"Galling" Treatment At the Hands of the British NHS
 Last week we noted the case of of a British woman waiting to have her gall bladder removed who had her surgery cancelled five times - and was still waiting.
Another woman in the U.K. with a similar issue is also suffering at the hands of the National Health Service:
A man whose wife has been in pain for more than a year and is still waiting for an operation has slammed the NHS.
Rachel Edmondson, 23, from Stevenage, is still waiting for gall bladder surgery despite first visiting Lister Hospital in November 2004.
Rachel told The Comet: "It has completely ruined my life."
...
Rachel's husband Graham said a host of clerical errors have occurred during the year and he has labelled the NHS "completely incompetent".
He said: "This has been going on for months. No one seems to care. Rachel's quality of life is non-existent. We are at our wits end and this is completely destroying our lives."
Posted by Stuart Browning
28 Dec 2005 @ 2:04pm
High Culture at the University of Pennsylvania
 Professor Michael Dyson at the University of Pennsylvania taught Religious Studies 113 this year with a singular focus: "Searching for Black Jesus: Tupac Shakur, Black Masculinity and the Politics of Race":
From the course catalogue:
Tupac Shakur was one of the most gifted and controversial figures of this generation. Poet, hip hop artist, actor, social critic and urban griot, he was a ghetto saint who evoked adoration and attack, nearly in the same breath. This course will examine the cultural, racial and religious significance of Shakur's life and thought. We will also probe the artistic, aesthetic and rhetorical dimensions of his craft. We will use Shakur as a lens through which to explore the issues of racial identity and black masculinity in hip-hop culture and the broader black culture. We will also probe the political, spiritual and social implications of Shakur's life and art, and reflect on these issues as they relate to hip-hop culture in general. Finally, we will investigate the moral and cultural consequences of memorializing Tupac in the wake of his violent death.
Posted by Stuart Browning
28 Dec 2005 @ 11:50am
Medical School, Anyone?
 Considering the crucial nature of the services that doctors provide, how should we feel about the fact that nearly half of all ER physician care goes uncompensated in the state of Florida?
What other profession would tolerate this?
Posted by Stuart Browning
28 Dec 2005 @ 7:43am
Indoctrination at Penn State
 Reports of state-sponsored political indoctrination from the New York Times (registration required) ...
While attending a Pennsylvania Republican Party picnic, Jennie Mae Brown bumped into her state representative and started venting.
"How could this happen?" Ms. Brown asked Representative Gibson C. Armstrong two summers ago, complaining about a physics professor at the York campus of Pennsylvania State University who she said routinely used class time to belittle President Bush and the war in Iraq. As an Air Force veteran, Ms. Brown said she felt the teacher's comments were inappropriate for the classroom.
The encounter has blossomed into an official legislative inquiry, putting Pennsylvania in the middle of a national debate spurred by conservatives over whether public universities are promoting largely liberal positions and discriminating against students who disagree with them.
... and the backlash that's to come.
Posted by Stuart Browning
26 Dec 2005 @ 7:52am
U.K. Socialized Health Service in "Shambles"
A woman whose operation to remove her gall bladder was cancelled five times has criticised her treatment by the National Health Service (NHS) as a "shambles".
And, An Inhumane Wait
Nine months is a long time in any life but, for a woman who has been diagnosed with breast cancer, it must seem like an eternity. It is simply too long to be left worrying about the chances of survival and what the future might hold for family members.
Is there any wonder that the breast cancer mortality ratio in the U.K is 46% compared to 25% in the U.S.?
Posted by Stuart Browning
24 Dec 2005 @ 11:51am
"Free Public Health Care" in Greece
 What's not to like?
Live scorpions in the OR, rat tails in the soup, long waiting lists for treatment ...
Repeated government efforts to overhaul the public health sector, and minimise long treatment waiting lists, have had limited success in eliminating a general disdain for state hospitals.
Though entitled to free public health care, Greek taxpayers pick private clinics whenever they can.
And yet we keep hearing that the U.S. is inexplicably and inexcusably the only industrialized nation without a nationalized, government-run health system.
Posted by Stuart Browning
24 Dec 2005 @ 11:31am
Health Care Thugs in Winnipeg
In the Canadian province of Winnipeg, the wait for an MRI is measured in months and sometimes years. The provincial government has not been quick about clearing this backlog.
However, the government can move quick when a private entrepreneur attempts to offer MRIs within 48 hours for - gasp! - a PROFIT!
More than 40 patients are already lined up to pay $695 each for a MRI. For that price, they get a scan within 48 hours, as opposed to waiting for months or even more than a year in the government system.
Manitoba Health Minister Tim Sale has said he may fine the Maples Surgical Centre if its MRI scanner is used to let people jump the queue in the public system. Maples owner Dr. Mark Godley has vowed to fight those fines in court.
...
"We have gone ahead and booked patients for (today),'' he said. "We're going to put politics and policy aside and treat patients who need care. We're going to deliver the services they need and give them a choice."
