An NHS boss terrified a hero Gurkha yesterday after banning him from heart treatment and claiming he owed THEM money.
Tul Bahadur Pun - who was awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery - went to the hospital's cardiology department for an urgent follow-up appointment.
But bosses demanded to see the frail 87-year-old's passport, said he would get no more NHS care and that he would get a bill for thousands of pounds for past treatment because he had "misled" them over his immigration status.
The once-proud veteran was close to tears in front of other patients as he was forced to leave West Middlesex Hospital in London.
Ironically, it was the same hospital that saved the war hero's life last August - since then he has been kept alive by heart drugs.Hospital Income Generation Manager Andy Finlay said Pun's passport and visa showed he had no right to NHS hospital treatment.
He argued that Pun had been issued with an indefinite leave to enter visa, not an indefinite leave to remain visa and therefore had no access to the NHS.
He also asked the war veteran - one of only 10 living VC holders: "Is that what VC means in his passport?" Pun was kicked out of the hospital on the anniversary of winning the VC in Burma on June 23, 1944.
Pun's lawyer, Kieran O'Rourke, said: "Mr Finlay then began to interrogate the old man, who does not speak English and had a friend acting as a non-professional interpreter. Finlay demanded to see Mr Pun's passport.
"He then made the serious allegation that the VC winner, had 'misled' the hospital previously in relation to his immigration status. Finlay told Mr Pun he would have to pay back the NHS. He was shocked and extremely upset."
Pun - who is also blind and almost deaf - was granted indefinite leave to enter Britain in June 2007 after a Daily Mirror campaign to get him to the UK for NHS medical help.
Last night Pun - who lives on just £135- a-week - said: "I could not sleep worrying about having to pay thousands of pounds for the treatment I have already had. I have not misled anyone, the British Government allow me to live here."
But last night the West Middlesex Hospital reversed its decision admitting they had "made a mistake".
A spokesman for the hospital said it had a policy that patients are questioned to see they are entitled to free treatment.
He added: "We apologise for any inconvenience caused."
**When can we start sacking the Andy Finlay's of this world, take his no doubt huge salary and spend that on some doctors, hell even some more cleaners in the NHS. I am sure that any of them would be worth a million Andy Finlay's and sadly under this worthless shower of shit that passes for government here in the UK, the NHS has been over run with thousands of Andy Finlay clones.
Soul less bean counters, administrators who's only role is shuffle paper between other bean counters and fill in government forms in order to justify their pointless existences.Mr Tul Bahadur Pun has now returned all of his medals to 10 Downing Street. I can but assume that the gutless, snivelling, bottler, the craven coward, the spineless wanker, the same spineless cunny who appointed the wanker Andy Finlay and squillions like him and who holds the office of PM hid under his desk until the nasty man had gone away.
I would like to hereby announce that Andy Finlay is not fit to polish Mr Pun's shoes, hell I bet the fucker would not be able to do that job properly as it does not involve bean counting. An ill educated twat of the first order - he had to ask what VC meant!?!!! The man should resign and kill himself forthwith and so improve the collective human intelligence.
15 people have spoken:
I am sickened by the comments that people have made against this man who was obviously doing his job, ok Mr Pun is a hero, but he could go from hero to zero if he is lying or only telling half the truth. Do you not think that it is all very convenient that Mr Pun goes to Downing Street the very day after he was "turned" away from the hospital - shameless publicity stunt? Don't you think that you have all been had?????????
Damn those sons of bitches. The poor fellow had to fight tooth and nail against these shameless scumbags to get what he laid his life down for. And sacks of stinking excrement like this are still giving him grief.
Polishing that hero's shoes and killing himself is too good for this piece of shit Fido. Put this piece of shit on an island somewhere and make him shovel shit from one end to the other for a few years. He might screw that up too, but hey, who cares.
Thanks for posting this, have spread the word.
Are you lot really that thick that you can't see through this whole farce??? This man (Pun) has pulled the wool over all your eyes but you still insist on tormenting a bloke for doing his job???? I think you should do some more research, not 2 mths ago Finlay was the nations hero for making people like this so called hero (yes he was but in my eyes he has thrown it back in all our faces)pay for there NHS treatment so the hard working people of this country wouldn't be paying for them to come over here and use it when it suits them!!!!!!!!! I think we will be the 1's shoveling shit.... and it will be shovels of apologises to Finlay.
You know when you think about what the above is saying, they did get to see someone in Downing Street a bit sharpish!!!!!! MMMMM publicity stunt does spring to mind.
Well spot the child abusing, train spotting, clown suit wearing labour voters with the anon comments.
Whats wrong upset that your candidate lost at Henley, lost against the BNP and just scraped past the monster raving looney party?
Still far easier to attack a VC winner, cunts the lot of you.
