Health Care

[teddy]

The local private hospital which we use is attached the the main NHS one. A&E is a very short trolley ride away. The nurses all love working in the private sector because " we get a chance to nurse". The doctors and surgeons are mainly the same ones, the big difference being you actually get to see and talk to them, which can be very reassuring. And it is very clean. The heart ward on the NHS ward I was initially in was dirty (I saw the same dirty dressings on the floor for three days) and I was not washed, or helped to wash for six days. The crew of the private ambulance (ex army guys) which took me to London for my opp. were horrified at the lack of hygiene in the NHS. Apparently in the army hospitals all patients were washed at least twice a day.

teddy

[Dorsetmike]

I think this quote from a Guardian newspaper article sums up the big shortcoming of private medicine

There's an unavoidable contradiction between running something to maximise profit as opposed to running a service designed to meet the needs of patients,"

This was reporting on a private contractor which took over a NHS practice then walked away after 3 years of a 10 year contract to run a general practice in a London borough, they couldn't do the job for the price they quoted; most patients were unable to get an appointment within 48 hours, and rarely with the doctor of their choice.

[Dorsetmike]

In answer to Teddy's post above re cleaning, that is mainly to be found where the hospital cleaning has been contracted out to a private company.

It's the same sort of contradiction between making a profit and providing the necessary level of care and service as in any other profit versus service issue; the words profit and service don't belong in the same sentence.

The same issue crops up in any public service, not just health; too many services have been privatised and in virtually every case the service deteriorates and the price escalates.

In the UK it's happened to Transport (bus and train), post, phones, gas (for cooking and heating not vehicles) and electricity, water and drainage; in some towns waste disposal, and many other services.

[JHC]

@Mike, exactly the same down here, however in teddies case the dirty dressings is absolutely unbelievable some one should have picked it up. what we are in for now (NZ) is Private/Public enterprises where the public aka tax payer pays for and builds the infrastructure it is then contracted out to the private sector to run and make lots of luvly spondulex out of, I am now turning into a socialist

[Corno Dolce]

!!!Let us not forget!!!: One very minor but oh so important detail is the contract. Contracts "regulate" what is to be and not to be done. Tell me who are the people who negotiate the terms of the contract on behalf of the "voting constituency" and pretty soon you'll understand why the "health care" is an ephemeral mirage.

[JHC]

Well, it's the Government, do you say they are not to be trusted
We did have, a few years ago SOE's ( State owned enterprise ) a CEO and board were selected by Government and their directions were to run the thing as a business but return a modest profit to the government. but as the new owners (PPE) would be overseas based all profits would go out of the country and even if the government kept 51% of shares the remaining 49%
be gone??

[teddy]

In England a lot of the electricity is supplied by the French. The French goverment forbids them to increase prices by more than 2.5 per cent but over here it has just gone up by 18 per cent. Another danger of outside influence

teddy

[twanguitar]

Sorry, I've come into this a bit late. It's easy to carp about the NHS in the UK. Sure, things go wrong, but they always do in any organisation. There are also some important upsides to it. In my mid-60's I haven't found much to complain about since the NHS was founded when I was a baby. And I am particularly grateful my kids have access to entirely free treatment when it comes to surgery. And it's getting quicker, at least in my area. As an example, my son was taken in as an emergency last August (2010) with agonising abdominal pains. We all assumed it was appendicitis, but it was correctly diagnosed as gall stones within 24 hours. By the end of the month he had been admitted and had the gall bladder removed as a day case. Not the slightest complication, and he was fit again within a week or two. He (nor me) would have had the means to pay for a fraction of this treatment.

This month a friend also in his sixties has been recommended to have a template biopsy of the prostate, again as a day case. This was on a Tuesday last week at an outpatient clinic. By the Friday he had received a letter admitting him on 7 September for the procedure. Come on guys, we can't really complain about this level of service!

These examples are typical in my experience. But having said all this, I also maintain private medical insurance for me and my wife while I can manage to do so. Nice when something turns up which it covers, but it doesn't cover things like active surveillance (watchful waiting) for any chronic condition, maternity, dentistry, emergencies such as my son's gall stones, etc, etc. So I'm still very grateful that the NHS is there (which I also pay for of course as a taxpayer).

TG

[teddy]

Yes, we pay twice. I don't know where abouts you live but being near Dover we find there are so many immigrants queing up for treatment that there is often a wait for us. I suppose we should get human rights lawyers to look out for us, but we would have to pay for them. 80% of babies born around here are from immigrants. What chance do we have.

teddy

[Dorsetmike]

Could this apply Teddy?

[teddy]

Yes please Mike

teddy

[twanguitar]

It's not just immigrants who milk the system. The least attractive aspect of welfarism (I call it that to avoid getting too political by calling it socialism) is that those who tend to call on it the most pay the least - and often nothing at all because they are on welfare anyway and therefore not working. It is therefore unsurprising that taxpayers - the minority of the population - find it gets up their nose. In the UK, on average a taxpayer gets to keep only about 40% of his/her gross income when all direct and indirect taxes are taken into account. Another way of looking at it means they see not a penny of their earnings until nearly the end of May each year. I wonder how this interesting statistic compares with other developed countries?

In this respect UK taxpayers are not much different in attitude to those in any other country. I like J K Galbraith's summary of the situation in the US because it lightens the mood of an otherwise tetchy subject:

"It is a well known and very important fact that America’s founding fathers did not like taxation without representation. It is a lesser known and equally important fact that they did not much like taxation with representation".

TG

[methodistgirl]

Medicaid is another issue. As for now I'm without it because some yeahoo
got my social security number all wrong.
judy tooley

[teddy]

I am glad to see that a lot of the scumbags whole I would see wandering around at 10.00 am swigging from cans of beer are no longer around. Too much to hope that they have been abducted by aliens (no, he other sort) but maybe they have been deemed fit to work and are actually doing something fairly useful.

teddy