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Friday, January 11, 2013
LET THEM EAT CAKE!....» Obama Signs Bill Giving Him Armed Protection For Life Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!
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Hypocrite!...Obama Opposed Gun Ban Exception to Defend One’s Home | The Blog on Obama: White House Dossier
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More Stomach-Turning Horror Stories from the UK Government-Run Healthcare System
by Dan Mitchell
During the Obamacare debate, Paul Krugman told us we could ignore stories about what was happening across the ocean, writing that “In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false.”
Every so often, I wonder how Krugman would define a "scare story." How about starving babies to death, as I wrote about last month? Would he say that's "false," or simply not a "scare story"?
Let's look at some new information from the U.K.'s government-run system and see whether we can expect our healthcare to improve or deteriorate now that Obamacare's beginning to get implemented.
We'll start with a look at how the overall British system is performing, including the remarkable and depressing fact that more than 1 in 10 patients are victimized by "basic errors," leading to 5.2 percent of deaths.
The largest and most detailed survey into hospital deaths has revealed that almost 12,000 patients are needlessly dying every year as a result of poor patient care. The researchers from The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine based the study on 1,000 deaths at 10 NHS trusts during 2009. The study revealed that basic errors were made in more than one in 10 cases, leading to 5.2% of deaths, which was the equivalent of nearly 12,000 preventable deaths in hospitals in England every year. The research published in the British Medical Journal's Quality and Safety publication found that errors occurred when hospital staff made an incorrect diagnosis, prescribed the wrong drugs, failed to monitor a patient's condition or react when a patient deteriorated. Errors in omission were more frequent than active mistakes. The majority of patients who died were elderly suffering with multiple health conditions, but the study found that some patients whose deaths were preventable were aged in their 30s and 40s.
Now let's look at healthcare - if you use the term loosely - at one Government-run hospital. The UK-based Telegraph has the stomach-turning details.
Hundreds of hospital patients died needlessly. In the wards, people lay starving, thirsty and in soiled bedclothes, buzzers droning hopelessly as their cries for help went ignored. Some received the wrong medication; some, none at all.Over 139 days, the public inquiry into the Stafford hospital scandal has heard testimony from scores of witnesses about how an institution which was supposed to care for the most vulnerable instead became a place of danger. Decisions about which patients to treat were left to receptionists...and nurses switched off equipment because they did not know how to use it. ...patients were left so dehydrated that some began drinking from flower vases. By the time the hospital's failings were exposed by regulators, in 2009, up to 1,200 patients had died needlessly between 2005 and 2008. ...on the wards, patients – most of them elderly – were left in agony and screaming for pain relief, as their loved ones desperately begged for help. The human toll was dreadful. In the course of 18 months, one family lost four members, including a newborn baby girl, after a catalogue of failings by the hospital. ...Patients were left without medication, food and drink, and left on commodes. Basic hygiene was neglected: a woman was left unwashed for the last four weeks of her life. Relatives tried to keep their loved ones clean, scrubbing down beds and furniture and even bringing in clean linen. One consultant described how amid the chaos, it seemed at though nurses became "immune to the sound of pain".
It's disturbing to read something like this, but can you imagine the horror of having a sick child in one of these wretched British institutions?
I'm not saying there aren't mistakes and instances of sub-standard care in U.S. hospitals. I'm sure that's the case. And regular readers know that I've complained about the absurd government-caused inefficiency of the American healthcare system.
The point I'm making is that horror stories are more common from the U.K. because the entire system is a bureaucracy. The nurses and doctors on that side of the Atlantic are akin to clerks at the Postal Service and DMV on this side of the Atlantic.
P.S. If you want more horror stories about government-run healthcare in the United Kingdom click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
P.P.S. And to close on an upbeat note, click here to learn how we can save America's healthcare system.
Dan Mitchell | January 11, 2013 at 10:01 am | Tags: Bureaucracy, England, Government-run healthcare, Health Care, Health Reform | Categories: Bureaucracy, England, Health Care, Health Reform | URL: http://wp.me/przCm-5yu
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Weekly InSight | 11 January 2012
Features
Political Uncertainty in Venezuela Feeds Crime and Violence
The rumors of President Hugo Chavez's imminent death, and the jostling for position among his possible successors, are creating conditions in which crime and violence are flourishing and likely to do so through 2013.
Report: 'Chapo' Guzman Grabs More Market Share in Colombia
Mexico's crime lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is tightening his grip on the production of cocaine and other illicit drugs throughout the Andean region, according to Mexico's leading news magazine.
Colombia's 'Madman': Security Boss or Top Drug Lord?
US indictments describe Daniel "El Loco" Barrera as a head of security, while Colombian authorities described him as the last of Colombia's major league capos. Which is he?
Analysis
Argentine 'Narco Jet' Trial Leaves Many Questions Unanswered
The two sons of a former air force general were sentenced to 13 years in prison for drug trafficking, the conclusion of a dramatic case indicative of Argentina's new status as a popular export point for cocaine.
Maras in Guatemala Increasing in Sophistication
The two principal Mara gangs in Guatemala, Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18, have been reorganizing themselves under more centralized leadership, presenting an increasing threat to the national security of this fragile Central American nation.
New Year Massacre Heralds More Violence for Medellin
Nine people were killed in a massacre in Medellin, heralding a new round of violence as different criminal factions seek to establish hegemony of the underworld in Colombia's second-largest city
News
Juarez Murder Rate Reaches 5-Year Low
Ciudad Juarez, once one of Mexico's most notorious and violent cities, saw its homicide rate drop over 60 percent between 2011 and 2012, a decrease which may have more to do with organized crime dynamics than security policy.
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FARC, Rastrojos Are Friends and Enemies: Naval Commander
Colombia's main criminal groups and leftist guerrillas along the Pacific Coast have aligned to traffic drugs in certain areas but are battling for control of these drugs in others, says the top commander of Colombia's Navy.
Venezuela with more than 21,600 murders in 2012: NGO
According to calculations made by a respected NGO, Venezuela is now far and away the most dangerous country in South America, with Caracas one of the most dangerous capitals in the world.
More News
Multimedia
Colombia discovers "narco-sub" adrift in the Pacific.
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