I had one of my patients with prostate cancer break down in tears in the clinic the other day. He had an aggressive prostate cancer, which was expertly dealt with by one of my colleagues with radical prostatectomy.
While he has no problems with his urinary function and is passing urine much better than he did before the surgery, and while he is happy with his completely undetectable PSA, he has erectile dysfunction, which has failed to respond to simple therapy. He is using injection therapy, which involves putting a needle in the penis 20 minutes before he wishes to make love to his wife, but he would like to move forward to a penile prosthesis, which is a single operation that will fix the problem long term.
Unfortunately, his medical insurers will not pay for a penny of the management of his erectile dysfunction, even though that is directly due to treatment of his cancer. He was asking me why his wife, who has been treated for breast cancer, was fully funded for complex reconstructive surgery, when he cannot get a penny of his long-term medical insurance to pay for this.
I had no answers.
The idea that erection and sexual function is not an integral part of a man’s life or a factor in his rehabilitation and recovery following cancer surgery is alien to me.
Nonetheless, the majority of private medical insurers in the UK will not be involved in this even though NHS patients do have treatment covered by the NHS. It must be said that NHS coverage is somewhat patchy and geographical, but it is certainly much better than the private insurers.
This seems cruel to me, but I am not an insurance person, and I was unable to give him any reassurance other than to ask his GP to refer him to the NHS and I hope he will be able to get some satisfaction there.