Would Your Love Be As Strong As This?

When Sue's husband suffered a brain injury that left him unable to talk or feed himself, friends urged her to walk away - instead she says: I love him more than ever By Tessa Cunningham for the Daily Mail

Published: 22:32, 13 June 2012 | Updated: 11:36, 14 June 2012

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Carefully squeezing a blob of paste on to the electric toothbrush, Sue Organ tenderly bends down. ‘Open wide, darling,’ she urges. As the toothbrush starts its familiar whirring, Sue is met with a beatific smile. Two huge periwinkle blue eyes lock on to hers. A soft hand reaches out for her.

It’s a morning ritual played out in millions of homes between a mother and child. But Charles isn’t Sue’s son. He is her husband. And he needs her help in ways most of us would find almost impossible to imagine.

Charles - a 6ft 2in ex-amateur rugby player - had an accident while competing in a charity bike ride in June 2007. Subsequent complications with his hospital treatment have left him with catastrophic brain injuries. The 62-year-old former successful businessman now needs 24-hour care.

Devoted: Sue and Charles Organ on their wedding day

He can’t walk, talk or feed himself. Even the most intimate jobs have to be carried out by Sue, 59, or a carer at their home in Coulsdon, Surrey. While the carers wash and dress Charles, Sue brushes his hair, cleans his teeth and massages his feet. She administers his medication and sets up the feeding tube which passes nutrients into his stomach, as Charles can’t swallow safely.

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Most of all, she has willed him to live, defying doctors who predicted he would remain in a vegetative state. Although Sue is cruelly aware that her husband is unlikely ever to lift her in his arms again or - most distressing of all - talk to her, the love between them remains palpable.

Pride of place beside his bed is a white board with ‘I love you’ scrawled on it in huge letters. It is Charles’s message to Sue. He wrote the words himself, holding the pen in his good hand and painstakingly spelling out each letter. ‘He did it all by himself while I was out one day,’ says Sue proudly. ‘It took him an hour. He was exhausted.’

'He can't speak and can communicate only by hand signals, thumbs up or down - but I know he loves me, too'

Before Charles’s accident, she couldn’t have imagined that such seemingly small things would mean so much. The couple lived the high life, an endless round of meals out, socialising with friends and action-packed holidays in South Africa, Australia and America. As Charles’s company flourished, Sue became his finance director and they bought a glorious, tumbledown farmhouse in France to renovate.

Today, their roles have changed beyond recognition. But one thing remains constant: their love. In an age of disposable relationships, Sue declares defiantly that it has simply never occurred to her to walk away. Theirs is an extraordinary love story - both heartbreaking and inspirational. It raises the question: how many of us would do the same?

‘I love Charlie even more now because he needs me so much,’ says Sue, an immaculately groomed woman whose girlish voice belies a backbone of steel. ‘He may be dreadfully injured, but he is still the man I married. He has the same sparkle in his eyes, the same lovely smile. The bond between us is unbreakable. He can’t speak and can communicate only by hand signals, thumbs up or down - but I know he loves me, too. It’s in his eyes. I also know that, if I walked away, he would lose the will to live.

He may be dreadfully injured, but he is still the man I married. He has the same sparkle in his eyes, the same lovely smile. ‘It doesn’t even matter whether he would have done the same for me. Actually, I don’t think he would have done - nor would most men. Charlie was incredibly squeamish and loathed illness. But I made a vow of marriage and I can’t envisage life without him or with anyone else.’

Sue, an administrator with a financial services agency, met Charles through mutual friends at a lunch party in Chipstead, Surrey, in early 1990. Aged 37 and divorced after a brief, childless marriage, she was resigned to living alone.

‘I took one look at this wonderful, fresh-faced man, absolutely bursting with energy, and I was hooked,’ she says. ‘We chatted all afternoon. It was Valentine’s Day a few weeks later. He sent me a huge bouquet of roses and asked me out to lunch.’

Charles, a bachelor, pursued Sue relentlessly. But, after her failed first marriage, she was reluctant to commit. ‘Why fix something that isn’t broken?’ she says. ‘With or without a ring, I felt totally secure. Not that Charles was the most trustworthy boyfriend - far from it, in fact. He loved the attention of women - that was one of his charms. He was this most wonderful, sensitive, generous-spirited man. He would walk into a room, call “Hello darling”, and every woman would look round. He was a cheeky devil. I’d catch him out and we’d have a terrible row, but he would always win me round. He would lift me in the air. Twirl me around the room until I stopped being cross.

‘ “I love you and only you, Sue,” he would say. It may sound daft but, even though he played around, I knew I could lean on him 100 per cent. He was a giver. After he was injured, so many people came forward to tell me the incredible things he did for them. He operated an open house for friends in trouble. Charles never mentioned it. He wouldn’t have wanted to brag. He loved people. He would meet someone and, in half an hour, he would know their life story. He was a great raconteur, but he was also a wonderful, intuitive listener.’

