Advocates of government-run medicine should always be asked to point to a single nationalized health system that has not experienced financial crisis, health care rationing and long waits for procedures that are obtained relatively quickly in the U.S. Here are some recent news items from the U.K. describing the state of medicine under that country's National Health Service (NHS):
Mrs Heylings collapsed in severe pain on holiday in Tenerife in May last year but was told she faced a wait of up to nine months for NHS surgery. However, the gallstone - which measured more than an inch - caused her such agony she decided to use her savings to pay for a private operation.
Surgeons employed by a Kent NHS trust have been left to "twiddle their thumbs" after staff were told to delay operations to save money, an MP claims.
Tunbridge Wells MP Greg Clark has said leaked internal memos show staff at three hospitals were ordered to put off non-urgent operations until 31 March.
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All surgery on children classed as non-urgent is also being delayed.
Meanwhile consultants have been banned from giving outpatient appointments and GPs are banned from giving hospital outpatient appointments until further notice.
THIS is the shocking state of dentistry today.
More than 150 people queued for hours at the opening of a new NHS surgery in Milnrow, Rochdale this morning.
They turned up from 6.30am ready for Zimbabwean-born dentist Dr Shamiso Ketani to open the doors of his new practice at 9am.
Many brought chairs and flasks of hot drinks as they waited to register in a line which snaked its way along Dale Street.
A PATIENT died after an ambulance took SEVEN HOURS to transfer him between hospitals just 45 minutes apart.
Joe Walsh, 46, was only being moved from Edinburgh to Glasgow. But he was left languishing in the back of a transport ambulance while it dropped off other patients in Livingston, Kilmarnock and Ayr.
Claire - formerly David - Eastwood, 48, was told by doctors more than a year ago that she faces a six-year wait on the NHS to get the surgery she needs to transform her life.
Following the diagnosis in October 2004, that she was a woman born as a man, Ms Eastwood was told she would have wait up to three years just for her first appointment at the Leeds Gender Identity Clinic.
26 Jan 2006 @ 12:05pm