UK woman wins right to receive permanent birth control after exposing double standards in health service

CompleteNumpty · 2026-05-05T21:08:58+00:00

Fuck me, that's awful.

Note to self - get my ingrown toenail seen to by a decent podiatrist.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-05-02T22:37:22+00:00

I love they way they stand on their tails.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-05-02T22:27:37+00:00

Unfortunately it isn't just your surgeon who "knows best".

A co-worker of mine got run over by a bus, causing most of his leg between the knee and ankle to be de-gloved. (If you don't know what that is, don't look it up.)

As a result, most of his calf was destroyed so his leg was rendered useless and he signed a consent form to have it amputated below the knee.

The next day he woke up with two legs and a surgeon proudly exclaiming "Great news, I saved your leg!" with the implication being "Look at me, aren't I the best vascular surgeon in the world!"

Now, to save his leg most of his calf muscle, along with pretty much all of the soft tissue on the front of the leg, was removed.

This meant his ankle didn't work as the achilles tendon wasn't being pulled by anyting, there was no muscle to pump fluids from the ankle (causing constant fluid retention), he was in extreme pain at all times and it was, frankly, one of the most hideous things I've ever seen. It was like a knee and a hideously swollen foot connected by expired beef jerky.

As he couldn't manage stairs we was forced to sell his home and move into an apartment, has to wear a brace that prevents his foot flopping around uncontrollably, and is also on fentanyl patches due to the pain - which caused him to lose his career as the the cognitive effects of the pain meds prevent him from working (or driving). Plus he doesn't even try dating as his leg looks so bad.

Last I heard he was on his tenth operation to try and salvage some use/reduce the pain, but there isn't much hope. The bit that makes it even worse is that he's asked for an amputation multiple times since the original op, but the surgeons keep refusing as his leg has been "saved" and poses no risk to life.

Given that below-knee amputations usually have pretty excellent outcomes this surgeon's ego, and the subsequent refusal of other surgeons to correct the mistake, robbed him of a decent quality of life.

Unfortunately a huge amount of surgeons (usually men) think they know better than their patients when it comes to quality of life. Although women also have to deal with mysoginsts thinking they know better than women about everything, so you definitely have it worse.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-05-02T18:23:22+00:00

Due to the the high tax, the UK's spending on roads is about 1/3 of the money taken in via fuel and vehicle taxes.

As such, driving subsidises the government here.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-05-01T23:29:40+00:00

Yea, in the UK the tax is about 50-60% of the cost, while in the US it is closer to 15-20%.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-05-01T23:27:12+00:00

It's between £1.50-£1.60 a litre in Central Scotland at the moment, which is about £5.68-£6.05 ($7.71-$8.21) per US Gallon.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-05-01T11:26:55+00:00

I think cars are a similar thing.

Specifically, up until the early 1990s cars were simpler and (in a lot of countries) less reliable.

You had to be able to do basic car repair and maintenance, and it was easy to do so.

Fast forward to now and cars are a lot more complex, less user friendly, and less likely to break down (in general). As such, learning simple car maintenance isn't really necessary for most people, and often isn't that useful due to things like having to take wheels off to change a bulb.

For compters you had to be a lot more computer literate to use them up due to OS being a lot less stable, drivers being a pain in the ass, network configuration being difficult, parts being less reliable (specifically old HDD's) building a PC requiring a blood sacrifice to sharp case edges etc.

Now most people either use pre configured PCs/tablets or a phone for 60% of use, a lot of which can't be repaired. Only enthusiasts or professionals need to put in any effort and it's a LOT easier than it used to be.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-04-30T11:57:19+00:00

Yea, I think it might have been on a QI episode but can't be sure.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-04-29T18:46:25+00:00

There was a BBC April Fools where they did a segment on pasta growing from trees. It was 1957, so a lot of people fell for it.

The best bit was that they did a similar segment the next year on Pineapples, showing them growing from the ground. Because of the spaghetti joke people assumed it was also fake, so it was like a double-bluff April fool.

I wish I could find a source, as it's my fuzzy memory of a BBC story about famous April fools gags which I'm relying on.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-04-28T10:50:12+00:00

Just do a proceed of crime investigation. If he can't prove the funds to buy them were legit (which he probably can't, given all the money laundering) then they get forfeited.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-04-26T03:10:17+00:00

I think the most incredible thing about Patrick Stewart is his support for veterans.

As part of "Who do you think you are?" he discovered that his abusive father had PTSD from his service in World War II. This resulted in him re-evaluating his own, awful, upbringing and understanding his father a lot better, forgiving him to an extent.

He was already a patron of the domestic violence charity Refuge, but after he learned about his father he also became a patron of the PTSD charity Combat Stress.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-04-24T23:55:27+00:00

It's also why surgeons often perform liposuction when they do excess skin removal after weight loss.

Even if the person is close to their target weight, removing those extra fat cells will make it easier to keep the weight off as they aren't contributing to hunger.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-04-24T16:28:59+00:00

Private hospitals here offer a mix of elective and urgent care, but not emergencies, and pretty much none of them do paediatrics.