Happy memories: Charles and Sue at Christmas in 2003

Before the accident Charles employed more than 50 people and his business had a turnover in excess of £10m

Charles finally wore down Sue’s resistance and they married in September 2001 at their favourite restaurant in Oxted, Surrey. By now, Charles’s wet fish business, which he set up in the mid Seventies and ran with a partner and his younger brother, Richard, employed more than 50 people and had a turnover in excess of £10 million. He had a hugely lucrative contract supplying fish to restaurants around the south coast and airlines flying from Gatwick and Heathrow. Life couldn’t have been better. The couple enjoyed a string of holidays. Then, in March 2005, they bought their French farmhouse.

Tucked in a hamlet near Toulouse, the home was to be their dream project and eventual retirement home. ‘The day we moved in was the happiest of my life,’ says Sue. ‘The house was a shell, but we held a huge party. Even the mayor came. We put out tables with bottles of champagne, bread, cheese and olives. The sky was iridescent blue. The nightingales were singing in the trees. It was magical.’

As they threw themselves into renovating their new home, Sue and Charles divided their time between France and Surrey. They started learning French and the ebullient, ever-gregarious Charles soon knew everyone in the area. They were due to attend a party in France in June 2007 when Charles remembered he had agreed to join a team of friends taking part in the annual London-to-Brighton cycle ride. They were raising money for the British Heart Foundation.

I couldn’t believe what was happening. I went to the chapel and prayed: “Please don’t take Charles away from me”. I couldn’t imagine life without him. Now I just wonder if I was being selfish.

‘I tried to persuade Charles to go to the party. But he didn’t want to let his team-mates down,’ recalls Sue. The decision had catastrophic results - Charles came off his bike and hit his head on the road. Tragically, he wasn’t wearing a helmet. A paramedic discovered him thrashing around in distress at the roadside. Charles was rushed to Brighton’s Royal Sussex County hospital. ‘One of his team-mates rang me at midday with the news,’ says Sue. ‘My heart stood still.’

Fighting her way through traffic, she eventually got to Charles’s bedside three hours later. He was sedated. Looked deathly pale. But, as Sue burst into tears of shock, the doctor reassured her that, although a scan showed Charles had sustained a head injury, there appeared no need to worry. That night Sue accompanied Charles in an ambulance to London’s Charing Cross Hospital for monitoring. As the days passed, he seemed to improve. He chatted to Sue. Talked eagerly about getting home. ‘I’m so sorry to have worried you,’ he said. ‘I’ve been such an idiot.’

However, ten days later, complications set in and Charles suffered a massive bleed on the brain. ‘He was rushed into surgery. Suddenly, it was touch and go,’ recalls Sue. ‘I couldn’t believe what was happening. I went to the chapel and prayed: “Please don’t take Charles away from me”. I couldn’t imagine life without him. Now I just wonder if I was being selfish.’

Sue’s prayers were answered. Charles pulled through. But the damage to the right side of his brain had been devastating. Lying motionless in a hospital bed, his eyes unfocused, it appeared he was lost to Sue for ever. Charles was transferred to Mayday Hospital in Croydon, where doctors warned Sue it was likely that Charles would be in a semi-vegetative state permanently, unable to walk or talk and with a tracheotomy tube to help him breathe. They said that he could never come home.

Charles was a keen cyclist

‘I wondered if I had done the right thing, if it wouldn’t have been kinder to let him go,’ Sue says quietly. ‘This poor, wounded man could do nothing for himself. He couldn’t even breathe unaided.’ One might have imagined that Sue would quietly walk away. Few would condemn her. Friends urged her to rebuild her life, arguing that Charles was beyond her help.

But Sue refused. Then one day, around three months after the accident, something remarkable happened. ‘I was sitting by his bed when I took his hand,’ Sue recalls. ‘I felt his thumb gently start to rub mine. It’s the little ritual we always had before we went to sleep at night. I was so excited. I knew then my Charlie was in there. I knew he recognised me. All I had to do was get him better and get him home.’

Hospital staff were still dubious, so Sue videoed Charles to provide proof of his progress. ‘I used to be shy but, suddenly, I found my voice. I had to fight for Charlie and prove that he wasn’t beyond hope,’ she says.

It was agonisingly slow. But gradually Charles began to regain strength in his right arm and to focus his eyes. In December 2007, he was transferred to the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability in Putney, South-West London, for rehabilitation. He had sessions of physio. Speech therapy. Sue visited every single day for 18 months, learning how to gently move Charles and administer medicines. Determined to stimulate his brain, she read him the newspaper and played him music.

‘One day I put on a DVD of a David Attenborough programme about fish,’ she recalls. ‘Charles was engrossed - his eyes didn’t leave the screen. At the end, he grabbed my hand. He was saying “thank you”.’ Sue sold Charles’s business and their former home in Coulsdon, Surrey, and bought a ground-floor apartment. ‘I got the keys on our seventh anniversary. I should have been so happy, but walking through that door alone, knowing Charlie would never walk beside me again, was desperate.’

She sought help from the Brain Injury Group (thebraininjurygroup.co.uk), a network of specialist care workers, medical professionals and solicitors who work together to assess people’s needs and seek compensation to help secure their future. Finally, in July 2009, two years after his accident, Charles came home. He is cared for 24 hours a day by a team of carers, currently paid for by the local Primary Care Trust. It means Sue can leave Charles occasionally. Even have the odd night out with friends. Charles has physiotherapy. Hydrotherapy sessions at a local swimming pool. He may be wheelchair-bound, but he attends parties and family events. He even attends rugby matches. His close band of friends visit regularly.