Godley said he received a letter from the province yesterday telling him he could be subject to prosecution if he sells health services to Manitobans insured under the public health system. But a defiant Godley said he will begin offering the scans today.
Godley said he's not sure what to expect when he opens his clinic this morning. "It's quite possible (the province) will physically try and prevent (the scans) from happening,'' he said.
Last night, a spokesman for Sale said the province will be monitoring what happens at Maples Surgical Centre today.
He would not say what the province will do if the scans go ahead.
Also an update here: Province interested in sale of clinic
Posted by Stuart Browning
24 Dec 2005 @ 9:08am
Portrait of an Uninsured American
 It's a safe assumption that Terrance Cunningham doesn't have health insurance. But that hasn't stopped him from getting health care - even while on the run as a fugitive from the law as reported in the New York Post on Monday ("Sick Con Job" By Jeane MacIntosh):
A dangerous fugitive drug dealer with a bum kidney is using unwitting New York dialysis docs to help him dodge the law
...
Convicted Bronx-born crack dealer Terrance Cunningham, 37, turns up at city hospitals and clinics to get free, life-sustaining kidney dialysis treatments
...
"He waits until he is nearly on his death bed, then shows up at a facility for emergency dialysis treatment," said a squad spokesman. "He knows the doctor can't refuse to treat him"
...
The cunning con went on the lam in 2001, after a North Carolina court allowed him
time to get a kidney transplant before going to prison.
...
Instead, he disappeared in New York, where possibly suffering complications from the transplant, he needs dialysis.
If you have information about the whereabouts of Mr. Cunningham, call the U.S. Marshals Service at 1-866-WANTED2 - so that he can get on a regular dialysis schedule.
Posted by Stuart Browning
21 Dec 2005 @ 3:21pm
Canadians Still Waiting To Find Out How Long They Should Wait for Health Care
 Canadians are still waiting to find out how long the government thinks they should wait for health care. Now that the government has determined how long the wait time should be for cardiac care, cancer care, orthopedic and cataract surgery - Canadians, unfortunately, are still waiting to find out how long the wait for diagnostic tests should be:
Suspiciously, no benchmarks were provided for the fifth area the feds and provinces agreed to target -- access to diagnostic tests such as CAT scans and MRIs.
This is particularly disturbing because CAT scans and MRIs are vital diagnostic tools for three of the four other areas targeted for wait times reduction -- cancer treatment, cardiac disease and hip and knee replacements.
Suspicious indeed. After all, if you've got to wait months to get an MRI to determine if you've got cancer - you're not yet officially waiting for cancer treatment. That wait doesn't begin until you know for sure that you have cancer.
Posted by Stuart Browning
21 Dec 2005 @ 7:43am
Government Hospital Standards in the U.K.
This just in: Maggots Found on Patient's Face.
Hospital bosses have apologised after maggots were found crawling in and out of an unconscious patient's nose.
Christine Ellison was in intensive care when her daughter, Nyree Ellison Anjos, made the revolting discovery.
Ms Ellison Anjos told Sky News: "I could see her nose was bothering her.
"I thought there was something not quite right so I had a closer look and I could see maggots crawling in and out of her nose."
"It was heartbreaking to see that," she added. "There's no way an apology can get that out of my mind."
A statement from Gloucestershire NHS Foundation Trust said: "We would like to offer our sincere apologies to the family of Mrs Ellison for any distress caused by this incident.
What's she complaining about? At least the health care in the U.K. is "free at the point of delivery"!
Posted by Stuart Browning
20 Dec 2005 @ 2:09pm
Intellectual Ammunition
Richard Ralston over at Americans for Free Choice in Medicine has a new column up that should be read by anyone tempted to believe the dangerous nonsense that we constantly hear about a "right to health care":
... those who might be relieved to learn that they are not responsible for the cost of their own health care would soon discover that they have become responsible for the cost of everyone else's.
The talk about a "right" to health care really means that no one should have the right to any health care at all except through the government.
It's not too long - only six paragraphs - and well worth a few minutes of your time.
Read it all.
Posted by Stuart Browning
20 Dec 2005 @ 7:00am
Don't Ask (for Saudi money), Don't Tell (you sold out)
A number of college campuses won't allow military recruiters on campus because they protest the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, saying it discriminates against homosexuals. The policy was imposed on the military by the Clinton Administration, and can only be revoked by executive order or an act of Congress. But that's beside the point to school administrators; anti-military prejudice leads them to punish the military for something the military can't control.
A recent law called the Solomon Amendment is up for review before the Supreme Court. Basically, the Solomon Amendment revokes federal funding for schools that refuse to allow military recruiters on campus. Schools have fought that, saying they should be allowed to give the finger to the federal government while still receiving federal money. (As former New York City councilman Charles Millard once said, if a terrorist attack struck Columbia University, would President Lee Bollinger stand at the gates and stop the military from setting foot on campus? It seems that universities often stand on principle, but only when it's cost-free.)
James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal website OpinionJournal.com noticed an inconsistency in application of principles by university administrators.
