By Tsvetelina Stancheva and Bianca Jashnani
The NHS backlog has been an ongoing problem in the UK since before Covid-19 reared its ugly head, but the demands of delivering care during a pandemic has caused serious backlogs and longer waits for patients.
Due to the pandemic there are around “5.61 million people – equivalent to almost one in every 10 people in England – who are waiting for treatments such as knee and hip replacements, cataract surgery and other common procedures”, the Guardian said.
Long waiting list
According to the British Medicine Association, before the pandemic there were 4.43 million people on a waiting list for care. “The latest figures for November 2021 show a record of almost 6 million people waiting for treatment.”
There are more than 2 million people who have been waiting for over 18 weeks to be treated and over 300,000 who have been waiting more than a year to be treated by the NHS.
Tarek Mohammed, 64, retired engineer, said that he has been waiting for a hip replacement surgery since December 2019 but has had to wait longer due to the pandemic.
“I cannot believe that people who need urgent treatments or even worse are made to wait for so long, risking their lives.”
Mohammed is still waiting for confirmation to finalise his surgery date. He considers himself as one of the “lucky ones” who will receive treatment from the NHS during these uncertain times. But millions are still waiting not knowing if they might actually get the treatment they desperately need.
Expensive instead of free treatment
“Waiting times have got so bad that you’ve got people taking out payday loans, sometimes even remortgaging their homes, because they cannot bear the pain, or the disruption to their lives, or fear they will lose their lives. That is eroding the fundamental universal system that we created,” Jonathan Ashworth, Shadow Health Secretary, told the Guardian.
“My friend got mugged near Finsbury Park in November 2020,” said Arya Pimripkar, 22, health psychology student at UCL.
“He got so scared after the incident that he would rarely leave his house. We tried getting him an appointment to see a counsellor at the NHS, but the nearest appointment was three months from when we saw in the beginning of December.
“At that stage, my friend’s PTSD worsened so he decided it was best to go home to Portugal and get the treatment there. Since the restrictions were strict and the trip was planned at the last minute, it cost him a fortune instead of getting a free treatment. ”
Delayed plan to overcome the NHS backlog
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised to take action to tackle the NHS backlog. The plans were due to be released in early December but due to the new Covid-19 variant, Omicron, the focus on healthcare has shifted to the booster programme.
The plan was again set out to be published on the 8th February but was set back again. The PM plans to give more details by the end of the week.
“Honestly, this has been delayed for so long, I feel like they don’t really have a plan and are just giving people false hope about it,” said Greg Ivanovich , 29, medical graduate.
“It’s a problem that has been there for a while but has only gotten worse, we can’t expect one plan to simply make it go away, it will take years!”
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