‘His eyes sparkle when they come in the room. He loves listening to the rugby stories. You know from his face he is drinking in every word,’ says Sue. Although Charles cannot talk, Sue chats to him constantly. ‘I ask him what he wants to do each day. Give him a list of choices. Sometimes I write them down and he picks. Other times, he gives a thumbs up or down. Charles is still here, making decisions, telling me what he thinks. Often I’ll see him looking at me across the room. His eyes won’t leave me until I come over to him. Then he beams that lovely, lopsided smile and I melt. It’s the same Charlie I fell in love with.’

Every night, Sue snuggles up beside Charles for a cuddle and a chat about their day. ‘It’s what couples do,’ she says simply. ‘We talk a lot about France: my dream is to spend part of the year there with Charles.

‘My goal is to get him strong enough to use a wheelchair independently. The stronger I can make him, the better his life will be and the more he can do. He can hold himself steady on a plinth now - which he couldn’t do three years ago. It’s a tiny hope but, most of all, I long to hear his wonderful rich voice again. That really would be a miracle.’

There’s one thing Sue won’t share with Charles: her grief at what’s happened to him. ‘I sometimes cry all night,’ she admits. ‘But I can’t let Charlie see, it would devastate him. I’m at his side in the morning, a big smile on my face. I have to be strong for his sake. Instead when I’m down, I pour my heart out to friends. I met a group of wonderful women: Lynne, Anne, Lois and Judy at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability. They have husbands or sons like Charles and are shoulders to cry on.’

Last year the women set up BIG (Brain Injury Group), a website and online forum to provide support for others. ‘The past is gone,’ says Sue. ‘But Charlie and I still have dreams - it’s up to me to achieve them, for both of us. I love Charlie with every fibre. I will never walk away. Charlie knows that.’

To The Labour Taffia In Wales

An old friend was given bad news by his GP two years ago: he was exhibiting symptoms consistent with bowel cancer and therefore needed immediate treatment by a specialist.

The friend, a retired man in his 60s whom I have known since childhood (and who has asked me to call him Roger so as to protect his identity), duly received an ‘urgent referral’ to visit consultants at Nevill Hall Hospital in Abergavenny, a market town in Monmouthshire, South Wales, near to where we both live.

Bowel cancer is a grim and life-threatening disease that kills 16,000 people in Britain each year. But if treated early, chances of survival are relatively high. More than 93 per cent of patients diagnosed in its earliest stage remain alive five years later. For those diagnosed later, however, the figure falls to 77 and then 48 per cent. Very late diagnosis means a survival rate of just 6 per cent.

Ed Miliband says only Labour - under him as prime minister - can be ‘trusted’ to safeguard the British NHS

With this in mind, it seemed reasonable to expect the Welsh NHS to pull out every stop to secure Roger the ‘urgent’ appointment that his GP had recommended.

Yet it wasn’t to be.

Instead, he was forced to wait four months to see a consultant.

Though the presence of a tumour was swiftly confirmed, Roger was then told he’d have to wait three months before he could be operated on.

So far, so awful. But that delay, resulting in surgery taking place only in January last year, was just the start of it.

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Two days after the operation, when Roger was recovering in the hospital, a bedside drip feeding intravenous painkillers into his bloodstream ran dry and he immediately began to experience intense pain.

‘It was the worst pain you can imagine,’ he says. ‘But despite my screams, it took staff two-and-a-half hours to locate a doctor to come and sort out the drip.’

By that stage, Roger was in such agony that he had begun vomiting - with some of the vomit entering recently stitched wounds on his abdomen. Those wounds were then not properly cleaned. Within 48 hours he had contracted MRSA.

Though he was given strong antibiotics to combat this potentially life-threatening condition, this led to C.difficile, a severe bowel infection that kills 1,600 people in Britain each year.

Lillian Williams, 82, died aged 82 in the Princess of Wales hospital in Bridgend - just weeks after this picture was taken consultants were telling her family she had no

It took three weeks for Roger to recover sufficiently to leave hospital. And it was another two months before he was strong enough to leave home unaided.

Only then, almost a year after his initial visit to the GP, was he finally able to begin the supposedly urgent course of chemotherapy that will hopefully combat his cancer. The treatment continues to this day.

Today, he says: ‘It’s only afterwards, when you have time to reflect, that you realise what a botched job it was and how they could have killed you.’

To a layman, his unedifying experience at the hands of the Welsh medical system perhaps sounds a rare example of bad practice.

But to those of us who live in the Principality, dreadful stories such as Roger’s have become depressingly routine.

It is hard to find anyone who doesn’t know a horror story about their woeful health service

In fact, it is hard to find anyone who doesn’t know a horror story about their woeful health service.

Indeed, a report by the British Medical Association (BMA) last month said that institutional mismanagement has left the system facing ‘imminent meltdown’.

The association was so shocked that it has joined campaigners, MPs and a raft of healthcare experts in calling for an immediate full-scale independent inquiry into all aspects of the Welsh NHS. For people such as Roger, it can’t come too soon.

