Tag Archives: Socialized Medicine

News

Canadian woman has miscarriage after 3 hour wait in ER

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From the Prince Edward Island Guardian. (H/T The Way The Ball Bounces)

Excerpt:

Losing her first baby was devastating enough but having to do it in a crowded waiting room is what angered Christine Handrahan the most.

The 29-year-old Peakes woman was nine weeks pregnant when on July 12 she started bleeding.

Fearing the worst, Handrahan and her husband, Michael, headed to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital’s new emergency room.

There she waited more than three hours, blood seeping out of her jeans, tears rolling down her face as she feared she was losing her baby — or that she might be bleeding to death.

Still, she waited and waited.

More than three hours passed before Michael had enough.

Only one patient had gone through the big glass doors to see a doctor so he knew the wait was going to be extensive.

Michael helped his wife out of a wheelchair into his truck and they made the 45-minute drive to Prince County Hospital in Summerside. There she was immediately rushed into the hospital’s emergency room where the mother-to-be was told that she had a miscarriage.

[…]Handrahan says nobody at the hospital showed her any compassion.

“They could have given me a room to go in. Not necessarily a room with a bed. Even if it had been their TV room, or their lunchroom, or their closet. That waiting room was jam packed full of people.

“Somebody should have cared enough to say ‘Oh my goodness, you’re going through a miscarriage, do you need some quiet time?’ I was fighting my tears. I wanted a place to go cry.”

[…]Health Minister Carolyn Bertram maintains safety is not being compromised at the Charlottetown hospital.

Click through all 3 pages, until you have supped full with horrors, as the Thane of Glamis would say. And don’t worry, the socialist executive director apologized – although she would not say that the miscarriage was inappropriate. So we’re all good, right? Well, the bureaucrat is good – because she already got paid through your taxes. And no, you can’t have your money back. And good luck suing the government, too. They’ll use more of your tax money to overpay their defense lawyers.

But if you need an abortion or a sex change? No problem – then it’s free courtesy of Canadian taxpayers.

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News

MUST-READ: New study on public health care in South Africa

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Story from the SA Times Live. (H/T Mary)

Excerpt:

A damning report, the “South African Child Gauge for 2009/2010”, released by the University of Cape Town’s Children’s Institute, blames the crumbling public health system for much of our children’s woes.

South Africa holds the dishonorable distinction of being one of only 12 countries – including war-torn Afghanistan – to have failed to reduce child mortality since 1990.

It ranks in the company of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi.

South African child deaths have risen from 56 deaths per 1000 births in 1990 to 67 deaths per 1000 births in 2008, according to Unicef.

This is despite South Africa’s high GDP and the billions of rands pumped into providing public health services.

Just imagine that it was your child. Or a the child of someone you care about.

When will things get bad enough for people to try something different? How about trying consumer choice and competition? How about consumer-driven health care?

News

How well is government-run health care working out in the UK?

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Story here from the UK Telegraph. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has uncovered widespread cuts planned across the NHS, many of which have already been agreed by senior health service officials. They include:

  • Restrictions on some of the most basic and common operations, including hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery and orthodontic procedures.
  • Plans to cut hundreds of thousands of pounds from budgets for the terminally ill, with dying cancer patients to be told to manage their own symptoms if their condition worsens at evenings or weekends.
  • The closure of nursing homes for the elderly.
  • A reduction in acute hospital beds, including those for the mentally ill, with targets to discourage GPs from sending patients to hospitals and reduce the number of people using accident and emergency departments.
  • Tighter rationing of NHS funding for IVF treatment, and for surgery for obesity.
  • Thousands of job losses at NHS hospitals, including 500 staff to go at a trust where cancer patients recently suffered delays in diagnosis and treatment because of staff shortages.
  • Cost-cutting programmes in paediatric and maternity services, care of the elderly and services that provide respite breaks to long-term carers.

Death panels! Sarah Palin was right!

In other news, Amazon.com will be charging the credit cards of each American taxpayer for 10% of their gross income! And they’ll use that money to start handing out products to anyone they feel “needs” those products,  especially to “marginalized” special interest groups, and other whiny victims. Ha! Just kidding. Maybe Amazon.com should be in charge of health care.