Miss-Delectable
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2004
- Messages
- 17,160
- Reaction score
- 7
News - Leeds Today: News, Sport, Jobs, Property, Cars, Entertainments & More
A HARD-of-hearing pensioner claims she is being blackmailed by the NHS.
Audrey Carcone, 71, from Moortown in north Leeds, says has been told she must pay up to £4,000 – if she wants to avoid a three-year wait for a digital hearing aid.
The pensioner was astonished when she was offered the choice after she rang to inquire about the progress of her NHS application.
Although she could probably afford to pay the fee, Mrs Carcone is outraged that the National Health Service is running both public and private systems from the same desk at the LGI's hearing and balance centre (HBC).
And to add to her insult she says the HBC waiting area lies empty as there are not enough staff to deal with patients there. And she says private audiologists are at the ready to cash in.
The former social worker, who is deaf in her right ear and partially deaf in her left, said: "They know that I can go privately, but I am not prepared to play that game. My GP knows I feel this strongly about it but what can I do?
"I am not going to push my cause because there must be people who are in a worse way than me. What I object to is the bureaucracy and that people are being treated privately in the NHS-run hearing and balance centre. That is wrong."
Mrs Carcone was first referred by her GP for a hearing aid assessment in October 2005 and was put on the waiting list a month later. Last week, nine months on, she received confirmation of her first consultation appointment.
Not only is she angry at how the HBC is being run, but Mrs Carcone feels the elderly are not being given the attention they deserve.
She added: "There will be elderly people out there who are not assertive, who do not use the telephone, and who are lost in the system but who really need a hearing aid quickly. Not many of these people will be able to afford to pay and they will become isolated."
Increased demand for digital hearing aids combined with a national shortage of trained audiologists has led to three-year waits for the hard-of-hearing across the UK, say NHS bosses. The health service will no longer fit analogue aids as it attempts to switch all patients over to improved hearing technology.
Priority cases include people who are deaf and blind, war pensioners and the terminally ill.
It could take another two years before Mrs Carcone has the aids she needs, and until then she must put up with her condition.
Retired post office manager Keith Worrall, 65, from Armley in west Leeds, applied for an NHS hearing aid two-and-a-half years ago. He has just been given a date for his first appointment.
Issue
MP John Battle (Lab, Leeds West) raised the issue of hearing aid waiting times with Health Minister Ivan Lewis earlier this month, as reported in the YEP.
A Trust spokesman said: "Although we know our current hearing aid waiting times are too long, we have significantly reduced these waits in the last six months and continue to work closely with primary care trust colleagues to bring them down further still.
"Like many other NHS organisations, we have a lease agreement with a private hearing aid centre, which not only offers convenient choice for patients but also generates income for the Trust which is then put back into improving services for patients."
A HARD-of-hearing pensioner claims she is being blackmailed by the NHS.
Audrey Carcone, 71, from Moortown in north Leeds, says has been told she must pay up to £4,000 – if she wants to avoid a three-year wait for a digital hearing aid.
The pensioner was astonished when she was offered the choice after she rang to inquire about the progress of her NHS application.
Although she could probably afford to pay the fee, Mrs Carcone is outraged that the National Health Service is running both public and private systems from the same desk at the LGI's hearing and balance centre (HBC).
And to add to her insult she says the HBC waiting area lies empty as there are not enough staff to deal with patients there. And she says private audiologists are at the ready to cash in.
The former social worker, who is deaf in her right ear and partially deaf in her left, said: "They know that I can go privately, but I am not prepared to play that game. My GP knows I feel this strongly about it but what can I do?
"I am not going to push my cause because there must be people who are in a worse way than me. What I object to is the bureaucracy and that people are being treated privately in the NHS-run hearing and balance centre. That is wrong."
Mrs Carcone was first referred by her GP for a hearing aid assessment in October 2005 and was put on the waiting list a month later. Last week, nine months on, she received confirmation of her first consultation appointment.
Not only is she angry at how the HBC is being run, but Mrs Carcone feels the elderly are not being given the attention they deserve.
She added: "There will be elderly people out there who are not assertive, who do not use the telephone, and who are lost in the system but who really need a hearing aid quickly. Not many of these people will be able to afford to pay and they will become isolated."
Increased demand for digital hearing aids combined with a national shortage of trained audiologists has led to three-year waits for the hard-of-hearing across the UK, say NHS bosses. The health service will no longer fit analogue aids as it attempts to switch all patients over to improved hearing technology.
Priority cases include people who are deaf and blind, war pensioners and the terminally ill.
It could take another two years before Mrs Carcone has the aids she needs, and until then she must put up with her condition.
Retired post office manager Keith Worrall, 65, from Armley in west Leeds, applied for an NHS hearing aid two-and-a-half years ago. He has just been given a date for his first appointment.
Issue
MP John Battle (Lab, Leeds West) raised the issue of hearing aid waiting times with Health Minister Ivan Lewis earlier this month, as reported in the YEP.
A Trust spokesman said: "Although we know our current hearing aid waiting times are too long, we have significantly reduced these waits in the last six months and continue to work closely with primary care trust colleagues to bring them down further still.
"Like many other NHS organisations, we have a lease agreement with a private hearing aid centre, which not only offers convenient choice for patients but also generates income for the Trust which is then put back into improving services for patients."