Indeed, another acquaintance also contracted MRSA at Nevill Hall. A couple of years ago, Pam, a stalwart of my local tennis club, underwent a routine hip operation only to pick up a virulent strain of the infection. She subsequently died.

Other patients, too, have been forced to wait months for vital cancer treatment.

Around half of Welsh cancer sufferers must wait six weeks or more for many scans and tests. Yet, across the border in England, less than a mile from my home town of Monmouth, the comparable figure is less than 6 per cent.

Little wonder that 15,000 Welsh patients every year decide to travel to English hospitals for cancer treatment they are denied at home.

Or that thousands more are going private or even moving to rented accommodation in England to bypass long waiting lists for heart scans or hip operations.

Thomas McDonald, who died in 2009, aged 84, (pictured with wife Thelma) after it was claimed he was ‘starved’ during an extended stay in hospital following complications from a chest infection

Over the coming days, this series about the Welsh NHS will tell the stories of patients who have been failed by the service and it will expose the shocking extent of the crisis - one that shames the Labour politicians who control the health service in Wales.

Their testimonies detail a system in turmoil, where dreadful oversights in care, institutional neglect and instances of botched treatment have become routine.

They also lay bare a woefully politicised culture of official cover-ups, where it has become common practice to smear critics and gag whistle-blowers. As well as the BMA’s damning assessment, there have been several other highly critical reports, from highly regarded bodies such as the Royal College of Surgeons and the College of Emergency Medicine (who warned last year, incidentally, that Wales’s A&E departments were ‘at the point of meltdown’).

It has become common practice to smear critics and gag whistle-blowers

Official figures, too, show the Welsh NHS lagging behind England’s on a host of key indicators, most notably waiting times, and reveal that the Welsh Government has until recently been cutting NHS funding by 1 per cent a year, even as the rest of Britain increases it by the same amount.

Typically, the Welsh Government refuses to acknowledge the crisis and dismisses its critics irresponsibly as purveyors of Right-wing propaganda. But what else can you expect from what is effectively a one-party state?

For ever since devolution in 1999, when responsibility for health- care was given to the Welsh Assembly, voters in the Principality have elected only Labour administrations (albeit never with an overall majority).

As a result, the Welsh NHS has been controlled, without exception, by the Labour Party for 15 years. Its supporters also dominate every regional Health Board.

Despite these gross failings, Ed Miliband says that only Labour - under him as prime minister - can be ‘trusted’ to safeguard the British health service.

Indeed, the Labour leader recently praised his Welsh colleagues for ‘charting a course for the next Labour government’ and, last year, said laughably that they were doing an ‘excellent job’ of running the Welsh NHS.

Try convincing the family of Lilian Williams of the truth of that. For the 82-year-old died at the Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend in 2012 a few days after being admitted with a chest infection.

Malcolm Green, 82, a businessman, died at Withybush Hospital in Haverfordwest in 2012 after waiting five hours to be operated on while he was bleeding internally

She died after a catalogue of official blunders over four hospital stays: she was unnecessarily sedated; she was not given the correct drugs; she was left starving and parched because of unnecessary ‘nil by mouth’ orders; and in agony because her prosthetic leg was not removed at night.

At first, her son Gareth was told his mother had died from pneumonia. But he wasn’t happy and asked for a post-mortem, which revealed that she had died from a heart complication. Subsequently, he discovered evidence that nurses had made up readings of her blood sugar levels and blood pressure, and falsified records to suggest she had taken medication when she hadn’t.

Her son complained to the Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University (ABMU) health board, which runs the hospital, but, he says, encountered a ‘confrontational’ response.

He then decided to write to senior Labour politicians urging them to look at ‘deliberate deceits and cover-ups’, but claims to have been largely ignored.

After police launched an investigation into his mother’s care leading up to her death, five hospital workers were arrested and charged with willful neglect.

Consider, also, the case of Colin Davies, who died at the same hospital. The 70-year-old diabetic’s family were told that the police believe he was neglected by nursing staff. Two people have since been charged in relation to his death.

Allan King died at the same hospital after a botched bowel operation in 2011. A subsequent report by the Public Services Ombudsman found that the surgery was ‘too risky’ and should never have been carried out. It concluded also that hospital staff gave misleading evidence about his treatment. Hid the fact he had suffered serious complications during the procedure.

Ed Miliband recently praised his Welsh colleagues for ‘charting a course for the next Labour government’

Allan’s former partner, Dorothy, who was awarded £5,000 in compensation, says: ‘The health board and their staff repeatedly lied to try to cover up their mistakes. It is like the Mafia. It has been a whitewash with a cover-up from beginning to end.’

At least two other patients are at the centre of claims that their records were falsified after their death.

One is Thomas McDonald, who died in 2009, aged 84, after it was claimed he was ‘starved’ during an extended stay in hospital following complications from a chest infection which saw him drop from 13 stone to 8 stone. An investigation by the police and social services found his medical charts had been incorrectly filled out and ordered the health board to apologise.

Meanwhile, an independent report commissioned by his family found his care ‘fell well below the accepted standard’. His daughter Irene said she had found him lying in a heavily soiled bed after staff failed to take him to the toilet. ‘It was just humiliating for him.’