Georgetown's law faculty is a named plaintiff in Rumsfeld v. Forum, a case now before the Supreme Court, in which law schools claim they are entitled to your tax money despite their policy of discriminating against military recruiters. The schools object to the law that prevents the military from allowing open homosexuals to serve--even though a law called the Solomon Amendment requires federally subsidized universities to treat military recruiters the same way as other recruiters.
Why is this news? Because Georgetown, which bars military recruiters as a protest against "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," recently accepted $20 million from a Saudi prince to expand programs that "study Islam and the Muslim world."
Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies programs don't have very good records in criticizing the human rights abuses that occur in Middle Eastern countries. Many professors, such as the one who heads Columbia's MEALAC program, seem to reserve most of their criticism for Israel and the United States. That may or may not have anything to do with the large sums of money from Saudi Arabia that find their way into university coffers, underwriting these Middle Eastern Studies programs.
The lack of criticism of Saudi Arabia is astonishing, considering the official Saudi position on homosexuality:
[O]fficially, according to SodomyLaws.org, homosexuality is a crime punishable by beheading. Riyadh also engages in invidious discrimination against other groups, including women (not allowed to drive, or to leave the country without a male "guardian's" permission), non-Muslims (not permitted to visit Mecca or Medina) and Jews (who at one point it said were ineligible to visit the country at all).
Sounds quite a bit worse than "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," don't you think? So it's interesting that Saudi money can buy access to create permanent Islamic studies institutions--which, we can assume, won't be terribly critical of the very donors of that money--but that American money won't even buy the right for U.S. military recruiters to sit at a table for a few hours each semester.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
15 Dec 2005 @ 4:21am
Socialized Medicine in the U.K.
Inevitably, government control of health care leads to shortages, rationing and government control over private lives. In the U.K. - just as in Canada.
Check out this story of desperation under the British National Health Service (NHS):
One of the most decorated British fighter pilots of the Second World War has sold his medals, diaries and other memorabilia partly to pay for a hip replacement operation for his wife who faced at least a six-month wait on the National Health Service.
Also - this account of government bureaucrats deciding who gets health care and who doesn't:
People who are grossly overweight, who smoke heavily or drink excessively could be denied surgery or drugs following a decision by a Government agency yesterday.
Posted by Stuart Browning
12 Dec 2005 @ 10:42am
Carolina Journal covers the Brainwashing series
The Carolina Journal, a publication of the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, covers our film work documenting bias, political indoctrination and intolerance of free speech in academia.
Posted by webmaster
8 Dec 2005 @ 12:06pm
Civilized Campus Debate
Can anyone recall a single instance of this happening to a controversial campus speaker from the political left?
I can't.
Posted by Stuart Browning
8 Dec 2005 @ 6:08am
Heroin Injections Are a Health Care Priority
 The government-run health care system in Canada has decided that heroin injection sites are a priority while the long waits for health care experienced by non-junkies have become the number one issue (see here, here and here) in Canada's upcoming elections.
Posted by Stuart Browning
7 Dec 2005 @ 10:14am
The Disappearing College Male
I wonder when the diversity enforcers will start worrying about this:
In the 1990s, I taught for six years at a small liberal arts college in Spokane, Wash. In my third year, I started noticing something that was happening right in front of me. There were more young women in my classes than young men, and on average, they were getting better grades than the guys. Many of the young men stared blankly at me as I lectured. They didn't take notes as well as the young women. They didn't seem to care as much about what I taught -- literature, writing and psychology. They were bright kids, but many of their faces said, "Sitting here, listening, staring at these words -- this is not really who I am."
That was a decade ago, but just last month, I spoke with an administrator at Howard University in the District. He told me that what I observed a decade ago has become one of the "biggest agenda items" at Howard. "We are having trouble recruiting and retaining male students," he said. "We are at about a 2-to-1 ratio, women to men."
Howard is not alone. Colleges and universities across the country are grappling with the case of the mysteriously vanishing male. Where men once dominated, they now make up no more than 43 percent of students at American institutions of higher learning, according to 2003 statistics, and this downward trend shows every sign of continuing unabated. If we don't reverse it soon, we will gradually diminish the male identity, and thus the productivity and the mission, of the next generation of young men, and all the ones that follow.
The trend of females overtaking males in college was initially measured in 1978. Yet despite the well-documented disappearance of ever more young men from college campuses, we have yet to fully react to what has become a significant crisis. Largely, that is because of cultural perceptions about males and their societal role. Many times a week, a reporter or other media person will ask me: "Why should we care so much about boys when men still run everything?"
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
5 Dec 2005 @ 10:26am
Poverty is Where The Money Is
South Florida is ground zero for health care fraud:
In one recent Miami case, patients were recruited and then paid kickbacks to visit certain clinics where two doctors allegedly would write unnecessary prescriptions for drugs that fight AIDS. The prescriptions were filled under the Medicaid program, but the drugs were then delivered to another pharmacy and resold at a profit.
Posted by Stuart Browning
2 Dec 2005 @ 9:34am
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