if bought over the counter. The solution is nationalising these big pharmaceutical companies, bringing them into the NHS, so they don’t rip off the health service anymore – not passing the costs on to already struggling families.
