Consultants claim HIV infected foreigners overwhelming NHS
Hospital consultants working in the NHS are being overwhelmed by hundreds of Aids victims coming from abroad and seeking treatment on the NHS, according to a report in today’s Sunday Telegraph.
The cost of treating infected foreigners is thought to be around £15,000 per year and there are fears that routine operations could be threatened as a result.
Dr Tim Moss, clinical director and consultant genito-urinary physician at Doncaster Royal Infirmary, told the Sunday Telegraph that the situation had reached “crisis point” and required “central intervention”.
“We are at saturation point; we literally cannot accomodate any more people,” he said.
“In the past three months we have had 10 new cases of HIV in Doncaster, six of which have been migrants. For a small town we are getting as many new HIV cases in three months as we would expect to get in two to three years.”
And Dr Anne Edwards, a consultant in genito-urinary medicine with the Oxford Radcliffe NHS Trust, said that two years ago, the number of HIV cases her Trust was dealing with was in single figures, but last year had risen to around 30.
“Two thirds of our new HIV patients are from abroad. We’re in a crisis,” she said.
“We are now seeing a rise in local infection, which suggests that patients recently arrived in the country are having unsafe sex. We are seeing some heterosexual spread.”
According to Dr Edwards, her Trust was “shelling out huge amounts of money” to treat “lots of people from other countries” and she called on the Government to “come up with a system which rules on people’s eligibility.”
The Royal Leicester Infirmary has also reported a 61% rise in HIV positive patients on pre-2000 figures, with over half the men and almost 80% of women having been resident in the UK for less than a year and more than half claiming asylum.
Under Human Rights legislation, HIV positive patients visiting the UK are entitled to remain in the country indefinitely whilst they receive NHS care:
According to the Telegraph, the Government is now proposing to introduce compulsory screening for all visitors coming to the UK from countries with high levels of HIV and Aids.
