i read this too. I am somewhat surpised it was actually implemented by Calderdale Hospital rather than remaining a rather petty policy suggestion made by people depserate to justify their exorbitant public sector salaries. what really amazed me was the justification. I could understand it if it was a safety/ security issue, but admiring babies? women have been doing that for millenia, it´s perfectly natural - to suggest in some way that it demeans children or that it can be considered offensive is, frankly, ludicrous. But you can rest assured that other hositals will implement it as the NHS is a bastion of political correctness - that´ll be all those managers paid for out of the public purse that our nanny state foisted on us as part of their *commitment* to the NHS. I wonder how much this nonsense is costing to implement? and what would the people waiting months and years for operations say if they knew? And, what really ribs the salt into the wound, the Health Minister personally refuse to fund Herceptrin, a cancer drug that is in high demand by sufferers, yet there´s money available to spend on stopping people admiring babies?
Coo Off
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Bizarrely I was in a pub yesterday with some medic students and the subject turned to pharmic economics. Herceptin costs something like £10,000 per patient per year!
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Some drugs cost alot because they are difficult to make, or use expensive processes during the creation of the drug. Others have vastly inflated price tags because they can, they hold the license to produce it. The fact that they only produce a few thousand tablets that costs £2 each doesn´t stop them charging £100 each when it comes to marketing (totally made up prices, but it is effectively what happens in some areas). There was a fight in Brazil, because they couldn´t afford some AIDS treatment drugs due to the vast cost of them, however, they could illegally make them for a fraction of the price, which would enable them to treat all sufferers. I never followed it after that, but they were in court fighting over whether a drugs company can hold the license and play god with people simply for gross financial gain.
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Herceptin is charged to the NHS at high prices, but it´s much cheaper abroad. why? and it keeps people alive, so why should cost matter anyway? what´s more important, keeping people alive or stopping other people cooing at babies? well Chi.. erm Mike G is quite right, it´s a rip-off. Having worked in pharms industry for several years (albeit in the IT dept) the cost of sale to provider or end-user is invariably highly-inflated over actual manufacture and distribution cost, especially for popular drugs. for example, if you take your pet to the vets you will prob be prescribed Synulox and/or Rimadyl, common anti-biotics and anti-inflammatories. The vet will charge you anything from 5 to 15 pounds for each of these and possibly a bottle charge of about £3 too. These drugs actually cost to <i>make </i> about 5p per 100. and the bottles are provided free by the distributors. Reps from firms like Gehe, Pfizer, and Smithkline-Beecham privately tell me that things are not too different in the human health sector esp as regards the NHS being ripped off. <shakes head> it´s a strange strange world we live in. incidentally, I always stand up to let old people, ladies, disabled people and frazzled parents have my seat. but having said that, i rarely catch public transport nowadays. Edited by - Grand Mullah Tawakalna on 9/28/2005 5:47:48 AM
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It could be that there is a privacy issue.... i.e., the new mother gave birth to an unwanted baby and doesn´t want the name tag or whatever noticed because she plans to give it up for adoption ... I say COULD be not IS. Could be that at that hospital something as awkward as that happened with some unpleasant consquences. It could be that one particular newborn was rather unlovely to look at and some idiots could not help laughing and/or pointing and gawking at the baby´s and perhaps relatives´ expense. But the excuse given, hygiene, seems rather silly unless the viewing area does not physically separate the viewers from the newborns. If that´s the case, just build a glass wall to keep the germs out of the area.
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Don´t forget the costs of R&D for these drugs. That´s often the real problem for the pharmaceutical companies, it´s very expensive to develop a drug and you always run the risk that it doesn´t pass approval at the last moment. The cheap drugs abroad are from generics companies such as those in India. The patent laws are different there so their prices are based purely on production costs.
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Although licensing could cost a fortune, the R&D will be solved by the volume of sales made. If you have a $50million overhead research cost on a medicine, and a production cost of just $0.05 per tablet then its fairly simple. In the UK some drugs aren´t on offer because of the cost - they are too expensive for the NHS to afford, so they do not offer them. These include one for breast cancer, where it can really help tumours being fought off if given early enough. Due to the cost, its usually only supplied after the failure of other treatment methods - when the patients have a month of two left to live. Unsuprisingly, the company doesn´t sell many tablets to the NHS, so they are recouping their Research as fast as possible with extortionate prices. If the tablets were alot cheaper, they may not make as much pure profit per tablet - but due to the sheer volumes of the drug that could be used - they would pay off at the same rate (or better due to it not benefiting only a few - but the masses, hence worth the extra cost). I am sure they will market drugs to make 100% money back within 12-18 months. After that, they make profit. Edited by - Mike G on 9/28/2005 8:46:14 AM
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at the risk of sounding paranoid, one might be mistaken for thinking there was a class/income agenda at work here. the drugs and treatments that the NHs says are prohobitively expensive are all available privately - ergo, if you´ve got the money, you can be treated and have a higher chance of recovery. I know of several cancer treatments that have 65% or higher success rates, but aren´t offered by the NHS on the grounds of cost. NHS cancer treatments operate on a much lower success rate and are usually much rougher.
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<font size=1 face="trebuchet ms"><BLOCKQUOTE><hr size=1 noshade> the risk of sounding paranoid, one might be mistaken for thinking there was a class/income agenda at work here <hr size=1 noshade></BLOCKQUOTE></font><font face=´trebuchet ms, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica´ size=2> I thought that was supposed to be tory policy? Needless to say, if they could stop wasting so much damned money on other areas then it would help. £6Billion database rises to £30+ billion, and no-one seems to care? Worst thing is that its no-where near a one off either, there are plenty of other examples...
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Passport Agency IT system - overbudget disaster Criminal Records Office - overbudget disaster and still not in place NHS National Medical Records Database - overbudget disaster MoD Pay & Pensions Computer - overbudget disaster Eurofighter GEC/MarconiMoD radar and navigation software - overbudget disaster GCHQ computer system upgrade - overbudget disaster and since scrapped Atomic Weapons Research Estabilshment IT security system - overbudget and failed even the most basic security measures, since corrected at inflated cost after an employee walked out with warhead plans on his iPod <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Child Support Agency computer system - well, it´s as much of a failure as the CSA itself. and quite hilariously Intelligence Services computer suite at new headquarters - overbudget disaster and prob´ly going to be scrapped. Successive British Govts have a long and sorry history of failing at major IT projects, which always end up with money being thrown at them to get *something* even if it´s a right clunker. billions wasted every year. Labour are particularly bad, but to be fair they inherited a lot of failing ongoing projects from the last Conservative Govt, and once major capital expenditure has been committed its politically disastrous to cancel them - jobs, technology, esteem - all that sort of stuff.