Pricey advice

If you had any sneaking suspicion that private health care might be better than the state-run system, the way a worried Times journalist was fleeced should be a wake-up call.

Richard Kerbaj phoned a private doctor because he thought he might have swine flu. The doctor asked if he had any symptoms, pronounced him fit and well, gave him the number for the NHS helpline - and charged him £99.

But suppose he did actually catch swine flu, he asked? Stay in bed, said the doctor, ring the NHS helpline and if necessary they'll provide some medicine.

And the cost if he had got exactly the same advice from his NHS doctor - or from an online source? Precisely nothing.

Despite all the evidence, there's still a general assumption that private care is always superior to public provision, that paying huge sums of your own money guarantees something extra.

But apart from merely being told something you could have been told by the NHS, you're just as likely to experience medical errors. It's simply that they're easier to conceal in private clinics.

If a routine operation leads to a serious complication like cardiac arrest, a private clinic may not have the specialist equipment or staff to deal with it. If they can't get you to an NHS hospital fast, you could die.

Many private surgeons are the same surgeons who work for the NHS, and the chances of their making a mistake are much the same. They're equally likely to be overworked, stressed, tired or simply incompetent.

Yes, you can probably jump a queue for treatment and get an operation in a few days. But if the operation goes wrong, what have you gained?

If I ever have £99 burning a hole in my pocket, it won't be going to Dr Tell-You-The-Bleeding-Obvious, that's for sure.

A life cut short

What a nightmare it is when some innocent, everyday action turns into an endless disaster you can never be rid of. As happened to Denise Hendry when she tried to lose a bit of fat after giving birth.

In 2002 she booked a liposuction session, as thousands of women do every day, but in her case it all went horribly wrong. The surgeon damaged her bowel and colon, leading to multiple organ failure, her heart stopping for four minutes, and blood poisoning.

She had to have corrective surgery to repair the damage but that too was unsuccessful. A few months ago, she had further corrective surgery but contracted a meningitis-type infection, went into a coma and died 11 weeks later. She was just 42.

This dreadful saga of incompetence and misfortune certainly undermines belief in some benign creator watching over us and keeping us from harm. A novel this calamitous would be dismissed as incredible.

Not surprisingly Denise's experiences led her to campaign about the dangers of plastic surgery and the need to check out your surgeon's credentials thoroughly before they let rip on a vulnerable human body.

I've said before that I see no need for cosmetic surgery unless someone is seriously disfigured. Most of the imagined defects being remedied are invisible to everyone else and the real problem is the desire for a non-existent perfect body.

Unfortunately in Denise's case this desire meant not just a nice little earner for a greedy surgeon but a devastated and drastically shortened life.

People always play down the serious medical risks involved in a supposedly routine operation. But the fact is that any operation can go appallingly wrong, and when it does it's too late for second thoughts. Just say no!

Photo: Denise Hendry

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Katie the cat has mysteriously reappeared after two weeks' absence. We did ask her where she had been all this time but she refused to say. I suspect a failed romance she'd rather not discuss.