Pensioner is refused sight drugs – until he goes blind

Socialist "compassion" at work. Elderly people can go blind for all they care

A RETIRED policeman is going blind – because a Yorkshire health trust will not pay for treatment that could save his sight. Leslie Howard, also an ex-Royal Military policeman and former prison officer, suffers from a degenerative eye condition. The drugs needed to save his sight are available on the NHS in other parts of the country. But Mr Howard, 76, has been told by health chiefs not to expect a penny of NHS treatment until he goes blind in one eye and starts losing sight in the other. He fears that after a lifetime of public service the decision by North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust could plunge him into total blindness and leave him and his invalid wife Mary Ann, 70, housebound.

As his case led to a new row over NHS "health rationing", Mr Howard, of Acomb, York, said: "The problem is we have lived too long and are just pieces of meat now – a nuisance. "I was advised to go private but was quoted 1,000 pounds an injection for who knows how many injections. I can't afford that kind of money. I've paid tens of thousands of pounds in taxes and to know that I will now lose my sight because I can't afford private treatment is diabolical."

Mr Howard was diagnosed with wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in his right eye in November. It can cause sight loss in three months. He says he was advised by the North Yorkshire and York PCT that it would only consider funding once he had gone blind in one eye and developed a similar condition in his second eye. He added: "It is more than three months since I was diagnosed and it is getting worse by the day. Has the Government lost all sense of compassion as well as economics?"

The head of campaigns at the Royal National Institute of the Blind, Steve Winyard, said: "This is a desperate situation for Mr Howard. His care trust is leaving him to go blind in one eye even though sight-saving treatments are available on the NHS. "We hear of more and more patients being forced to use retirement funds or life-savings to pay for sight-saving treatments that should be available readily on the NHS. "In cases like Mr Howard's, where people can't afford private treatment, patients face the prospect of going blind unnecessarily."

The chief executive of the Macular Disease Society, Tom Bremridge, added: "The so-called 'second-eye' policy is wholly unacceptable on ethical and practical grounds." Losing sight in one eye could affect a person's co-ordination and increase the risk of falls, while not treating the condition meant patients had a high risk of developing the problem in the second eye. Unsuccessful treatment in the second eye could then mean total blindness, Mr Bremridge said. He added: "It also makes no economic sense to deny treatment. The cost of supporting people with sight loss far outweighs the cost of treatment."

AMD sufferer and former Halifax Labour MP Alice Mahon, who took legal action against her PCT and forced a U-turn over its refusal to provide similar injections on the NHS, said: "It is an obscene policy. It's outrageous. "The whole fault is handing over all this funding to the PCTs, so it's a postcode lottery and not a national health service. I am particularly concerned there seems to be discrimination against older people who have paid into the NHS all their lives."

The North Yorkshire and York PCT said yesterday Department of Health guidelines were that, until the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NIHCE) published final guidance on new treatments, NHS bodies should continue local arrangements to manage their introduction.

There was no NIHCE guidance yet for the drugs Mr Howard wanted. So in agreement with other PCTs in the region, the trust was funding such treatments only in cases where there was evidence they would work. If any patient felt they should be considered for treatment the PCT would examine their circumstances, a spokesman added.

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And he's not alone:

A WIDOWED grandmother who devoted 30 years of her life to the NHS and twice fought off cancer has become the latest patient in Yorkshire to be warned she faces being denied vital treatment for a condition which causes blindness. Retired midwife Doreen Kenworthy was last week given the devastating diagnosis that she was suffering from the eye condition age-related macular degeneration.

But her shock was compounded when doctors told her the NHS would not pay for treatment until she lost the sight in her affected eye and began to lose it in the other – although further loss of sight could be prevented if she paid out thousands of pounds for private care. Her plight is similar to that of York pensioner Leslie Howard who was refused immediate NHS treatment, although a private hospital group has now stepped in to give him the care he needs. Dr Kenworthy, 56, of Stanley, Wakefield, has vowed to fight to get sight-saving treatment.

"I am not prepared to die of cancer, neither am I prepared to go blind whilst fighting it," she said. "I have never been a supporter of the private sector in my professional life. I believe in Aneurin Bevan's philosophy of free healthcare access for all at all levels. "I understand there are cutbacks, although I don't agree with the way the Labour Government has handled the NHS, but to be told 'Sorry you have to go almost blind before you get help' is dreadful."

Dr Kenworthy, who worked as a midwife and later trained midwives before retiring last year from Bradford University, said she was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago, undergoing a year of treatment before the condition recurred in January. The eye complaint was unrelated but she had already lost some central vision in her right eye which began deteriorating a month ago. She was urgently called for tests at St James's Hospital in Leeds where specialists told her she had the eye complaint and further deterioration could be prevented only by drug injections.

She was told these were only provided by the NHS after she lost her sight in one eye and began to lose it in the other – although they were available privately at a cost of up to 1,000 each over 12-24 months. "I did not expect to be told that I couldn't be treated on the NHS but if I went into the private sector I could be treated tomorrow," she said.

Dr Kenworthy, who has twins aged 31 and four grandchildren, said the only option she had to fund the treatment was by remortgaging her home. "To have to tell your children twice you've got cancer, then to say by the way you're going blind in your right eye and can't have any treatment until it affects your other eye is very hard," she said. "It's been devastating to have cancer twice in two years, to fight it, to retire after 30 years in the NHS and then get this on top."

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation. Both Australia and Sweden have large private sector health systems with government reimbursement for privately-provided services so can a purely private system with some level of government reimbursement or insurance for the poor be so hard to do?

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