NHS style care in the USA?

redrumloa

redrumloa

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Emergency teams will be sent in to overhaul death-trap NHS trusts, with tailor-made action plans for each one.http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepag...t-14-NHS-hospitals-over-13000-lost-lives.html
Tragic case 3

DEMENTIA patient Mary Arbuckle “screamed throughout the night” for help from staff — but none came.
The 86-year-old was found dead on the ward the next morning.

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Horror story ... Tom Arbuckle with pictures of Mary​

Husband Tom, 71, said: “It was dreadful in there — one doctor to 36 patients and not enough nurses.
“A nurse told me my wife screamed throughout the whole night.”

Edinburgh’s Liberton Hospital had already had to apologise for allowing Mary to refuse antibiotics when she was deemed incapable of such a decision. A hospital spokesman said of her 2010 death: “Steps have been taken to ensure this should not happen again.”
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lady had Alzheimer's... they all scream through out the night ... okaaaay!! ur point is?
 
robert l. bentham said:
lady had Alzheimer's... they all scream through out the night ... okaaaay!! ur point is?
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The transparently primitive technique is to highlight some NHS horror story and use it to confirm the pre-existing bias that socialised medicine is a communist evil that will destroy your children's futures, or some other equally ridiculous nonsense.

Of course this technique necessitates ignoring both horror stories from the US system (which as everyone knows are legion) and good stories from the UK system, such as my own (I've been in an out of hospital numerous times for various things), many friends and family and the vast majority of the British public.

I suppose it's cute in a quaintly silly kind of way. :cool:
 
Robert said:
The transparently primitive technique is to highlight some NHS horror story and use it to confirm the pre-existing bias that socialised medicine is a communist evil that will destroy your children's futures, or some other equally ridiculous nonsense.
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Part of a campaign not just in the UK but all over the world to break public health systems so that the private sector can increase its profits.
 
Dementia patients tend to be in care homes rather than hospitals, with most of those being run by private companies. With such a system as you can imagine there is a lot of variability in terms of quality (far beyond what can be found in the trusts themselves).

Individual care plans for long term care should be something they're already receipt of within a home, the problem, as with many other things is money. Back in the early naughties, Tony Blair handed the NHS a huge glut of money without strings, but with a whole bunch of half assed new requirements that they used public private partnerships (part privatisation). The result was a huge expansion in costs in administration and the higher costs of the private firms with very little improvement (and in some cases a reduction of resources) for front line staff.

With such a backdrop, its no wonder you read these sorts of stories?

Sent from my ARCHOS 80G9 using Tapatalk HD
 
the_leander said:
Back in the early naughties, Tony Blair handed the NHS a huge glut of money without strings, but with a whole bunch of half assed new requirements that they used public private partnerships (part privatisation). The result was a huge expansion in costs in administration and the higher costs of the private firms with very little improvement (and in some cases a reduction of resources) for front line staff.
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Part of the same plan mentioned above. Throwing more money at the system but syphoning it into the private companies, raising the cost, decreasing the service and then blaming the public system.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
Part of a campaign not just in the UK but all over the world to break public health systems so that the private sector can increase its profits.
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Yes, that's the more sinister side of it, although I don't attribute such motives to the OP.
 
@Redrumloa,

What you neglect to mention is the US already has deaths in our healthcare system. Nearly 50K die/ year due to the lack of healthcare insurance. Also, the third leading cause of death is doctors and nurses. Any healthcare system can have problems. We'd be using the same doctors and nurses, so no improvements there. We're on a path to insure those 50K who die w/o healthcare.

I'm all for being worried about deaths in a Healthcare system. But, if we can cover and prevent most of those 50K, that are dying in our current Healthcare System of private insurers and lack therefore, it's an improvement.
 
faethor said:
We'd be using the same doctors and nurses, so no improvements there.
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That might not be true. One of the things about the US system is that doctors can make much better money in the US system than in other places. In some people's theories that leads to "better" doctors. There isn't much evidence to indicate that this is true. It's just as likely to lead to doctors that are more interested in money than in patients - and when I say "just as likely" I'm trying to be generous.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
That might not be true. One of the things about the US system is that doctors can make much better money in the US system than in other places. In some people's theories that leads to "better" doctors. There isn't much evidence to indicate that this is true. It's just as likely to lead to doctors that are more interested in money than in patients - and when I say "just as likely" I'm trying to be generous.
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It's probably not. Many people think the quality of the doctor determines the quality of the healthcare. It's not really true. Healthcare works like a machine and a complex one at that with various components all working together. No doctor does the diagnosis all on his own, he depends on labs and other specialists and their equipment, their staff and the experience of everyone involved. Surgeons for example are often overrated in terms of importance as surgery is a team sport.

Just recently my mom had to go for a minor surgery. My sister spoke with the surgeon who she thought highly of. But when she spoke to the anesthetist she felt that he made a very bonehead comment about what he wanted to do (he wanted to totally reverse her blood thinners which were not necessary and put her mechanical heart valve at risk). Suffice it to say, the surgery went ahead with a different anesthetist who agreed with my sister that the blood thinners didn't need to be reversed unless some emergency arose which was very unlikely. The point being, even if you have full confidence in your surgeon he's not the only one in the room and most people never even think of that. And of course, the nursing staff is key as well, nothing gets done without them.

But if everyone gets paid more, doesn't that still mean it's better healthcare? Probably not. The world of healthcare revolves around well placed rules and guidelines. The threat of litigation has probably cemented that more so in the US than it might here in Canada, but here too we have "best practices" and deviations tend to raise eyebrows.

But since we're speaking on the subject of quality of doctors, my sister who took and passed requirements test in both the US and Canada told me that the Canadian tests are in fact much tougher and more rigorous than what they have in the US. That said, she also trained in US hospitals and apparently they're a great place to get good exposure to gun shot wounds.
 
Case in point my Thyroid. I have a private GP and specialist, my GP is paid for by Medicare, my specialist is partially covered by Medicare and all the hospital care I recieved was covered in full by Medicare. I chose the private specialist hence I have to pay the gap, had I opted to go with a public specialist the whole experience would have not cost me a thing. The only downside is you have to play the waiting game if you go with a public specialist, whereas if I go private, I can pick and choose my appointment times. Speaking of my Thyroid, I had better go and book my free checkup ultrasound...Cheers to good health :thumbs up:
 
Glaucus said:
The point being, even if you have full confidence in your surgeon he's not the only one in the room and most people never even think of that. And of course, the nursing staff is key as well, nothing gets done without them.
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true that... true that... a good deal of them as knowledgeable as the drs they work under...
 
can u talk to ur dr online? i can.
can u fill and refill prescriptions online? i can.
can you talk to an actual dr at 2 am cuz you cant take pain or whatever anymore? i can.
can you go to er and never get a bill for the excellent services provided at almost every hospital in the US? i can.
can you walk into bethesda naval hospital, the same place ur president goes to, when you are sick? i can.
can u get your life essential prescriptions mailed to your home free of charge? i can.

i didn't serve so i could have extra rights and privileges, i served so everyone got the same... you know... equal treatment under the law... i want all of you to have what i have... go single payer go!!! :D
 
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