National Health Service..

[arthra]

I'd be curious to know what the experiences have been of those who have used a National Health Service as they have in some countries like Canada, Britain, France or Scandinavia..

- Art

[Snoopy]

Originally Posted by arthra

I'd be curious to know what the experiences have been of those who have used a National Health Service as they have in some countries like Canada, Britain, France or Scandinavia..

- Art

Single best thing a British government has ever come up with.

Experiences? I get ill, I go to the doctor...

s.

[Francis king]

a blind leviathan, its blood sucked by parasites with Ph.D's... a filthy monster, with debatable curative powers...

if I am ill I will go to the garden of my mother and select herbs she created for me to sample... if it is more serious than that I will pray, and hopefully, live. If I die, then well, so what? I won't mind- I'll be dead, won't I?

in the UK there is a two-tier system in operation. The poor get inferior services and patronisation with their medicine, the less-poor are told to look after themselves more and be less of a burden on the state. I was training to be a nurse, and left because the system and its sycophants were an intolerable cruelty unjustified by the meagre income it generated for me.

The major issue in the NHS is wastage and lack of investment. Because we are all in hock to the pharmaceutical giants we often have no option but to pay more for a drug in the UK than somebody in, say, argentina would for the same drug, often made in the same factory.

Of course, the obvious answer would be to source the drug from argentina ourselves, but we are not "allowed" to do this. That means we pay 1.50 for 4 paracetamol, when I can go to any shop on the local high street and buy 12 for half that price.

We will pay for a man to have his penis chopped off because he wants to be a woman, but if you are on welfare benefits and have motor neurone disease you won't get the drugs that will prolong your life, like Stephen Hawkins does... oh no... the system thinks extending your worthless life is a waste of resources, yet if you are a skinny seventeen year old with no breasts you can get silicone bags inserted in them, to benefit you psychologically, while a man with schizophrenia cannot access any psychological therapies except medication even while in hospital...

we will give powerful cancer drugs to young men to cure them of psoriasis, but we cannot get those same drugs to a man who has liver cancer in newcastle because his Local Health Authority has decided not to fund it... it's a joke...

we treat consultants like Gods- they earn upwards of 60K a year, and are on the wards for maybe an hour a day- the rest of the time they write books and attend conferences and eat free lunches paid for by drugs reps... nurses take lots of time off, and we pay agencies exorbitant costs to provide cover, when if we looked after our nurses in the first place they wouldn't need so much time off, supposedly "sick"...

Bevan's idea wasn't a good one- to provide free healthcare to everyone for every minor ailment in existence is unworkable...

but hey, they had to do something after the war, didn't they, they had to give the people who had been bombed and who had donated all their pots and pans to the war effort something...

of course, accessing healthcare should not be the sole privilege of the elite, moneyed crowd, yet I feel people should take more responsibility for their health too- why go to the GP surgery for them to look at stupid, minor ailments that could be dealt with yourself by visiting your local pharmacy. Oh doctor, I have verrucas. Oh doctor, I have thrush. Oh doctor, I work two jobs and have no quality of life and feel tired all the time. Do I have cancer?

As for the health service being free... in england we still pay prescription charges. Each prescription costs £7. How free is that? We pay taxes, yet are then shown adverts on TV begging us for money to pay for equipment for a childrens hospital. What, you want us to pay twice, sorry, including prescription charges, three times, for something which is supposedly free..? mmm....

we are fooled into thinking medicine and science can cure all our ills when it cannot. We make demands on the service which it was not designed to cope with. Bevan did not know about transgender issues, or infertility treatments, or how many cancers we could cure if only we had enough money... the system wasn't designed to spend millions of pounds on TV advertsing campaigns to stop syphillis. It was designed to improve the health of the nation.

It isn't working.

[nativeastral]

l completely agree with Francis' take on the NHS; beaurocracy and fatcat tactics has ruined what should be a good service. like most countries one has to wait too long at the emergency department when things like cuts etc should be attended to immediately since g#d knows whats hanging around hospitals nowadays with MRSA endemic in some places; in fact l discharged myself immediately after giving birth to my first child.

My local doctor spends more time looking at his computer than me and runs around in the best 4x4 and lives in the best house earning 90,000 for 'managing' the doctors practise- they have made large mistakes in diagnosis [eg giving my daughter antibiotics when having the signs of glandular fever].

Personally all NHS surgeries should have massage therapists to alleviate bad backs etc, hypnotherapy etc should be available for stopping smoking, anxiety etc- but no they are 'strapped' for cash, are territorial of their own power, not open to other therapies that have been proven to work and relying on the drug industry since that is part of the whole financial shebang scam.

Disgusting. My hope would be that the National lottery should be sequestrated to fund the NHS more, it would certainly make me put some numbers on!

BTW here the denistry is even worse, all dentists are being privatised so even though children are being seen to their [poor] parents are less likely to make appointments if they have been unable to get an NHS dentist.

[Tao_Equus]

While I cannot disagree with the two posts above they only portray the negatives. And that is an easy thing to do when you have grown used to taking it for granted.

Pensioners and the unwaged get free medicines and while you two may be fit and healthy and the ailments that you have succumbed to have been relatively minor some medicines,often very expensive, are available to everybody when needed.
Waiting lists may be long but my fathers unexpected emergency heart surgery was free and immediate. And for the less urgent surgery you may have to wait but the quality of the surgery is excellent. The rise in superbugs have increasingly become a problem globally though I do concede that Thatchers privatisation of the cleaning, (much of it taken up by her husbands company "Initial"),has made it worse here than in most countries.
Care for the elderly is also excellent and, despite the widespread shortcomings linked not to the NHS but its private 'partners' (as in last weeks Panorama program), allows tens maybe 100s of 1000s to remain at home where they want to be.

