NHS leaves war hero to go blind

Ex-RAF flight engineer Dennis Devier, 84, is already blind in one eye and faces going blind in the other, because his local NHS trust has turned down funding for the drug that would save his sight.

Losing his sight fully will mean he can no longer care for his wife Frances, and they would have to be separated for the first time in 60 years - reports the Daily Express.

Mr Devier has been diagnosed with wet age-related macular degeneration, which can be treated with the drug Lucentis. He has already spent more than £8,000 on private treatment, but the high cost of care is draining his life savings.

Mr Devier said: "If I go blind, it will cost the taxpayer thousands more to look after us both - it's madness."

In his typically plain-speaking style, Mr Devier's local MP Boris Johnson hit the nail on the head when he said: "I find it utterly incredible that we are posing these alternatives to a man at his time of life - cough up, or say goodbye to your eyes."

This is a sad real-world story, no doubt repeated many times across the country, that those MPs intending to reward an audit-failing EU with an extra £2.5bn a year would do well to remember.

Especially if they imagine that boasting about 'record' sums the NHS has received is some kind of justification for approving the obvious waste of large sums on the EU.

Do they really believe the NHS is a 'mission accomplished' - that no more funds are required? This story, and many others, would indicate otherwise.

People like Mr Devier are those who pay a real price of such a lax attitude by some MPs to safeguarding scarce public funds. Those MPs are merely risking their jobs, when the time comes for them to explain such bad choices to local voters.