Corruption in Britain - Hospital surgical supplies racket

Grinding away at NHS surgical tools

Here is another racket going on in Britain. And it involves the National Health Service, which for some is nothing more than a death service. Cutting costs? Yes they are! By procurring surgical instruments made on the cheap in places like Pakistan. Produced in dust infested hovels, these mainly substandard tools are flogged off to the NHS by corrupt middle men, keen on making money at any price. Thankfully the BBC Panorama programme has exposed the frightful trade. Of course the watchdog in charge of monitoring the wellbeing of patients by making sure surgical tools are cleanly made has taken a leaf out of Pontius Pilate's book.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is supposed to check up on these rogues. Their website boldly proclaims "We enhance and safeguard the health of the public by ensuring that medicines and medical devices work and are acceptably safe. No product is risk free. Underpinning all our work lie robust and fact-based judgements to ensure that the benefits to patients and the public justify the risks". That would appear to be a load of codswallop. But codswallop and quangos invariably go together like a horse and carriage. Only one hospital employs a technician to root out the dodgy tools. He works for Guy's Hospital and rejects 20% of the stuff he sees.

Doesn't it make you wild? Again another set of people leaching off others, this time also exploiting the Third World as well. Any heads going to roll? If a patient who got a shard of metal flushed round the body due to ineffective tools would be within their rights to sue for negligence. But what a waste of time and money. Most patients want to have a clean and decent operation. Not one done with surgical implements hewn from metals in some coal cellar in Pakistan.

Posted in: NHS,surgical tools