Scan Magazine

By Signe Hansen

A private hospital may be the solution to many of your healthcare worries and if you are concerned that a private hospital’s economic approach to health may not be to your advantage there is a solution to this too. Owned by the religious order The Daughters of the Cross, St. Anthony’s Hospital in Surrey is one of the UK’s few remaining charitable hospitals in England.

Philip Cook, Marketing Manager at St. Anthony’s, explains: “The hospital has to work on a commercial basis, it charges fees. But there are no shareholders to pay and the profit that is not reinvested in new technology helps to support the nuns’ charitable activities such as St. Raphael’s Hospice which is completely free to all patients referred to it.”

Among the hospital’s newest purchases are two lasers for urology, one for treating patients with kidney stones and one for treating patients with an enlarged prostate. “The latter, the Greenlight laser, reduces the length of stay for patients from four nights to one with considerably fewer side effects,” says Cook.  Another recent development is a Foot & Ankle Unit. “Surgery on feet and ankles is an important sub-specialty in orthopaedics and St. Anthony’s is fortunate in having three specialist foot and ankle surgeons. They are supported in their practice by the excellent in-house physiotherapists and a visiting team of podiatrists.”

In total, St. Anthony’s has more than 250 consultants connected to the hospital and they can help with everything from weight reducing surgery to joint replacements. During the treatment all patients are installed in comfortable private rooms with their own bathroom, TV, internet connection and view of the garden. Both quality and comfort standards can be confirmed by thousands of Scandinavians who have been treated at St. Anthony’s through co-operation between the hospital and the Norwegian Heart and Lung Association in the 1980s. “We received about 350 heart patients each year for a period of ten years for cardiac work. They came here with their families, who also stayed at the hospital, so Scandinavians are well-known to us,” says Cook.

The hospital still specialises in cardiac work and is one of only a few private hospitals that have an intensive care unit, a great benefit not just for the hospital’s own patients. “We are currently in discussion with managers from all the local NHS hospitals about the possibility of making some of our critical care beds available to NHS patients if NHS beds are swamped with swine flu  admissions,” says Cook.

But of course the main benefit of the critical unit is that the hospital can undertake more complex surgery and if serious complications occur, the patient does not have to be transferred to an NHS unit. All in all, there can be no doubt that you and your health are in safe hands at St. Anthony’s Hospital.

For more details visit: www.stanthonys.org.uk