Mr Pun may well be doing his job most of the time, but every now and again a case comes along where it is morally wrong to expect the patient to fork up for their treatment. Anyone who has served Queen and country by putting their life, yes their life, on the line deserves the same country to show them compassion and assistance in their hour of need. Okay, so our hero tries to get some publicity for his case... you wouldn't see our bug eyed leader or his minions doing anything like that... would you?
Anonymous scumbags, I really can't believe how your twisted minds work. Get yourself signed up for a tour or two serving our country and then say fuck you to the war heroes. Cunts!
you are angry about what exactly?? The shameful way Mr Pun was treated at the hospital? Or the fact that there are 2000 old soldiers fighting to be let in the UK? (publicity stunt, by Howe & Co ambulance chasers or the Mirror, lefty paper that you all profess to hate.) Whatever you think of that Finlay bloke, he has a job to do like everyone else, even you. And he did it, he didnt make the rules and he followed orders, just liek you lot do. Whats the difference?? So what if he didnt know what VC meant, you do cos you are in that language all the time. Do you know what NHS abbreviations mean, or letters after doctors names?? Do you fuck, so shut the fuck up with your bleating and read the facts before you rant - you sad wankers. So when you kill someone in the line of duty as they are the enemy, do the people of the UK go on message boards and call you scum, no they dont. They support you, I just hope that one day you wont need the NHS to help you, you might find it lacks more than you think, especially if you could ever be identified from your ugly, sick, twisted rants.
You twats are not fit to walk the streets of the UK, so stay abroad and dont come back, we dont want sick, narrow-minded bigots like you.
Mr Pun was returning his medals in Downing Street anyway, as a protest over 2000 old soldiers. It had nothing to do with his visit to the hospital the previous day. I think this had detracted away from the real issue and his shameless publicity stunt has made finlay a pariah not the government & home office who wont let the 2000 in. The Govt are happy Finlay is taking your flak, bullets, bile and hatred because they are not. Lets hope that the charity commission do not find out about the way the 'advisers' of Mr Pun have manipulated the situation as its probably brings the whole constitution of their fighting fund into disrepute. They could be stripped of their charity number or worse not allowed to fundraise. Now I am sure that certainly wont help the 2000 men relying on them, do you?
OWN GOAL anyone??
If anyone should be ashamed of themselves its the Pun media machine for the most ill thought out publicity stunt ever.But what do you expect from a lawyer who is an ambulance chaser and a journalist advocate who works for the mirror!!
A few points:
1. Pun & co should be allowed to stay having taken up arms for this nation.
2. That tosser in the NHS is a twat plain & simple.
3. This government are cunts
4. The PM has shown through his inaction on this that he is unfit to hold off and a craven coward.
That is all.
1) I agree Mr Pun should be allowed to stay - the 1997 rule is wrong and probably unlawful, I am sure they could get it overturned in a Judicial Review. It wouldn't even cost them any money, as Mr Pun only lives on £135 per week, he would get legal aid to do so.
2) I still cant take your point he is a tosser why? how can you justify it?? - at worst he treated everyone exactly the same at best mistaken identity - its no crime to not recognise someone. Plus even if he did he would not have been allowed to show him any different treatment to that of everyone else, doing that and everyone else would have a good case for discrimination against him. So he is a twat for treating all people equal?? Your pig headedness beggars belief!! Plus I cant beleive you believe everything written in the papers, especially a shite rag like the Mirror, its a red top tabloid for fucks sake!!
3) The govt are cunts, as I dont see any of them defending Finlay do you??
4)I agree with that as well.
This shouldn't be taken as a personal attack on Finlay as I know the facts of the case go a lot deeper than this and Mr Pun's advisers are probably stretching the truth - by miles. Where I come from its called lying. And I am sure Finlay would have a very good case of libel against the Daily Mirror and all of these blog sites for the atrocious way he has been attacked. There are some people on other British Army blog sites who are actually advocating a shoot to kill policy - FFS, if they want to do that then they should fuck off to Zimbabwe, I hear that's how they get rid of people they dont like, as they are no better than them.
And before you start moaning about the anon labels, stop going for the easy, lame and lazy way of answering the criticism - oh shit yeah, I remember you read and believe what goes in the Mirror!!
with all due respect to Mr. Pun and his ordeal it is quite easy for an administrator to be unfamiliar with military abbreviations when his/her professional frame of reference relates to medical and procedural matters.
I'm sure Mr. Finlay is embarrassed by the whole affair and with hindsight would have treated Mr. Pun with the respect his service warranted.
People like Mr. Finlay are merely doing their job and from time to time suffer from administrative overload. he is certainly not responsible for the UK's failure to respect and look after their war veterans. The real issue seems to me to be the mans social welfare allowance - just £7,000/annum.
If he's that special surely he deserves more!
I like the Gurkha knife though.. Perhaps he should have brought it with him to 10 Downing St.
The knife is good, he could have done us all a favour and taken out Bottler Brown...
