For those of you who caught the Noon broadcast of Paul Harvey, News and Comment today, you’ve already heard this story. Paul highlighted a UK Telegraph story on tens of thousands of Britons leaving the UK each year to seek medical treatment abroad. The reasons given for the travel are fear of MSRA and lack of confidence in Britain’s NHS.
This is, of course, a timely discussion for us here in The Colonies. Democrats running for President are all promising government administered healthcare for Americans. Universal Health Care, as it is known, is a horribly bad idea for our country as can be seen from the experiences reported in the Telegraph as well as a first person account posted below.
According to the story,
Thousands of “health tourists” are going as far as India, Malaysia and South Africa for major operations – such is their despair over the quality of health services. …
Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said the figures were a “terrible indictment” of government policies that were undermining the efforts of NHS staff to provide quality services.
The findings come amid further revelations about the Government’s mishandling of NHS policies, and ahead of official statistics that will embarrass ministers …
Mr Lansley said: “Healthcare is an area where Britain could be a world beater because we have some of the best research and best clinicians. If people don’t trust the health service, then that is a terrible indictment of this Government, which has turned the NHS into a nationalised bureaucracy, instead of something able to focus on what patients want.”
A friend sent me the following email a week or so ago. It came to him from a friend in the UK in the form of a prayer request. This is not something that I had to scour the darkest corner of the Internet to find. As you read the account, understand this is the usual experience with Britain’s NHS and the sort of boondoggle likely to be created here if Universal Health Care becomes a US reality.
I came out of hospital yesterday (as they required my bed), but am more or less on bed rest at home as I cannot walk and feel very unwell.
The story is that I had been having treatment for Bowens disease (don’t ask me what that is but the cream I have to use says (for the treatment of light skin cancer)
I wasn’t bothered if it is a cancer as the treatment was going very well and there was only one small lesion left on my right inner ankle.
Whilst I was on the bus I was hit right on the spot with a baby buggy, I was right against the wall and couldn’t move but the women kept on bashing the buggy into my leg and growling at me to “get out of my bloody way”. By the time I got off the bus my leg had ulcerated and was weeping badly and SO painful.
I knew I needed antibiotics so I phoned the surgery of the Doctor who was treating me. I was told the computers were down and to phone tomorrow. The following day they had mislaid their diary and the day after that they couldn’t make me an emergency appointment as it had to go through a Central Booking Office. Meanwhile my leg had become severely infected.
The Central Booking Office has an answer phone which tells you to leave your number and they will get back to you. I phoned and left messages twice a day for the next four days. On the fifth day they finally got back to me and I was told I couldn’t jump the queue for an emergency appointment but they were willing to bring my next appointment forward to 12 days time.
Eventually when I saw the Doctor he said I must have antibiotics immediately but he couldn’t give them to me as he wasn’t my “official” doctor. However he would FAX the prescription through to my doctor and I had to take two buses to go pick it up. It wasn’t there.
The receptionist said to phone later to see if it had arrived. I explained that it was an emergency and could she please try to chase it up. She agreed to do so and I arranged with her for the local pharmacy to to pick it up and deliver it for me, as I was starting to feel very unwell and didn’t think I would make again on the bus. When I got home I phoned the pharmacy and they were more than willing to do this for me. As the surgery was closing for the day at 12 o’clock, I phoned again at at 11.40 and was told no progress could be made as yet. I asked to speak to a doctor at the practice but she said she would have to E-Mail one of them and they may eventually phone me, but meanwhile I should phone again on Monday or Tuesday. (This was on Thursday) (Are you getting bored yet? It gets worse)
During the afternoon I kept being violently sick, My head was banging and I was feeling very dizzy. I phoned an organisation called NHS DIRECT. It is supposed to be a back-up service if anything is needed out of hours. It was an answer phone. Leave name and number they would get back. They did at 9.30 PM. I went through the whole story and asked for a doctor visit, only to be told “You have seen a doctor today so there is no need you will have to go through him for antibiotics, however she was interested in my being so severely sick etc.
She said I was in need of carbohydrates and asked me if I had any tinned rice pudding. She assured me that if I ate that I would feel much better. I just felt too ill to argue any more (I knew that all my children were at hand but P … had the baby as C … was at work, C … was on an [job] on the other side of London and D … was still working at P … and trying to finish work she had been unable to do. She has been diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritus and is really very unwell, and struggling to keep her job. I just didn’t want to worry any of them and the rest of the family live in B … and mostly have young children to look after.) No my best bet was to try and sort it out tomorrow.
I tried to go into the kitchen but felt so faint I knew I had to get bed. I managed to crawl upstairs. C … came in the next morning and found me unconscious. He summoned my own doctor who called an Ambulance. I stayed in accident and Emergency Dept all day and eventually got the Antibiotics at 9.45 PM. but even then only after my children had constantly asked for them. I knew my children were there and they all looked so worried, I kept trying to open my eyes but couldn’t speak to them.
The next day my leg had swelled to 4 times its normal size and was crimson coloured and very hot. Two nights later my foot suddenly drained of blood and was a sickly white. A Cardiologist was summoned and he said I was to have surgery if the colour didn’t come back very soon. I was scared it would mean removing my foot. I tried to keep my foot moving but I couldn’t feel it. I prayed so hard for God to show me a way to get it better. Suddenly I just had to use the toilet and as I put my foot to the ground the colour came rushing back .
Well THANKS TO GOD that hasn’t happened again but I still have a very swollen leg (now just over twice it’s normal size) It’s very hot and what with the original ulcer it’s extremely painful. I am at home on my own but P … is running in circles around me and C … calls or comes every day. D … has gone to C …. I begged her to go as she is really unwell and desperately needs rest and sunshine and eventually she went under strong protest, but there is nothing she could do here for me when she is so unwell herself.
I am on 16 antibiotics (three different kinds) daily and my own doctor is to visit me tomorrow or the next day. I am to start on a steroid cream when the antibiotics finish next week and Please God I will be on the mend. I think the whole thing has taken about seven weeks, I was in hospital for more than two of those. I don’t yet know if I will make it to America on 11th November but will do my utmost to get there.
Please would you all pray for me but mostly would you pray for D …. She desperately needs prayer but has great faith and is convinced that God will have the NHS make her redundant (that way she would get a payout) and after six months she will be miraculously cured and able to do consultancy work from home.
I will keep you all posted. I am very proud of myself for having sat and written all this. It shows I’m on my way to recovery.
God Bless! Love from M….
BCM editorial note: The only changes made to the email story were minor grammar and punctuation corrections/deletions and redacting names of people and places. Beyond that the email reads EXACTLY as I received it.
Hoping we can agree that if UHC isn’t universally bad, it’s at least internationally horrid …
Blue Collar Muse
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