Posted on 07/07/2013 7:01:55 AM PDT by Innovative
Britain's National Health Service (NHS) turns 65 years old this week.
Despite its much heralded presence in Britain’s health care, the problems of the NHS are severe, notorious, and increasingly scandalous in the most fundamental attributes of any health care system: access and quality.
Waits for care are shocking in the NHS, frequently exposed by British media reports, and long proven by facts, yet they go virtually unreported in the U.S. For instance, in 2010, about one-third of England’s NHS patients deemed ill enough by their GP waited more than one additional month for a specialist appointment. In 2008-2009, the average wait for CABG (coronary artery bypass) in the UK was 57 days. And the impact of this delayed access was obvious.
Access to medical care is so poor in the NHS that the government was compelled to issue England’s 2010 “NHS Constitution” in which it was declared that no patient should wait beyond 18 weeks for treatment – four months – after GP referral.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
My daughter too. She was on a school field trip in Northern California and called me complaining of severe cramping. The chaperones thought it was “female cramps” and sent her back to the hotel to lie down. She called a few hours later and I told her to have her teacher take her to the hospital immediately (which she did, Thank God).
A few hours later, I got a call from a surgeon saying my daughter needed immediate emergency surgery for appendicitis; the surgeon told me later the appendix was minutes from bursting which is a life-threatening situation. It took her long enough to recover as it was without a burst appendix.
All turned out well —I was not able to arrive until after the surgery was over as I was 9 hours away. I met with the surgeon, head nurse and anesthesiologist who filled me in on the details.
With obamacare, all bets are off. My daughter might have died waiting for a surgeon...
I worked in the NHS for 1 1/2 years in the 80’s. My assessment is: it is a great system as long as you don’t get sick.
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BTTT!
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