Having ILE or even ILR in your passport is in certain cases not enough to prove residency in the UK. To be fully entitled to receive free NHS treatment you have to be physically living in the UK, not just have the right to. This means that you have to fulfill the ordinarily resident criteria, i.e. you must be in the UK for any 9 months in 12. The DH lets you have holidays but they are set at 3 months a year. Whether the NHS rules are wrong is debatable, it is something which is out of power to the normal overseas manager in the NHS. The prevailing legislation and guidance on how to interpret that legislation must be followed.
Some persons remain out of the country for longer than the 3 months and in some cases relinquish their automatic right to free treatment (this is statutory), they have to prove again that they are living in the UK as the ordered part of their life. This is the point where they present their passport, it is not demanded in any way shape or form, it is offered as evidence for free treatment. This is normal and standard procedure across the NHS. It is up to the patient to prove they are entitled to receive free treatment, any NHS Trust can and should be carrying out further checks on persons who may or may not be ordinarily resident in the UK.
In order to treat every patient with dignity & respect it is common courtesy to inform persons of what might happen next, if after further checks they come back in the negative or positive this will be communicated to the patient. In fact research suggests that complaints in the NHS arise from persons who receive a lack of information not the other way around. Many persons gain their right to live in the UK but only take up this right when they require the services the UK has to offer. In order to have a statutory right to free NHS treatment then the NHS rules have to be complied with, not just the visa rules. An ILE or even an ILR visa grants a person the right to live in the UK, to enter freely until a specified end date but it does not give a specific right to free NHS treatment. Any person versed in the legal profession should also know this, but it is an inconvenient fact that has been overlooked in many cases.
Many problems in this field in the NHS are exasperated by the use on non-professional interpreters and advocates. Some advocates have an agenda that only becomes apparent after something else happens or a massive amount of publicity is required to publicise something else. Some non-professional interpreters only inform their recipient of what they want them to hear, not was actually said. This is a very very common problem, one that most overseas mangers would recognise as a hazard of working in this field. We are trained in decency, respect and we have to treat all persons we meet as equal, not to do so is unthinkable and professional misconduct, as discrimination in any format is not tolerated in this field and should not be either. Overseas Managers are acutely aware of their responsibilities in this field, and as a result are ultra polite and sensitive to the needs of the person they are interviewing. Some persons demand more respect than others, because of who they are or what they have done, unfortunately this is not possible to give, all persons an overseas manager sees are equal.
Your blog in particular whilst eloquent and well written in the main, actually the rest of it is quite a good read (it may pain you to know that we share quite a few similar tastes not only in music but literature) it has caused great distress to my family. You are welcome to your views but please refrain from using arsehole, twat etc. Your blog is popular and its influence spreads far and wide, way beyond the borders of Wales. So my arrseholeness (not a word, but if urban dictionary can get away with it then for then for this purpose it will suffice) has risen to heady heights. The DH guidance on ILE & ILR is not specific, we have notified all of our members to the error in the DH guidance, so this scenario may not ever happen again.
Bean counter?, fair enough, everyone's job has its nicknames, not everyone loves their job, not everyone knows what other people do - but at the end of the day its a job and its a job I do for a finite financed resource, funnily enough its a job that is not paid very well at all and you certainly couldn't afford to get rid of me and get a nurse, they would have to take a pay cut. The NHS serves 59 million people, it has its fair share of problems, but its limited resources must and need to be properly protected.
Incidentally, the reference to VC in the mirror article is probably only the virtually truthful account of what I said - I did say is that what VC means? as it was at the front of his name, not at the back or after the family name as is usual when one has letters or a medal recognition, if it had been after his family name I would not have uttered the words, but hey that would have been an inconvenient fact as well. So once again you are entitled to form an opinion based solely on the writings of the Mirror, or the Mail or even the Telegraph, (aside from the fact that the Downing Street visit was already planned and the medals were going to be returned anyway, irrespective of what the Mirror alleges happened the day before.) I hope the Ghurkhas attain their right to live in the UK, I think the 1997 deadline is unfair and probably unlawful. That's where the ire and vitriol should be poured not wasted upon me. The visit to the hospital achieved its aim, it gained massive publicity for the Downing Street visit, but to use a military terminology, it is one battle won with only minor collateral damage as they would see it, for me the damage has been massive a bit like a cluster bomb each part is still exploding even two weeks after the event. The war is that of the Ghurkhas plight to get the recognition they deserve. The war is that of getting the government to reverse its 1997 ruling by use of a judicial review. Your enemy is the government not some bloke who was only doing his job, who got stunted by a very clever daily newspaper.
I have not had the right of reply but I apologised to Mr Pun if he felt that I had treated him unsatisfactorily, this was done in writing and before the newspaper published its story, another inconvenient fact overlooked by everyone. I have morals, I have honour and I respect heroes, I treat every patient I see with dignity and respect but they are inconvenient facts that do not sell papers.
Andy Finlay
Yep an yr still an NHS beancounter, toodle pip ol mate.
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