I Wonder

[TWR]

Mirror this morning, 30 million owed to the NHS by overseas Patients, & yet if we owed Tax they would be on to us like a ton of bricks, is there something wrong here?

[ToraToraTora]

Then Bill the airline, impound their planes, refuse refueling etc.

[TWR]

There has to be some sort of an answer to the FREE Medical aid Eddie.

[Sqad]

Karl 9.00 is correct, other medical treatments in other countries have taken a tirade of abuse form the ethical section of AB and one would question why we are losing millions in tourist trade. Can the UK afford to be a benefactor and if the answer is in the affirmative......STOP MOANING.

In the past two to three decades the NHS has been lauded as the "Envy of the World" and is free........then can you blame "foreigners" for taking advantage.

Resident cards or private insurance affords treatment in the UK and if neither present then no medical treatment.
Emergencies pose a difficult problem, for which i do not have the answer.
Health care is expensive........someone has to pay.

[youngmafbog]

//Emergencies pose a difficult problem//

Just insist on Insurance at the port of entry or you are on the next plane/ferry back. Simple.

[RATTER15]

So a pregnant Nigerian woman arrives here, has her baby in the next day or so, that baby is a now a "British National" that now has the right to live here with the parents.

Am i right in making that assumption?

[Metaphysicalus]

Someone was telling me that all British citizens can avail of free medical care in the Republic of Ireland, whether they are rich or poor due to an agreement between the two countries; however, Irish citizens can only avail of the free care if they are deemed to have below a certain income. Pensioners are means tested and can be denied a medical care if they do not fit the requirements of the Irish HSE ( NHS). Can that be true?

[EDDIE51]

youngmafbog Your suggestion is illegal under international law and against the Doctor's Hippocratic oath. You CAN NOT refuse emergency medical aid under ANY circumstances!
It would work for people who just come as visitors, you could insist that they either showed proof of insurance or proof of entitlement to treatment.
But there would be other problems, we would find UK citizens refused entry to other countries as a retaliation

[Kathyan]

Ratters no they don't automatically qualify for British Citizenship unless one of the parents is British.

[RATTER15]

Kathyan, thank you, I wasn't sure.

[fiction-factory]

Trying to recover money from some people after the event is almost impossible, particularly if they want to avoid payment- they can disappear back to another country, they can move address (or the one they gave was false), they can easily keep a low profile within a major city here or they can simply say they have no money.
We may find that private investigators and bailiffs could recover some of this £30 but the costs may exceed what we recover.
More needs to be done before the event. Sometimes it's pretty obvious to the hospital if the patient isn't from this country but in the main a foreign name, an accent from East Europe or a burka doesn't in any way tell the hospital for certain. More needs to be done before the event, just as I am sure happens overseas. It will cause problems of course if genuine citizens are denied treatment because they cannot prove their ID (remember the anger in the press when a UK citizen was not treated at a surgery because they had no record of him). But maybe it's something we need to try. I don't mind ID cards but as with passports etc, they can be forged

[1rovert]

Then make Nigerian Airways pay the bill, or hold the plane and crew, until it is.