Some Caymanians could get free access to NHS in UK
(CNS): A very limited number of Caymanian patients could soon have free access to National Health Service hospitals and other health services in the UK after Britain and its territories reached a new deal at the recent Joint Ministerial Council in London. Currently, only the people of the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar have unlimited access to the NHS, while those in the Turks and Caicos Islands, Anguilla, St Helena, the British Virgin Islands and Montserrat gain access via a limited quota system.
According to the communique released following the meeting, Ascension Island, Bermuda, Tristan da Cunha as well as Cayman will now be able to refer cases to the UK for free NHS treatment under a revised, though still limited, system. Reforms will enable greater flexibility and wider access to the services and include the additional four territories.
The British government has also agreed to regularly review the reforms to ensure they meet individual territory needs, such as mental health support, an area where Cayman provides very limited care and may seek to take advantage of the new agreement.
Previously, territories with access to the system were allowed to send a very small number of patients per year to NHS hospitals across the UK, but they have been requesting an increase to the quota. It is understood that once the details are finalised, each territory will be able to refer around a dozen patients annually. Territories that don’t fill their quota will be able to offer unused hospital beds to another territory that needs them.
So far, the Cayman Islands Government has not commented on the new access. CNS has contacted the health ministry, and we are awaiting a response.
- Fascinated
- Happy
- Sad
- Angry
- Bored
- Afraid
Category: Health, Medical Health
To 3.12 Sort of. They were given this access based on the immigration status of their citizens. Under the British Nationality Act 198 their citizens became British Citizens Overseas mainly because they were mostly of British descent. By comparison Caymanians became British Overseas Territory Citizens.
Ha ha, Really? I have generational British friends in the UK who depend on NHS. One friend has been waiting 6 years for a knee replacement. He can’t live upstairs anymore and has to crawl around his ground floor.
He was a dedicated river tug captain for his career but can’t get a new knee!!
NHS? Hmmm, as far as I know that system is a mess! Thanks for the offer though, Mother!
Yes, the timing is notable.
Per the civics brochure, if you’re already Caymanian, you can also be Natiralised as a full UK Citizen, and then help yourself to NHS, Military training and service, and much more.
Ironically as Brits living in Cayman we are not entitled to use the NHS even if we’re still UK taxpayers! Not that you could pay me to use the NHS but still, it’s taking the p*** really and will badly back fire on Cayman if it gets in the UK popular press.
Its a disgrace. Yes we still pay UK tax and National Insurance, but if we return back to the UK for a vacation and get sick or injured we have to pay for the NHS treatment.
Hope they got plenty time to wait
In the uk all persons working contribute to national insurance, this goes towards health care also. Why oh why Cayman doesn’t introduce say a 100 ci per month from everyones wages ( depending on scale obviously it could be altered) this would stop a massive headache for cayman don’t u think?
We already pay that.
We do..?
This we doesn’t,!
What a stupid stupid comment 3.12.
Did Britain provide us with free Covid Vaccines , and said only whites people were entitled to it.?
A dozen patients a year? Seriously, what was the point.
Be grateful they are taking any. We don’t pay anything into the NHS. We only benefit from this. There is no pleasing some people.. Honestly!
Grateful if they save a dozen lives for sure. Their health system is overwhelmed so this is an international kindness. Much appreciated.
Still nobody is thinking, talking, or doing anything about DISEASE prevention. nobody!
Do you think it is normal for a woman in her 30s to have pancreatic cancer when most pancreatic cancers are diagnosed after age 65?
What it is with the Cayman environment? Is it The Dump? Mosquitoes control chemicals? Pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides etc.? Food that is nuked and irradiated before it hits the shelves?
She is a cashier. Occupational hazard? Thermal receipt paper exposes people to BPA, particularly those who handle lots of receipts. Studies show that cashiers have higher levels of BPA in their bodies than people in other occupations.
Why there are NO STUDIES that look into the causes of high rate of cancers in the Cayman Islands??????
