12/29/2008

Horror story on waiting for medical care in Britain

Annecdotal stories are not very useful, but it is hard for me to believe that anyone can think that the average level of care is better in the UK or Canada or other countries, particularly for anything serious, as it is in the US. Here is a story that I saw today in the UK Daily Mail:

A father-of-two died after a six-hour wait to be seen at an A&E department - despite having a note from his GP saying he must be treated immediately.

Stewart Fleming, 37, turned up at his local casualty unit with wife Sarah clutching a note from his doctor saying he must be seen 'straight away'.

But instead of being sent to the head of the queue, Mr Fleming had to sit and wait in agony as his organs collapsed as a virus ravaged his body. . . .

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2 Comments:

Blogger juandos said...

"it is hard for me to believe that anyone can think that the average level of care is better in the UK or Canada"...

Hmmm, for those who think nationalized health care is the way to go, may I suggest they spend a few hours at their nearest VA hospital and get an eye opening view of the real world...

12/30/2008 7:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The anecdotal evidence might not be all that useful, but it certainly paints a terrible picture of what socialized medicine is really like.

Most of it is not even published, but the standard of care is certainly much worse that in a private hospital for example. In Britain for example if they won't pay for your drugs and you choose to pay for them yourself, they literally cut you off from the system. So in effect they prefer you to just die off than pay your own way.

1/03/2009 8:41 AM  

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