Almost invariably, the whistle- blowers and aggrieved families of victims of the Welsh NHS find themselves facing a mixture of attacks and obfuscation.

For example, the children of Malcolm Green, a businessman who died at Withybush Hospital in Haverfordwest in 2012 after waiting five hours to be operated on while he was bleeding internally, have been refused access to a report detailing his final hours.

Despite learning that staff lied about his treatment and that a consultant chose to attend a meeting rather than operate immediately on the 82-year-old patient, they have yet to receive a proper apology.

A supposedly contrite letter from Trevor Purt, chief executive of the local Hywel Dda health board, had not even been signed by the health boss. When they tried to contact the Welsh Health Minister, Mark Drakeford, they were told to complain via a website.

Malcolm’s son John says: ‘The complaints process is deliberately fitted with barriers to stop people pursuing complaints and to make them give up. In the Welsh NHS, there is a disgraceful culture to try to cover up complaints.’

Thankfully, there are those such as Labour MP Ann Clwyd who are prepared to speak out. She has suffered personally - her husband Owen, she says, died ‘like a battery hen’ after being kept on a trolley in a corridor at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.

Her reward for highlighting an issue of grave public concern? She has been smeared by the Welsh ruling class.

Though the hospital’s health board apologised ‘unreservedly’ about her husband’s care and said his treatment was ‘unacceptable’, Mrs Clwyd was publicly told to shut up and stop complaining by Labour Assembly member Lynne Neagle.

‘We have all had cases of problems with poor care, but I do not believe that it gives Ann Clwyd the right to denigrate the entire Welsh NHS and I wish that she would stop it,’ Miss Neagle remarked. Miss Neagle’s attitude speaks volumes for the sense of entitlement. Inscrutability that has been allowed to take root in a health service that many believe puts point-scoring over patient care.

Things are very different in England, where health boards (often run by party political apparatchiks) were replaced many years ago by trusts in an attempt to get a degree of independence from Whitehall.

Though their performance varies, they are designed to be protected from party politics and are typically run by an eclectic mixture of local people, business leaders, medical staff and NHS employees.

Official figures show Welsh NHS is lagging behind England on a host of key indicators - most notably waiting times - and until recently reveal the Welsh Government has been cutting NHS funding by 1 per cent a year

In Wales, by contrast, the NHS is still governed according to a post-war structure: with seven separate regional health boards, each dominated by Labour supporters.

The under-fire ABMU, for example, has as its chairman Andrew Davies, a former Labour Assembly Member. The Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, which has responsibility for Nevill Hall, is chaired by David Jenkins, a former general secretary of the Welsh Trades Union Congress.

And Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, which so failed Ann Clwyd’s husband, is chaired by Maria Battle, a former Labour parliamentary candidate. Given the background of these people, it’s hardly surprising to find widespread evidence of the Welsh NHS prioritising an old-Labour political agenda over the task of improving patient care.

In England, to cite a couple of examples, patients are often encouraged to travel to a different region for hospital treatment if waiting lists are shorter there. And many routine procedures, such as hip operations, are carried out for the NHS by private doctors.

To the Labour Taffia in Wales, by contrast, any whiff of ‘privatisation’ is anathema.

Shopping around for hospital treatment in a different region is frowned upon because it smacks of competition. Under old Labour dogma, you get what you are given.

The health board and their staff repeatedly lied to try to cover up their mistakes. It is like the Mafia. It has been a whitewash with a cover-up from beginning to end

Dorothy King, whose husband died after a botched operation

In England, to cite a third example, the NHS has created a £200 million-a-year Cancer Drugs Fund to help patients seek out experimental, but expensive, drug treatments such as the life-saving Avastin. Yet in Wales, Avastin is not routinely available on the NHS. And the Cardiff government stubbornly refuses to set up its own Cancer Drugs Fund because it might ‘enrich’ drug companies.

At the heart of this crisis, though, is the issue of money. For like other socialist administrations across Europe, the Welsh Government has in recent years found itself running out of taxpayers’ cash to spend.

While real-terms spending on healthcare in England has been ring-fenced by the Tory-led Coalition and has risen by 1 per cent (above inflation) each year since 2010, the Welsh Assembly has, according to independent think-tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies, chosen to slash its service’s budget by 8.6 per cent between 2010 and this year, rather than make cutbacks in other areas of its bloated public sector.

So bad has the situation become that in September, the Welsh government suddenly announced a decision to plough an extra £425 million into it over the next two years in an effort to ease the funding crisis.

Meanwhile, as patients continue to die and waiting lists grow, Wales’s Labour rulers resort to spouting shamefully irresponsible weasel words to try to explain away the crisis.

A few days ago, for example, First Minister Carwyn Jones was asked in the Welsh Assembly about the BMA’s claim that his health service faces ‘imminent meltdown’.

He arrogantly rejected the suggestion, arguing that his first-hand knowledge of the service - based, he claimed, on discussions with a few old flatmates who are consultants and GPs - painted a much rosier picture.

However, the BMA, which represents 7,000 doctors in Wales, and the families of those who have died needlessly in the care of the Welsh NHS, unsurprisingly remain deeply unimpressed.

