My daughter was born with duplex kidneys which not all that uncommon; however, she had the worst form of it possible. Of the four kidney's she effectively had, only one was working, another running at 10%, and the two others completely dead. She also had duplicated ureter's. What was the result? Within a week of being born she had her first bout of sepsis, which I probably don't have to state is about as serious as it gets for anyone, let alone a newborn.
Over the following year she wasn't at home for more than a few weeks, and was constantly getting life-threatening UTI's and sepsis. Her second year was marginally better - she underwent major surgery to remove the two dead parts of each kidney, totalling around 20 hours of major surgery over two instances. She had to put up with armies of nurses forcefully pinning her down every couple of hours, day in and day out, for all the various tests that needed to be done (she now struggles to be in a room with anyone in a doctor or nurses outfit). She's been in ICU. She's still on 5 different medications three times a day... some of those only normally prescribed to adults.
She's now three years old and hasn't had a UTI that we have detected in bang on a year. She is still under the care of several different specialists at two different hospitals, and has regular appointments to check progress. We also have direct access to the wards on one of the hospitals - there is no waiting around a local GP for a cold... straight into hospital and onto heavy duty antibiotics (many UTI's have similar symptoms to the common cold).
Whilst it may feel shambolic at times, the doctors and nurses in it have kept my daughter alive. No ifs, no buts... she would not be here. No amount of taxes I ever pay that go towards the upkeep of the NHS will ever come close to repaying what those wonderful folk have done.
Having been part of something like this, it has also given an insight into how overworked and understaffed the front line is. Nurse salaries should be doubled on the spot - it's a criminally underpaid sector. The doctors live and breathe their work. On more than one occasion our daughters surgeon travelled back to hospital in his own time, once at 11pm at night specifically to check in on my daughter. On the occasion where he did turn up late one night, he looked utterly destroyed and genuinely as upset/ concerned as we were.
If we were living in America, my daughter would be dead. It's that simple. Some of the regular procedures and tests she has had/needs would cost tens of thousands outside of the NHS. She's almost certainly had something in the region of £500k - 1m in care so far. The NHS is doing the best it can with the painfully inadequate resources successive governments have given it. It is literally performing miracles on a daily basis.
