Award-winning film-maker David Wilkinson discovered very recently that he had stage 4 bowel cancer. He has been sharing his experience on Facebook with his friends and admirers, of whom there are very many, including the team here at WCV. We asked if we could publish this post. We believe it’s especially important as we approach July 4, with so much at stake on so many fronts for every generation, but particularly the young and the vulnerable.
I cried today in the hospital.
I did not cry for me.
Dame Deborah James, at 36, said she should not have stage 4 bowel cancer. “It’s a disease for 69-year-old men”.
I am in my 69th year.
I cried when I saw who else was having treatment with me.
One man in his 40s with stage 4 bowel cancer has young children. His wife is a senior medical professional. He had no symptoms.
HE HAD NO FUCKING SYMPTOMS.
There was a man near me. His wife was pregnant. I do not know what his cancer is, but whatever it is, he was too young. He looked 30s.
I know third hand of a woman in her late 30s with stage 4 bowel cancer with young children. When the nurse filled out her form to claim money she badly needed to pay her bills, she wrote on the form, “less than a year to live.”
1 in 2 people will get cancer in the future. It’s almost upon us now.
In Germany and France, they are so on it. Their hospital treatments and facilities are so far advanced because they believe in investing in their health services.
Where the fuck is that £350 million per week those scheming corrupt liars promised?
Where?
Why is no one NO ONE on the political hustings talking about it?
As so many countries have said about us in the past “The British so many times act against their own best interest”.
For 14 years, real-time investment in the NHS has gone down. Look at the government’s own figures. Don’t take my word for it. The last time there was real investment was under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
I hope all of you who vote Conservative next month don’t ever need any medical assistance from the state.
Depending on my health, I know what my next film will be.
I am going to help change the law regarding younger people and their health. They are the future, and they are being poorly treated.
Some facts and stats:
‘Decades behind and failing patients, UK cancer care is stuck in the noughties’ Macmillan’s devastating analysis of cancer survival rates which put the UK as much as 25 years behind other European countries.
The King’s Fund report on avoidable deaths – 1 in 5 avoidable in latest figures for 2022
There was a noticeable change in funding policy from 2010 onwards. Before then, as with other countries, the UK had been spending a gradually increasing percentage of GDP on healthcare; since 2010 it has been a gradually decreasing percentage, and spending in the UK is now below almost all other advanced economies [as a percentage of GDP and per capita].