DOES YOUR PLAN COVER YOU ON AND OFF THE JOB

1. DOES YOUR PLAN COVER YOU ON AND OFF THE JOB?

Many health insurance plans have specific exclusions that eliminate your benefits for anything that could have been covered under Workers Compensation or similar laws. Now read that last sentence again.

COULD HAVE BEEN COVERED!? That is correct. Most self employed people. Even some small business owners do not carry Workers Comp on themselves. Most self employed people and even some small business owners do not carry Workers Comp on themselves.

There are designed insurance plans that will cover you on and off the job - 24-hours a day, if you are not required by law to have Workers Compensation coverage.

2. ARE YOU WRITING IT OFF?

Independent contractors (1099’s), home based business owners, professionals and other self employed people generally are not taking advantages of the tax laws available to them.

Many people who are paying 100% of their own costs are eligible to deduct their monthly insurance payments. Just that alone can reduce your net out-of-pocket costs of a proper plan by as much as 40%. Ask your accounting professional if you are eligible and/or check out the IRS website for more information.

3. INTERNAL LIMITS All true insurance plans use some form of internal controls to determine how much they will pay out for a particular procedure or service. There are two basic methods.

-Scheduled Benefits

Many plans, some of which are specifically marketed to self employed and independent people, have a clear schedule of what they will pay per doctor office visit, hospital stay, or even limits on what they will pay for testing per 24-hr. period. This structure is usually associated with “Indemnity Plans”. If you are presented with one of these plans, be sure to see the schedule of benefits, in writing. It is important that you understand these type of limits up front because once you reach them the company will not pay anything over that amount.

-Usual and Customary

“Usual and Customary” refers to the rate of pay out for a doctor office visit, procedure or hospital stay that is based on what the majority of physicians and facilities charge for that particular service in that particular geographical or comparable area. “Usual and Customary” charges represent the highest level of coverage on most major medical plans.

4.YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO SHOP!

If you are reading this you, are probably shopping for a health plan. Every day people shop, for everything from groceries to a new home. During the shopping process, generally, the value, price, personal needs and general marketplace gets evaluated by the buyer. With this in mind, it is very disconcerting that most people never ask what a test, procedure or even doctor visit will cost. In this ever-changing health insurance market, it will become increasingly important for these questions to be asked of our medical professionals. Asking price will help you get the most out of your plan. Reduce your out-of-pocket expenses.

5. NETWORKS AND DISCOUNTS

Almost all insurance plans and benefit programs work with medical networks to access discounted rates. In broad strokes, networks consist of medical professionals and facilities who agree, by contract, to charge discounted rates for services rendered. In many cases the network is one of the defining attributes of your program. Discounts can vary from 10% to 60% or more. Medical network discounts vary, but to ensure you minimize your out-of-pocket expenses, it is imperative that you preview the network’s list of physicians and facilities before committing. This is not only to ensure that your local doctors and hospitals are in the network, but also to see what your options would be if you were to need a specialist.

Ask your agent what network you are in, ask if it is local or national and then determine if it meets your own individual needs.

Looking to find the best deal on selling endowment policy, then visit my website to find the best advice on endownment policies for you.

Seeing A BWC Approved Doctor For Workers’ Comp Care

When you're injured in a fork-lift accident at your warehouse job or think you may have developed carpal-tunnel syndrome at your office job, your first move may be to go to the nearest emergency room or your doctor for diagnosis and treatment.

Fortunately, the Ohio workers’ compensation program allows this-but only for that initial visit.

After that, you must see a Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC)-certified physician for your treatment to be covered by workers’ comp. If you work for a self-insured employer such as UPS or Ohio State, your employer will decide regarding your eligibility and who you can see for treatment.

Finding a Certified Doctor

It's possible that your doctor is already BWC-certified-in which case, you won’t have to look further for a doctor to treat your work injury. However, if she's not and you continue to see her, you'll be responsible for all medical costs related to your work injury.

While your employer may suggest a doctor, you're under no obligation to visit that doctor. Instead, you can find a certified physician in your area by checking the provider look-up tool on the BWC’s website. As long as you receive workers’ comp benefits for the injury for which you're seeking treatment, medical costs related to your claim will be covered.

However, even for BWC-certified doctors, treatment has to be approved by your employer’s managed care organization (MCO) with employers who obtain workers' compensation through Ohio's state insurance fund or by your self-insured employer.

Getting Approval From Your MCO

If you're not already familiar with managed care organizations, understand how they work.

All employers who purchase workers’ comp insurance through a state fund must choose one of 13 MCOs recognized by the BWC to manage their workers’ compensation claims. The MCO oversees claim filing, and supervises medical treatment and employer return-to-work programs. Your employer’s MCO manages the medical portion of the claim, so additional medical procedures, treatments, and referrals from the treating physician have to be approved by the MCO.

If medications are prescribed, you have to inform the pharmacist that it's a workers’ comp claim and provide your BWC claim number. Any treatment or services you received before your workers’ comp claim is approved should be reimbursed after that approval. Note that some large Ohio employers are self-insured-this means they administer workers’ compensation claims directly, and your employer may manage the medical portion of your application.

