It was revealed by the BBC in April that because of the government's waiting list targets, men with low risk prostate cancer where not receiving the right treatment. Instead of receiving radiotherapy they were given hormone therapy instead.
Oncologist Chris Hamilton described the system as "crazy" where cancer specialists move prostate cancer sufferers down the waiting list by giving them hormone treatment to make way for others with urgent need for radiotherapy. He believes that this affects around 8% of prostate patients, some 2,500 men a year.
Links to this story are found in these places and if you scroll to the bottom of the first link (The Prostate Cancer Charity) you can here the BBC coverage (Link - The Prostate Cancer Charity),(Link- BBC), (Link- Daily Mail) (Link - Daily Mail).
This issue compounds the continuing scandal on the battle that men face to get proper treatment for prostate cancer, despite, all those years of paying taxes. For example, 11 of 25 NHS Cancer Network Directors do not have specialist prostate cancer nurses (link).
The cancer kills 10,000 men per year, receives ten times less funding per year than breast cancer. and patients report a poorer experience of their care than other cancer patients according to the National Audit Office (link)
The UK's Orwellian health care system is getting worse and on this cancer issue, it is clear that men, as ever, are seen as a low priority by the bureaucrats, officials and politicians. The fact their arbitrary waiting times are forcing doctors to give treatment which is not appropriate shows how the NHS no longer works and is actually harming people rather than curing them.
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