The "Better" Treatment
In response to Steve, who wants to know what the "better" treatment is that I qualify for...
Well, all I know is that this treatment has a better chance of success, but I don't know why. Hepatitis C treatment is constantly being improved, and they're coming up with better and better treatments all the time. And I suppose this must be the latest one.
The newer, better treatments cost more than the older ones. Here in NZ, the public health system supplies Hep C sufferers with the old treatment free of charge (well, it comes out of our taxes). The new treatment isn't available to people in the public system. You can get it privately, if you pay for it yourself. The cost is around $NZ15,000.
So most Hep C sufferers in NZ get the old treatment. Only the people who are in a really bad way (and I'm not sure where the mark is) qualify to get the new treatment.
The thing I find a bit disturbing about the public health system in NZ is that you're not given a lot of information. For example, I only found out by chance that there was a new treatment available. Heck, I'd have been prepared to pay the fifteen Grand myself to get the good treatment if I knew it existed.
In a way, it's cool that there's a system that takes care of the people. But I think taking informed choices away from the people is going a bit far. There's a danger of breeding a nation of people who don't take responsibility for their own lives.
Well, all I know is that this treatment has a better chance of success, but I don't know why. Hepatitis C treatment is constantly being improved, and they're coming up with better and better treatments all the time. And I suppose this must be the latest one.
The newer, better treatments cost more than the older ones. Here in NZ, the public health system supplies Hep C sufferers with the old treatment free of charge (well, it comes out of our taxes). The new treatment isn't available to people in the public system. You can get it privately, if you pay for it yourself. The cost is around $NZ15,000.
So most Hep C sufferers in NZ get the old treatment. Only the people who are in a really bad way (and I'm not sure where the mark is) qualify to get the new treatment.
The thing I find a bit disturbing about the public health system in NZ is that you're not given a lot of information. For example, I only found out by chance that there was a new treatment available. Heck, I'd have been prepared to pay the fifteen Grand myself to get the good treatment if I knew it existed.
In a way, it's cool that there's a system that takes care of the people. But I think taking informed choices away from the people is going a bit far. There's a danger of breeding a nation of people who don't take responsibility for their own lives.
posted by Filosofette at 10:08 am
1 Comments:
Hi Filosofette, your public health system sounds like our national health service, why should we have to pay the latest treatment! they should give us all the best treatment available, it would save them money in the long run.
Thank you for answering my question
all the best
Steve
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