Having Trouble? Call an Experienced Workers’ Comp Attorney

If you're like most of our clients, you may feel frustrated and hopeless when coverage for a needed medical procedure or prescription is denied. However, you may appeal any medical decisions made by your MCO, and you may work with an experienced workers’ comp attorney on your appeal.

If you feel like the BWC is saying you and your doctors are wrong, or even fraudulent, call me for a free review of your claim. I help many workers just like you overcome the challenges of the Ohio workers’ comp system, and I may assist you, too. We're never too busy to take your call or answer questions. Fill out the form on this page to connect with me today.

Myths About Arizona Workers' Compensation

Getting injured on the job is an unfortunate reality for many Arizona residents. And while you always hope it never happens to you, if it does-you need to know what steps to take. For situations such as these, Arizona Workers' Compensation lawyers exist to act as your guide. Here are a few myths that may keep you from obtaining the help you need. Don't let them!

Myth: It's just as easy to obtain Workers' Compensation on your own.

Fact: Not at all. When you go it alone, the odds are against you. You're just an individual. An injured worker. Why does anyone have to listen to you? As far as the opposing party is concerned, you have no clue what you're talking about and they have no reason to fear you. But when you get an Arizona Workers' Compensation attorney on your side, you level out the playing field.

Myth: Obtaining an Arizona Workers' Compensation attorney will cost you a fortune.

Fact: It's actually more affordable than you might think. First of all, you're going to get a free consultation. During this time, you'll get to sit down with the Arizona Workers' Compensation lawyer and discuss your case a bit. He'll tell you if you really have a fighting chance, and then you'll start planning. And at this point, you haven't paid one single penny!

Myth: If you've been denied Arizona Workers' Compensation, it's all over.

Fact: The right attorney can help you get benefits after you've been denied. He'll know exactly what steps to take to get you the benefits you need and deserve. So don't throw in the towel just because one door closed in your face. You need to keep knocking.

Myth: Arizona Workers' Compensation lawyers are too busy to deal with you themselves.

Fact: It depends on who you hire. When you find a really good lawyer, you'll receive the personal attention you deserve. But if you hire a prima donna lawyer with an overwhelming caseload, then you will get lost in the shuffle and have to deal with red tape, secretaries, and paralegals. You can get a good feel of what it's going to be like when you call a Arizona Workers' Compensation attorney for the free consultation.

Myth: Any lawyer will do. A lawyer's a lawyer, right?

Fact: In reality, you need an experienced lawyer who specializes in Arizona Workers' Compensation law. Only then will you have the best odds of being awarded benefits. Think about it. You wouldn't hire a dermatologist to do heart surgery, right? Sure they're doctors-but you need a heart specialist. Now, apply that logic to picking a suitable attorney. So no, a lawyer's not a lawyer in this case.

Myth: Time is on your side.

Fact: The sand is slipping quickly to the bottom of the hourglass. You need to move quickly. First you need to get to a doctor immediately. Get an official diagnosis from your own chosen physician. Then talk to an Arizona Workers' Compensation attorney fast. Present all the information surrounding your work related injury to them. Remember-leave nothing out. Tell them everything from beginning to end.

Arizona Workers' Compensation lawyers can help you if you've been hurt on the job. So find one immediately.

Rights Involved In Workers Compensation

It is hard to imagine your life being any different than it is today. Today you can walk, bend, grab things with both hands and jump up and down if you want. The problem comes when you walk into work one day able to function normally but then an accident at work happens and bam life is never the same again. Who helps pay the bills? What happens to your livelihood?

It is never easy to think about a future that is not perfect. However this happens more often than we like to think. If you are ever involved in an accident at work however minor report it. It is important not to dismiss anything this will make a later dispute much more difficult. Reporting the accident is the very first step in making sure that while you are disabled your bills can stay on track. In fact it is very important to give details to your employer. To the medical center that treats your accident. It is important that you give details about specifically when the accident happened, where it happened within the facility and how the injury happened. It is also important to document who was around at the time of the accident. If possible get written statements from anyone who was involved or saw the occurrence.

There are some important questions that everyone who is injured on the job need answers to. In dealing with workers compensation one of the first is when will I begin to receive checks? This varies but if all the paperwork has been filled out correctly, the claim is legitimate and has been processed correctly the checks should start coming within a few weeks of the accident. The insurance company will have to investigate and record a statement and get the preliminary medical details from the clinic.

Your checks will continue until you are able to go back to work making the same amount of money you were or the case is settled. If a case is denied you will not start receiving checks at all and should contact a lawyer. Basically if this is to happen then the insurance company is claiming they are not responsible to cover the medical bills or you. This is all very time sensitive in nature and is best handed over to an attorney who will correctly navigate through the workers compensation process.

Another thing people often worry about is if their job will still be available for them when they are finally able to return to work. Your employer is required to keep the position open for twelve weeks. This is thanks to the Family Medical Leave Act. After twelve weeks they do not have to hold the position any longer.

If an employee returns to work and is placed on restriction and then fired it is thought to be because of the injury. It is up to the employer to prove that the firing was not illegal. That there was reason that you be let go. This is almost impossible for them to do. In most cases the employer will lose.

