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How much is a life worth - Old man pays for operation with fake cheque
dunkman
Posts: 19,646
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/5234656.stm
what a way to beat the system
he could have waited 9 months and possibly have died (doctors warned him that he could have a serious heart-attack at any time) during that wait but he chose to write a cheque he knew would bounce!!
for £6500 he saved his own life.... would you have done the same?
what a way to beat the system
he could have waited 9 months and possibly have died (doctors warned him that he could have a serious heart-attack at any time) during that wait but he chose to write a cheque he knew would bounce!!
for £6500 he saved his own life.... would you have done the same?
A penniless pensioner from west London paid for a life-saving heart operation with a fake cheque.
Retired painter and decorator Roy Thayers was facing a nine-month wait on the NHS to get an angioplasty.
Instead, the 77-year-old wrote out a cheque for almost £9,000 for a private operation at Hammersmith Hospital - despite only having £10 in the bank.
He is now paying back the remaining amount of £6,481 in £25 instalments. He will be 99 by the time it is repaid.
Severe pain!!!
The pensioner suffered from terrible pain for more years "than I can remember."
He added: "It was like putting a knife inside my ribs and twisting it all up. I couldn't move my legs and had to sit down after a few steps until the pain went. Truly terrible."
Doctors told the father of two he risked a fatal heart attack at any time. Then he was told there was a nine-month wait.
He was left with the choice of either waiting out the nine months and risk having a fatal heart attack or writing out a "Mickey Mouse cheque" and going private.
The decision was easy.
"The idea came on the spur of the moment. I love life, I love my dogs, I love fishing - why should I die for the sake of money?"
"I wasn't going to worry about the law until it came to me," he said. "I paid into the NHS for years to look after me but now the doctors were telling me they wouldn't so who's robbing who?"
Bailiff threat !!!
He wrote out a cheque on the day of the operation in December 2003. It was only days afterwards that the hospital realised what had happened.
The NHS threatened to send bailiffs to his address to recover the money. All sides however finally agreed on a payment plan of £25 a month.
A spokeswoman for Hammersmith Hospital NHS Trust said Mr Thayers' health was of the utmost importance and insist he would have been seen on the NHS earlier if his condition was thought to be urgent. Married twice, his first wife died of cancer 40 years ago. After divorcing his second wife and becoming estranged from his two children who live in Bournemouth, he now lives alone. But the pensioner has no regrets. Happy to be alive, he spends his days watching old black & white westerns in-between looking after his two Jack Russells and his canaries.
"I did nothing wrong," he insisted. "I took back what was rightfully mine. I've been paying into the national health all my life, it's about time I got some payback. I did the right thing - I did what any man would do."
oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.
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This was indeed so nice to read - Why he should have even had to bounce a cheque to get the required surgery in a country that supposedly has a national health system is beyond my understanding - surely those people who have paid taxes their whole lives ( and even if they haven't) should be entitled to the appropriate health care required.
While the government are consumed by military spending to kill internationals and their own soldiers people are dying daily because of a lack of services within the NHS.
I only wish i could stop paying my taxes and hand them directly to the services I deem as valid -
god knows why he has to wait 7 months for a life-saving operation, and he had paid his taxes all his life!! he could have died whilst waiting... i would have thought that a priority case!
nice wee story i thought... just heard him and his story on the radio and posted this article... he couldnt give a fucking toss about the money as he just keeps saying to himself "I love life and i'm still alive"... the op increased his life expectancy by 10-15 years
i would have done the same