THE POTENTIAL birth of octuplets to Mandy Allwood (combined, it is fair to admit. with the media hype arising from her commercial deal with the News of the World) has given every two-bit moraliser the opportunity to cast aspersions on ner tiness as a parent.
But the case is also handy as a peg on which another brand of ideologist can hang a different line of argument: as health authorities and Trusts battle over who should pick up the estimated £500,000 bill for her care up to and after the birth(s), her situation is being exploited by advocates of rationing care on the NHS.
In practice, while there have been occasional rumblings or reactionary discontent about the NHS paying for cosmetic' operations such as varicose veins or tattoo removal. most arguments for the rationing of health care revolve around the fight to deny certain people with excennona cano poena. exensive) health problems the treatment they need.
This hit the headlines last year when Cambridge & Huntingdon Health Authority debated a whole hour and half before voting that 'Child B' (Jaymee Bowen) should be allowed to die, because the cost of the treatment to keep her alive would obstruct the treatment of more 'ordinary' patients.
as Merton, Sutton Wandsworth Health Authority (MSW) contemplate the costs of caring for Mandy Allwood, lournalists are being told that this might mean cuts in services for local people.
In fact, MSW were planning drastic cuts before anyone even heard of Mandy Allwood. Like manv other health are being starved of authorities, they cash under the Tory funding formula, while demand for treatment continues to Increase But even if this were not the case, Mandy Allwood should be given all the treatment she needs on the NHS. Half a million pounds may seem a heavy bill, but local health authorities quite frequently have to pay upwards of £100,000 or more at a time for intensive care treatment of new-horn babies. For a woman caught in this unique situation, with up to eight more lives at stake, the money involved is not so big.
The National Health Service was established precisely to guarantee treatment to all, regardless of ability to pay, and funded collectively through taxation.
It is the special talent of the Tories to have devised a market system which now means that a single problem like this can potentially disrupt the finances of a health authority: the answer is not to exclude such 'special cases' from treatment, but to scrap the market system and establish a national-level contingency reserve to ensure that money (and treatment) is available when and where it is needed Any concession on this issue leads down a slippery slope. Once the principle of excluding individuals from NHS care is accepted, the concept of collective provision tails down, and the way is opened to privatisation and insurance schemes