I think you have to imagine what it would be like to have no safety net, then you realise it is not so bad after all.

[arthra]

Hey friends thanks for the responses!

Looks like we may have "hit a nerve" here... I can now compare some of the health services we have in the US .. our HMO's, etc. but I do sincerely appreciate your responses.

- Art

[earl]

Some 40 million Americans are uninsured and lord knows how many more are underinsured. Think the British system is probalby an improvement over that. America could use a bit of "socialism" in this sector. earl

[wil]

While we have uninsured and underinsured...we have service in this country, the US.

I've done construction work in hospitals. I've been in ERs, ICUs, CCUs, and the regular rooms. I can say the indigent, uninsured, underinsured are treated and cared for. The old you can't get blood from a turnip means that if you are at the poverty level, you can continue to get treated. The folks that are squeezed are those with money that don't prioritize insurance and then get stuck with major medical bills that bankrupt them. While conventional insurance may be a hard pill to swallow if you have enough money for it, it is valuable. Beyond that you can get catastrophic insurance which will keep you from the poorhouse.

The problem is those using emergency rooms as doctors offices and hospital rooms rather than family care...are breaking the bank. A social system of preventiative care, holistic preventative care similar to what has been mentioned prior would do wonders to take the burden off the system...

[Joedjr]

Originally Posted by wil

The folks that are squeezed are those with money that don't prioritize insurance and then get stuck with major medical bills that bankrupt them. While conventional insurance may be a hard pill to swallow if you have enough money for it, it is valuable.

If it quacks like a duck...... insurance is just protection money against the health care racket.
That's why the gov should get involved. Maybe they will see that we're just getting the shakedown and take care of the perps.

[earl]

We are fortunate in the great health plan my employer provides, but it costs him more than $5000 per annually. I certainly would not be able to fund that myself. At the same time, my wife has to take a particular treatment which costs $3000 per month. This is the kind of stuff that has many Americans quaking in their boots. earl

[nativeastral]

Originally Posted by earl

We are fortunate in the great health plan my employer provides, but it costs him more than $5000 per annually. I certainly would not be able to fund that myself. At the same time, my wife has to take a particular treatment which costs $3000 per month. This is the kind of stuff that has many Americans quaking in their boots. earl

...and the sort of thing insiduisly creeping into to the U.K. for a long time now ie slipping standards 'forcing' the richer to go private, and privatising cleaning/services etc so no 'wholistic' feel to the NHS- they are all [hospitals and doctors surgeries etc] run like 'businesses'- who loses? the patients.

[nativeastral]

however l must say l still have an attitide of gratitude compared to elsewhere; but there is wastage/mismanagement and general 'running down' going on with no 'central' responsibility like it used to be[like the railway system or the water company]; profit/loss and balancing books never went well with health.

[GlorytoGod]

I am grateful for the NHS whilst it is not perfect and I have no way of knowing if it represents good value for money as it is not free. It is under funded and some of the hospital are a bit old and grubby looking never the less we get a lot better medical treatment from the NHS than most of people of on this planet get.

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by arthra

I'd be curious to know what the experiences have been of those who have used a National Health Service as they have in some countries like Canada, Britain, France or Scandinavia..

- Art

When it comes to healthcare in Britain, you get what you pay for.

Hospitals are now so obsessed with meeting government targets that patients are suffering, even dying, because of maladministration.

I'll never forget a hernia op I had a few years ago on the NHS - in writing they stated that after the operation "it might hurt a bit a feel sore". No bloody kidding.

No patient briefing, no patient nurses.

A somewhat jaded experience.

But - with friends and relatives - had one placed with an open wound next to someone with MRSA. And my grandad went in after suffering a mild heart attack and died of pneumonia.

I'm tempted to suggest the British pride in the NHS is entirely misplaced.

That's not to say there are people in the NHS doing great things - my dad is still a male nurse - but there are so many problems with the healthcare system.

Not restricted to the NHS either - my sister-in-law works in old peoples homes, and far too many of these are able to flout regulations and cut corners in order to save costs, despite that residents are paying through the nose for it.

[17th Angel]

NHS: You get what you pay for (EDIT!! LMFAO!! BRIAN!! I SAID THAT!!! LOL SNAP!!!)

I am private.... My hospital(NHS that is) is diesase ridden.... If you go in there for an operation you are gaurenteed to get some illness forgot what it is but you get it lol and I don't want it. You have to wait a VERY long time to be effin seen also, I am not a man of patiences... And If I am ill or hurt.... I lack patiences even more so. I go I get personal attention and get looked after..... I AM HURT/ILL!! I want my ego stroked! And I want someone to freaking CARE! NHS... They don't give a ****.. You could EASILY die in the waiting room lol.... I go private.... Have a nice drink... Have a one on one with a group of staff....... And the job is done there and then BAM! Or.... I could sit in some crowded ****ty room with tons of others waiting HOURS just to say whats effin wrong with me... Then wait more hours just to get someone to do something...

NHS nice idea... But it doesn't work.

Those on NHS... If you got ill/hurt now... How long till you see a doctor and get care? Me... 20 mins TOPS... beat that?