MONEY AND DISEASE

Question 1

MONEY FROM TREATING BUT NOT CURING

Answer 1

Continual patient care is more expensive than addressing the cause
Diabetes - very expensive chronic health condition, with microvascular and macrovascular complications. A potential cure using stem cells or B-cell transplantation would remove all the costs and monitoring requirements
Kidney dialysis: dialysis is very expensive, hospital admission for multiple hours a week for life.
Neuropathic pain: pain from the nervous system with an unknown trigger or cause
Managed with pain medication

The cost of pain medication is far higher than if a potential cure was found
Parkinson’s disease:
TRAP Symptoms: Tremor at rest, rigidity, akinesia and postural instability
Cause: Death of dopaminergic neurons in the basal ganglia
Treatment: L-DOPA, given continually to replace the dopaminergic neuron death
But would be much cheaper to stop the neurons from dying in the first place

Question 2

ALLOWING PATIENT DETERIORATION

Answer 2

Don’t cure a patient’s disease they deteriorate, which requires increased care
The sicker, the more care they need, the more cost
E.g. hospice care, nursing home or continual nursing care, increased medication.
Example:
Cancer: stage 1 vs Stage 4
Neurodegenerative diseases: motor neuron disease
MND: motor neurons progressively die, patients become increasingly disabled, requiring increased care

Question 3

OTHER DISEASES

Answer 3

Infectious diseases:
Not curing one patient: disease can spread to another, incurring more healthcare costs with infection
E.g. covid, ebola
Obesity as a disease:
Obesity is a risk factor dor: cardiovascular disease, diabetes type 2, mental health, cancer (colon cancer), high blood pressure, stroke, arthritis (osteoarthritis)
So if we treated and cured each patient’s obesity, they won’t develop the expensive complications

Question 4

FINANCIAL BURDEN ON THE NHS

Answer 4

• The NHS does not make money through prolonging patient treatment.
  As patient health deteriorates more expensive specialist interventions are required to address ill-health.
  Ward admission costs are higher longer a patient must stay.
  Not curing only causes financial harm for the NHS

Question 5

CURING IMPACT ON WIDER SOCIETY

Answer 5

If patients are cured of their diseases, this means that they could return to their work and employment.
This would boost the economy and would make money for the patient as well as the nation as a whole.
If not cured, the patient would not be able to work at maximum efficiency.
Ageing population such as the UK where people work late into their 60s and 70s, comorbidities are commonplace and curing these entirely would provide for a much more efficient work force with much better output.