Tag Archives: National Health Service

News

NHS hospital director dies on surgery waiting list

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From Newsbusters.

Excerpt:

James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal editorial page caught this story about Britain’s National Health Service.

“A former NHS director died after waiting for nine months for an operation–at her own hospital,” London’s Daily Mail reports:

Margaret Hutchon, a former mayor, had been waiting since last June for a follow-up stomach operation at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex.

But her appointments to go under the knife were cancelled four times and she barely regained consciousness after finally having surgery.

Her devastated husband, Jim, is now demanding answers from Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust–the organisation where his wife had served as a non-executive member of the board of directors.

He said: “I don’t really know why she died. I did not get a reason from the hospital. We all want to know for closure. She got weaker and weaker as she waited and operations were put off.”

Dance with the devil, and you get burned.

Here is a recent post I wrote from the libertarian Cato Institute explaining why health care in the USA is superior to health care in socialist countries like the UK and Canada.

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Women gives birth after NHS nurses send her home from hospital

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From the UK Telegraph. (H/T Secondhand Smoke via ECM)

Excerpt:

It was a bitterly cold night in January when Geraldine Weller gave birth in the car park of a London hospital. Three hours earlier, the maternity unit had sent her away. Midwives who said they were short-staffed had confidently told her that it would be “ages yet” before she went into labour. They maintained that view even as her husband made frantic phone calls, reporting from their Surrey home that the baby’s head could now be seen.

In desperation, the couple ignored advice to stay put and drove back to the hospital. With her husband shouting into the security cameras of the maternity unit for help, Mrs Weller stepped from the passenger seat. As she did so, she gave birth to their first child, catching the newborn in one leg of her pyjamas.

She says: “We just huddled together. My husband came back and wrapped Henry in a bath towel, and finally one of the nurses came out and said: ‘What’s this?’ ”

[…]Last month, a survey of 25,000 women who had children in England last winter found that more than one in five was left alone during childbirth at a point when it worried them.

The rest of the article features eyewitness comments from midwives working within the system. Naturally, no real names were used because the NHS sanctions anyone who speaks out against their government-run health care system. The same kind of government-run health care that the Democrats want in this country.

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UK patients denied treatment as “public option” system makes cutbacks

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From the UK Telegraph. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Hundreds of thousands of NHS patients are being denied routine procedures as dozens of trusts cut back on surgery, scans and other treatments in order to save money, a Daily Telegraph investigation has found.

Trusts around the country are refusing to pay for operations ranging from hip replacements, to cataract removal and wisdom tooth extraction.

The health service is also tightening restrictions that prevent patients undergoing procedures for lifestyle reasons.

Smokers and obese patients are being denied operations until they change their habits and trusts are delaying surgery and non-emergency treatments, the Telegraph has found in the most comprehensive snapshot of NHS cuts yet.

The cuts – which include the cancelling of MRI scans and x-rays – are taking place in defiance of the Coalition.

Ministers are determined that front line services should be protected and the savings needed can be found from management costs and efficiencies.

But there is growing evidence that NHS managers are sacrificing patient care instead.

Doctors and nurses said the ‘grim’ results undermine the ‘myth’ that front line services are being protected and warned they were just the ‘tip of the iceberg’.

The situation is predicted to get worse as the NHS struggles to save £20bn over the next four years.

Although ministers have pledged to protect the health service budget and provide a real terms increase, it will not be sufficient to keep pace with growing demand and increasing costs.

In addition from April next year the amount of money hospitals receive for each type of treatment will be cut by 1.5 per cent raising fears that managers will refuse to provide treatments that they make a loss on.

As part of the investigation, The Telegraph had responses from almost one in three primary care trusts.

Cuts were uncovered in 20 out of the 145 primary care trusts in England. Fifteen PCTs have said they are not cutting services and 11 were still undecided.

[…]Dr Mark Porter, Chairman of the British Medical Association’s Consultants Committee, said: “Each of these examples undermines the myth that the NHS has been protected from the financial crisis. These are all services that patients value.

“They are by and large not being axed for clinical reasons, but as an inevitable consequence of the massive cost savings that have been imposed on the NHS.

“Despite the continuing claims of real terms increases for the NHS, the reality on the ground is very different. The scale of the financial challenge facing the service is such that this is likely to be the tip of the iceberg.

Making health care “free” for patients and preventing people and businesses from making a profit on providing health care leads to higher demand and lower supply. The net result is a shortage. It’s the law of economics.