Why focus is only on the disease management, not prevention?
In the meantime, back in the real world, thank you Britain .
In the real world young Caymanians are getting aggressive incurable cancers.
Compass, few days ago, an appeal to help. As real as it gets.
It is indeed a tragedy to get pancreatic cancer at any age, let alone when one is in her late 30s.
And it is true that rates of deadly cancers in the Cayman Islands is through the roof. My roommate, 48, had and aggressive brain tumor that killed her in few months. Since she was initially treated and died in the US, there is no record about her case in Cayman cancer statistics, if such exists. She worked in the office.
CIG must declare public health emergency and start an extensive study of possible environmental factors inducing cancers in humans in the Cayman Islands. IT IS WAY PAST DUE.
As for the thermal paper, many are not even aware of the risks.
Studies have found that individual thermal receipts can contain BPA that is 250 to 1,000 times greater than the amount in a can of food. Testing thermal paper samples from 18 hospitality businesses in Minnesota found that half of them contained BPA at levels ranging from 54–79 micrograms per square centimeter of paper.
Yet, regulatory agencies have largely dismissed thermal paper as a major source of BPA exposure.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5453537/
Receipts expose retail workers, consumers to ‘worrying’ levels of cancer-linked chemicals: study.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/receipts-expose-retail-workers-consumers-to-worrying-levels-of-cancer-linked-chemicals-study-1.4287995?cache=yes%3FautoPlay
If I were her, I’d test for BPA, if through the roof, I’d sue the employer. Occupational hazard is a foreign concept in Cayman. Her employer had a duty to know about BPA contamination risk from handling thermal paper receipts. She was pregnant, so it is even worse. Protecting a pregnant woman from health hazards goes without saying.
Did Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands have access because their populations are mostly white..?
Why does it always have to come down to R-A-C-E? It’s getting quite tiresome.
4.25 In this case blame it on the British Nationality act 1981 which gave different types of citizenship based on ethnicity… Falklands and Gibraltar were populated mostly by white British persons .
What a stupid comment. Race-baiting is a sign of a low IQ
How to show everyone you are a racist.
God forbit there was a healthy debate within including race to divide it.
This makes absolutely no sense. Firstly, Cayman doesn’t pay tax, and I’m sure British citizens on the mainland don’t want to pay for our healthcare 7,000 miles away, secondly, if the NHS did want to set up shop here, our private healthcare companies (and I’m sure some MPs) would retaliate fiercely.
Fair question.
To 3.12 Sort of. They were given this access based on the immigration status of their citizens. Under the British Nationality Act 198 their citizens became British Citizens Overseas mainly because they were mostly of British descent. By comparison Caymanians became British Overseas Territory Citizens.
31 @ 2:21 am – Exactly what we should have done in 2003 and since – with persons of Caymanian descent from Bay Islands, Isle of Pines, Central America and US Gulf Coast, as opposed to flooding our island and culture with Jamaicans!
There, I said it again!!
You know there is no answer to this question. The only reason, you ask is to stir up racism and hatred. Did you stop to think that it might just be about healthcare?
More likely because the UK went to war over them.
– Gilbralter – figuratively speaking, but a hundred (or whatever) years of fighting in and out of the Mediterranean, with Gibraltar as a key strategic base, means the UK wants to do what they can to keep Gibraltar on-side. (I’m surprised Spain doesn’t offer them health care as well, plus a glass of wine when you leave the hospital.)
– Falklands – The Falklands War with Argentina (1982) means that the UK wants to show however they can that the Falklands are part of Great Britain and that the Islas Malvinas are not part of Argentina.
So as someone else said the various territories wound up under a variety of different categories with different benefits for a variety of weird historical reasons. For Gibraltar & Falklands I’d say war is a major one.
(You may suggest that just inserts a layer of explanation before your question and then ask if the UK would go to war over other territories, for whatever reasons for and against you wish to posit, but that’s an unanswerable question. As another commentor also already pointed out.)