Professional Theft – PIP Breast Implants
It has been reported that Prof Sir Bruce Keogh, the NHS medical director has looked in to the sub-standard breast implants supplied by French company PIP and has said that despite their double-than-normal failure rate, they did not appear to be linked with increased levels of cancer.
It would appear that where the NHS is concerned, the organisation has offered to remove any implants it made, but the problem in England lies with the 95 % of women, who had the operation done privately.
I’ll give an example here. Suppose I had taken my Jaguar to an approved dealer after the air-conditioning pump had failed and it had been replaced by a sub-standard import, non-approved part. If I’d have noticed this, I’d have asked the dealer to replace it with the approved part at no charge and I suspect that Jaguar would have backed up my demand.
The NHS seems to be fulfilling its similar obligations, but many private clinics seem to be washing their hands of the whole thing. Surely, to use a sub-standard part and probably charge for the kosher one is theft. I call this professional theft, where the customer is milked by a professional, who should know better.
And when the report from Professor Keogh doesn’t take a robust attitude to those of his profession, who didn’t put the best interest of the patients first and insist they replace the offending implants, some might think he is putting the doctors before the patients.
In my view these women should have their implants removed and replaced and those done outside the NHS, should be paid for by the skimping clinics and doctors involved.
The Anonymous Widower 
I agree. I suspect that the clinics used these implants because they were cheaper, and the clinics may well have offered a better deal to women, some of whom may not have had the surgery had it been more expensive.
Comment by liz | June 18, 2012 |
I doubt it would have made much difference to the price, as surely theatre time is very expensive. It would be interesting to know what the price difference between the PIPO and kosher implants was.
As an aside, I had an MRi scan on Saturday at lunchtime. The hospital was built privately and it shows. But they spent so much money it went bust and was snapped up by the local NHS Trust from the Receivers.
Comment by AnonW | June 18, 2012 |
Doesnt surprise me about hospital. You OK? Hope scan was nothing serious
Comment by liz | June 18, 2012 |
I’ll post in a minute!
Comment by AnonW | June 18, 2012 |