CHF discriminates against women?

Teachme

New member
Apr 5, 2019
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Hello everyone, this is my first post so please be gentle!

My Mum has been turned down for CHF despite having advanced vascular dementia. She has been admitted to a nursing home this week and it struck me that the majority of patients are women. I asked the nurse about this and she told me twice as many women suffer from this awful condition. Which led me to think .....

more men than women suffer from cancer and they are funded by the NHS. More women than men suffer from dementia and they are not funded by the NHS. Could this be used in a legal challenge or am I missing something obvious?
 

Beate

Registered User
May 21, 2014
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London
I think the obvious you are missing is that cancer is classed as a medical care issue and dementia as a social care issue. Who suffers more from what is coincidental.
 

jenniferpa

Registered User
Jun 27, 2006
39,442
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Another couple of things to remember - women tend to live longer than men, and women are more likely to care for their partner at home (although the latter may be more due to women tending to marry spouses old than them).

I think that nurse may just be reflecting what she sees in her job rather than actual facts.

But here’s some context.

“In the UK 61% of people with dementia are female and 39% are male. This is mostly because women tend to live longer than men and as dementia becomes more common as we age, more women develop the condition. 820,000 people in the UK have dementia.”

So the nurse isn’t entirely wrong but her analysis is overly simplistic.
 
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ChocolateBrownie

Registered User
Nov 21, 2018
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One of my parents has dementia - cannot walk, stand unaided, cannot feed himself and high risk of skin breakdown - gets £0.

Other parent with oral cancer - no expense spared on treatment - AND a 2 x daily taxi for radiotherapy worth about£40 per day. Surely a taxi fare is ‘social’ not ‘medical’?

I guess there is a need for a test case, but that is a lot to ask of a PWD.
 

concerned4

Registered User
Jun 3, 2012
80
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There is no discrimination as Dementia as has been stated is classed as a social disease, quite how they get away with this is beyond me, you pay your taxes over the years for exactly the reason that we are paying in to the system, but the system has failed all those that suffer from this disease. A legal challenge would be costly, it would require a crowd funding campaign to begin with but the legal process is a costly process, yet again a certain MP started a crowd funding campaign to fund his legal fees in Scotland.
 
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concerned4

Registered User
Jun 3, 2012
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Yes we pay our taxes but the government see fit to squander national wealth where it shouldn't e.g MP wage increases, stellar pensions, overseas funding etc they should sort the NHS, Dementia should be treated as any condition is & funding should be in place.Slightly off topic but relevant.
 

Elle3

Registered User
Jun 30, 2016
705
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I read a study yesterday which was about more woman developing Dementia than men and they related this to the possibility of a lack of oestrogen after women go through the menopause. They found that women who started menopause earlier were more likely to develop dementia and for men it was reduced levels of testosterone. Also, women who have children and gynaecological issues are more likely to develop it than women who don’t have children.

Being a woman sucks.
 

ChocolateBrownie

Registered User
Nov 21, 2018
67
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Yes we pay our taxes but the government see fit to squander national wealth where it shouldn't e.g MP wage increases, stellar pensions, overseas funding etc they should sort the NHS, Dementia should be treated as any condition is & funding should be in place.Slightly off topic but relevant.

I don't know about where you live, but I was astonished to see that on our Council a Tax bill for 2019-20 every department had received an increase EXCEPT Adult Social Services - and yet all through the year, the council has been blaming every cut or failing on the need to spend more on the care of older people.

"stellar pensions" is a huge problem - I'm not sure why public sector employees cannot make do with the same pension provision as the rest of us, especially when they are doing some cushy consultancy at the same time.
 

notsogooddtr

Registered User
Jul 2, 2011
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And I'm not doing a 'cushy consultancy'either.Just a thankless but necessary job.Sweeping generalisations are rarely useful or accurate.
 

LadyA

Registered User
Oct 19, 2009
13,730
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Ireland
Likely a similar situation to here. The only ones getting stellar/enhanced pensions are the politicians! We even had one ex Govt. Minister who was serving jail time for fraud. He basically defrauded the taxpayer, while in office. He was still entitled to his enormous Ministerial pension, even while in jail! Yes, there was fury but "nothing we can do" the powers that be said. "That's the legislation."
 

Helly68

Registered User
Mar 12, 2018
1,685
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The sad truth is that social care is woefully under funded. We have slept through all warnings of the demographic nightmare now starting - with an ageing population and rising numbers of people with dementia, and other conditions needing care support, for which there is no money.

I support raising taxes, but to be honest the problem is now so severe it is hard to see how it can be tackled.
 

Jaded'n'faded

Registered User
Jan 23, 2019
5,258
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High Peak
The sad truth is that social care is woefully under funded. We have slept through all warnings of the demographic nightmare now starting - with an ageing population and rising numbers of people with dementia, and other conditions needing care support, for which there is no money.

I support raising taxes, but to be honest the problem is now so severe it is hard to see how it can be tackled.

I totally agree. We all know how stretched the NHS and Social Services are now when it comes to caring for old people so I can't imagine how it will be in 20 years when there are twice as many. Add to that the fact that many in our age group won't get an inheritance because it will all go on care home fees, so we'll have less (or nothing) to pass on to our own children.

There will be fewer people in work and paying taxes so that won't help, especially as carers on minimum wage won't be paying much tax anyway. And how will the Govt. recruit enough carers? It's hard enough to get staff now.

I can't see the next generation happily accepting a huge tax increase to pay for the care of all the old people. As I will be one of those oldies (if I make it that far!) it concerns me greatly that the system will break and I'll probably end up in the 'poor house' or whatever new name they give it. :eek:
 

DrElliDK

New member
Apr 2, 2023
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I totally agree. We all know how stretched the NHS and Social Services are now when it comes to caring for old people so I can't imagine how it will be in 20 years when there are twice as many. Add to that the fact that many in our age group won't get an inheritance because it will all go on care home fees, so we'll have less (or nothing) to pass on to our own children.

There will be fewer people in work and paying taxes so that won't help, especially as carers on minimum wage won't be paying much tax anyway. And how will the Govt. recruit enough carers? It's hard enough to get staff now.

I can't see the next generation happily accepting a huge tax increase to pay for the care of all the old people. As I will be one of those oldies (if I make it that far!) it concerns me greatly that the system will break and I'll probably end up in the 'poor house' or whatever new name they give it. :eek:
And with all the renters and people who are unable to save (unlike boomer generation). We are screwed. The banks aren’t going to pay our dementia care, from all that funding of unused mortgages.