Pip implants - who should foot the bill

I grant you that surgeons have a duty of care, but I also believe that the days of taking what a doctor or surgeon tells you as 'gospel' purely because they are a doctor or surgeon, are long gone. They are, after all, merely doing a job for which they've trained, in the same way as thousands of others do different jobs for which they've also trained.

When one of my colleagues had a mastectomy she was offered delayed reconstructive surgery. In the meantime she did her research, asked her surgeon which type of reconstructive surgery he recommended and when an implant was suggested, asked which implants and then did further research.

The point I'm making here is about choices. Her mastectomy was a necessary medical procedure done on the NHS, the follow-up procedure was recommended by her NHS surgeon who would, one assumes, have followed NHS guidelines on which implant to use. If she'd chosen to go ahead and faulty implants had been used, then yes, I fully agree the surgeon could be held culpable (although it's an interesting legal point that, since he was following Government guidelines, could he be held personally responsible?).

My issue is with women (or indeed men) who've chosen to spend a great deal of money at a private clinic for a needless operation and the fact that they failed to realise that those clinics are in business to make money, and it pretty much follows that they're going to make as much of it from each client as possible. Even more important then, I'd suggest, to ask what type/make of alien substance was being unncessarily introduced into their body and make an informed decision, not just take someone's word for it.

 

UK clinics argue that they only used the PIP implants because they were approved by a government agency for use on UK patients

so, who is at fault? .... The UK Government agency is at fault ... the agency approved the products without properly checking them ... the doctors have no means of doing proper quality controls, that's why they rely on the government agency

that is why the French Government is sorting the problem at no cost .... but what does the UK government do? ... they shy away and blame the doctors as they don't want to cough up and pay

it's sad really