Posted on 10/28/2002 5:01:36 PM PST by Mark Felton
Patients are waiting up to three-and-a-half days in casualty departments before they are admitted or discharged, despite Government claims that waits of more than 24 hours have been eliminated, say doctors' leaders.
The British Medical Association yesterday said the Department of Health was deceiving taxpayers with "overly optimistic" results on waiting times. The findings in its BMA survey were "unacceptable".
Patients in one in five casualty departments were waiting more than a day and one in three reported waits of more than 12 hours, said the survey of 160 casualty consultants. The doctors represented 40 per cent of Britain's accident and emergency departments. The longest wait was 84 hours at an unnamed hospital.
The Department of Health claims nearly 80 per cent of patients in casualty are admitted or discharged within four hours. By December 2004, it says, all patients will be offered a bed within four hours.
But the report accused the Government of misleading the public. The findings showed that half the consultants questioned disputed the claims on discharge or admission within four hours .
John Heyworth, president of the British Association for Accident and Emergency Medicine, which helped run the survey, said the waits were unacceptable for patients and relatives . "The situation places intolerable pressures on medical and nursing staff."
Dr Liam Fox, shadow health secretary, said: "It shows, yet again, that the gap between ministers' rhetoric and the reality of today's NHS is huge."
The report, Waits and Measures: Improving Emergency Care for Today's Patients, cited severe shortage of beds and staff shortages as among the main reasons for the delays.
The health department said its figures were compiled by the Audit Commission in 2000.
Of course, their taxes are astronomical, and the only solution the officials will come up with will be to ask for more funding which translates into even higher taxes, but it will still be FREEEEEEE!!!!! And gosh darn it, health care is a RIGHT!!!
"Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor's fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he'll eat you last.
~Ronald Regan October 27, 1964~
Socialism Is Wonderful, I LOVE Socialism, Anyone who disagrees should be sent to the work camp, Socialism Is Wonderful, I watch CNN and listen to NPR all the time, I LOVE Socialism, I agree that I have NO right to privacy about my health care, Socialized medicine is God's gift to humanity, I agree that it is my moral duty to give ANY percentage of my income to pay for the health care of my fellow citizens while I myself, being self-employed, am denied health care - while US customs (under direction of the FDA) siezes my diabetes prescription that I mail-ordered in a last-ditch effort to avert my own death. My own death is the LEAST that I can offer in exchange for the great blessing of socialized health care.
I will vote for any democrat who.... etc....etc.....
God help us all.
We can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients.
We can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients.
That very sentence should burn in real good with everyone because you can substitute the word "doctors" with just about any open-to-the-public function and the word "patients" with the word "citizens" and any such variation will be true.
~Ronald Regan October 27, 1964~
Damn! Bush is good but Ronny-Ray-Gun was OUTSTANDING....
Thats just it. G*D will not help commies.
Remember the little ditty? The good Lord helps those that help themselves?
Even G*D doesn't like commies... that's GOTTA be rough!
And you have hit upon another pertinent point.
Liberals have raised government to the level of Deity.
You may NOT pray to a Christian God, but you MUST worship the almighty government.
God help us all.
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