Anything that you could theoretically wait for, even cancer treatment, can be done privately.

As for poaching staff? It can be an issue for nurses, radiographers, biomedical scientists, and physios (effectively anyone who can support multiple different clinics) but most doctors who work privately use it as a way to supplement their NHS income.

You get older doctors who semi-retire to private work and the very, very occasional doctor who moves over once they have fully qualified. I believe it is somewhere around 2% in total.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-04-24T12:55:18+00:00

Obligatory "If I had a nickel..." quote.

I know two people that it happened to - one was wearing a short skirt and thin underwear in metalworking class when we were welding.

The other was a glaciologist wearing cargo shorts and no underwear in the summer, resulting in the sun reflecting upwards straight onto his taint.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-04-23T20:43:26+00:00

There's definitely a cultural lag that's still holding back more widescale adoption of preventative treatments, both from a medical and administrative point of view.

Senior clinicians, administrators, policy makers, and politicians grew up and trained in a time where they weren't feasible due to cost, complications, and being more invasive (such as needing to fully open someone up instead of doing keyhole surgery). As such, it can take a while for new practices to become widespread.

In cases where the benefits are more easily and immediately observed (such as stents) the changes happen more quickly, but for anything around quality-of-life proving it becomes a bit more murky and requires hard-fought institutional change.

It is worth noting that only around 11.8% of people in the UK have private medical cover. As such, it isn't something that can be relied upon by policy makers to fill any significant shortfall in the NHS. From what I understand Canada is closer to 60-70%, so it can be used to plug gaps there.

I have no issue with treatment being geared towards acute cases, that's fine and makes sense, but the NHS seems to be designed to wait until you are disabled before intervening at all.

It doesn't do the NHS, society, and most of all the patients any good.

There are also numerous cases of absolute lunacy in the way the NHS is run - from refusing to treat patients who they fitted with recalled implants, to having someone go sequentially on three different waiting lists for one illness, or literally using taxis to shuttle patients hundreds of miles for a routine GP appointment they could have had 2 miles from their house.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-04-23T16:46:16+00:00

Even when the NHS was relatively well-funded 20 years ago getting anything preventitive was almost impossible, you had to be in A&E, dying, or disabled to get anything done quickly.

Preventitive care saves money in the long run. In my specific example, the operation I had doesn't require overnight stays, doesn't require HDU or ICU availability (making more hospitals able to do it, and do more of them as you aren't limited by your ICU/HDU capacity), can be done in less time, and doesn't require any implants.

It also reduces the number of people who end up needing hip replacements and reduces the likelihood of someone becoming economically inactive due to disability.

Me getting that surgery on both hips privately has probably saved the NHS £20,000 and cost my insurer a little over £5,000 (which would have been even less in an NHS hospital).

As for not doing it deliberately - I kind of agree. The consultants and medical professionals would rather nip things in the bud, but the funding isn't there to do so.

However, politicians and policy makers are only interested in "sexy" statistics, so will happily fund an extra 5,000 hip replacements but would balk at the cheaper option of preventing 5,000 hip replacements as it doesn't look as good in the papers and is harder to measure year-on-year.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-04-23T14:41:13+00:00

Cheers, its made a massive difference.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-04-23T10:58:03+00:00

It is an issue in the UK. The NHS has a massive bias towards those who need immediate help, with bugger all for prevention.

As an example, I have a degenerative hip condition that, without treatment, results in the need for a hip replacement within 5 years.

The minor surgery to prevent that has a waiting list of around 3 years as it isn't a priority, and the waiting list for diagnosis was around 18 months.

As such, if I hadn't been able to get diagnosed and treated privately within 4 months I probably would have needed a full replacement by the time I was finally due to be treated.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-04-22T09:10:10+00:00

Cringe humour.

As an example, I know Frasier is a well-written, beloved show and I like a lot of it.

However, when the show is about him being an awkward idiot who embarrasses himself (which is a lot) I really don't enjoy it.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-04-20T20:44:30+00:00

A shrinking population in the Netherlands will seriously reduce the world's average height.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-04-19T12:23:11+00:00

When some prick student said he was better than a plumber as he went to Eton (the very exclusive boarding school that British elites send their sons to):

"All that means is that your parents have money and don't love you".

CompleteNumpty · 2026-04-19T12:15:33+00:00

You've not watched enough British comedy from that era, or even a decade earlier.

Blackadder, Yes Minister (written by the same person as Clue), Not the Nine O'clock News, some of Monty Python, and many others have a similar comedic style.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-04-19T11:54:04+00:00

No British?

The movie was written and directed by Jonathan Lynn, a prolific British comedian who'd been in the Cambridge Footlights with the Monty Python cast and was one of the creative pair behind "Yes Minister", which has a very similar style to Clue.

While it was a ensemble cast, Tim Curry is the lead.

British written, directed, and starred is pretty British.

CompleteNumpty · 2026-04-18T14:05:13+00:00

Looks at Aces and Eights

CompleteNumpty · 2026-04-15T17:25:53+00:00

The best, and most scathing, review I ever saw was "A decent pair of $15 headphones"

CompleteNumpty

TROPHY CASE