Any and all medical treatment required because of the injury is covered under workers compensation. The same is true with any. All medication that may be needed. Many employers will have you see their doctors you must petition to see your own doctor or specialist. In case such as broken bones and serious injuries it is best to go outside the clinic recommended by the company. Your care is far more important at the time than who is going to pay for it. The main goal is to get back to one hundred percent as soon as possible.

Rely On A Suitable Federal Workers Comp Doctor

Workers compensation is a type of insurance policy that offers accident victims with wage replacement and medical welfares. This benefit however, is restricted to employees that are injured in the course of employment. Any accidents that occur beyond the scope of employment are not covered under this law. This regulation also renders the victim to get services from a facility that can start the necessary treatment without wasting any time. If you have been a victim of any accident caused during the course of employment, then you can select your work rehabilitation facility so as to restore back to your normal status. Choose a facility that can render you the best federal workers comp doctor, in order to render you maximum medical improvement. Your preferred facility should have a skilled interdisciplinary team that is highly trained, and which can provide you with flexible rehab hours.

Federal Employees Compensation Act, also termed as FECA, is a law that provides benefits to federal employees who have been victimized due to injuries related to work. This also includes certain occupational hazards and diseases, that occur, or which the worker has contracted in the course of employment. Being administered by the US Department of Labor, the victims’ right extends to the procuring of payment of medical expenses and compensation for wage loss. However, FECA does not include any retirement benefits, which is why it is pertinent to get in touch with the DOL specialists to get an insight on the precise benefits that one is entitled to. With continued treatment at a prominent facility from experienced federal workers comp doctor you would get a treatment plan that is specially tailored for you. Select a rehab center that follows a whole-person-approach, in treating its patients that are dealing with pain. A reputed rehab can render you a one point solution through their experienced and highly skilled physicians, rather than have you go around in search of medical relief.

Select a professional rehab center that has on its board, anesthesiologists and pain management specialists, who are certified to render their patients a customized treatment plan that is devoid of any significant side effects. With precision-centric medical therapy, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all concept. With a specialty rehab facility, you are sure to get your treatment done by a federal workers comp doctor, who is competent enough to combine procedures and medications to attain maximum medical success. Apart from rendering patients the most formidable treatment plan, a renowned rehab center will pay full-fledged attention in getting the patients claim accepted through proper documents, duly certified and attested by its in-house experts. As a victim of an employment accident, you will have case managers that can get all your paperwork processed in the minimal span of time.

A rehab facility of good repute is extremely particular about the doctors it hires. If you are getting treated by a federal workers comp doctor at a facility of good repute, then you are sure to be attended by a specialist from a top-notch medical school, with numerous honors to his credit. Choosing a professional rehab center can present you with the best medical opportunities for being restored back to normal. Reputed rehabs have the most appropriate pain medications as well as injections to treat their patients formidably. You could be administered by your federal workers comp doctor with the most appropriate physical therapy and medical massage alongside the choicest of epidural steroidal and joint injections. You could also be treated with trigger point injections for appropriate chronic pain management. Patients also get Diagnostic and therapeutic nerve block Facet injections along with medial branch blocks TENS Sacroiliac joint (SI) injections, from recognized Rehabs.

The laws of the Federal Employees Compensation Act can be complicated at times. A suitable federal doctor can help employees in navigating through the tough and perplexing rules contained in the act. A professional rehab will have a federal workers comp doctor, who can render victims of the accidents a personalized attention, so as to help them get their deserved claim without any hassles. A federal workers comp doctor will be far different from the generic doctors that treat patients. As such, doctors do not study the Federal Employees Compensation Act. However, a federal doctor will be well aware of the FECA and the legalities attached to it. A federal doctor will understand as to how the treatment administered to the patient will get him his claim.

A federal doctor is familiar with the Workers Compensation Programs along with the procedures therein. An opinion from a federal doctor can also act as a second opinion, if the circumstance arises. A statement from a federal doctor about a patient’s treatment and his condition can be attested to be used in procuring the patients claim, as and when needed. These doctors are not only concerned with the treatment, but also can provide you with all the documentation that you need. If you are a federal employee who has met with an accident during the course of employment, then a federal workers comp doctor can help you in procuring your medical care rights and also help you understand the health care choices. This can make a significant difference to the workers compensation claim that you need to procure.

When you have been assisted with a specialty rehab, you would get the most optimal treatment from a formidable federal workers comp doctor, who understands the loopholes that prevail in the FECA. In rendering you the treatment, your doctor would be conversant to segregate between a traumatic injury and an occupational disease. While a traumatic injury would relate to a strain or sprain caused by an external force, an occupational disease is a state that is caused due to the hazardous conditions prevalent within the work environment over a relatively long time frame. Such a time frame is far longer than just a working day or a shift. If you sustained a traumatic injury in the course of your employment, then it is pertinent that you choose a medical treatment rehab center that is recognized for successfully catering to several federal employees. Your preferred rehab center must be well equipped not only to treat you, but also to help you furnish to your supervisor a suitable medical evidence of any disability that has been caused during the course of employment. Your selection of a rehab center should ideally commence once you fill up the Form CA-16, so as to get the authorization from your supervisor for a treatment.