As a quick follow up to my last posting, I wanted to give you a taste of socialized medicine in action. Recently, Jessica's grandmother seriously injured her leg. As I understand it she was standing on her stool in her room trying to reach something and fell. As she fell her leg caught the edge of the dresser. You can tell by the picture what type of damage it did. Yep, that's her bone showing. It basically ripped half of her calf off. The ambulance was called and she was rushed to the hospital. However, the hospital didn't have the surgeon necessary so she was transferred to a different hospital. At that hospital she was stuck in a room with 5 other patients, and they "laid" a bandage over her wound. Wow, what a lovely recipe for staff infection, an open wound exposing your bone. The surgeon came later that day and said that they didn't need to operate until the next morning. By the next morning half of her skin had died and a skin graph was necessary to complete the surgery.
As stated previously, I believe we need healthcare reform, but I'm leary of socialized medicine (no offense to my english family, I love your candy selection and Simon Cowell does an excellent job at capitalizing on our stupidity). Sure, it would probably work as well as our current system, but its not a solution for improvement (my opinion). Suppose one day I happen to rip open a buttock, I don't want my coccyx showing for a day before I get stitched up.
8 comments:
Hi Ben, I just wanted to add a comment about this story regarding my Mum's accident and her treatment. I'm glad I had the presence of mind to take the pictures (with my mobile/cell phone) of the Polaroid’s taken by the hospital, although I don't think I was suppose to! The reason I'm glad is that I have evidence of the seriousness of the injury which could be used should my Mum's recovery be hindered by infection due to the time she was left with the wound open before surgery. We just hope and pray that the skin graft she has had will be accepted by her body and that she can make a quick recover, but I really do feel that the skin graft would not have been necessary had she had surgery the same day that she had the accident. BUT it is NOT the fault of the doctors or the hospital where she was treated IT IS THE SYSTEM – THE NATIONAL HEALTH SYSTEM. If my Mum gets an infection which is quite possible given the infection rate in our hospitals of MRSA and C-Difficile, they will be hearing from me in a big way. I enjoy your blog.
Love Mum
Your English mother-in-law
Hi Ben. Well since I have worked in the NHS for a few years, I feel I have seen enough patients to make a fair judgment. First off, there are good and bad things about the NHS or socialized medicine. I think that people are often very critical but in all honesty I have mostly heard of amazing stories rather than negative ones. I've seen lots of great work done by hospital staff both on patients I have treated and by myself. Within the last year, I was taken to hospital after a fatal car accident, developed a blood clot and discovered I had cancer. In all these cases, I was seen and treated quickly and had no concerns about the treatment I was getting.
For poor Ann, perhaps it wasn't the greatest case to comment on, but such cases can happen anywhere in the world, whether we pay for our treatment or not. Of course there are pros and cons to socialized medicine but I can happily say that I'm glad that I can go into hospital knowing that I'll get the help I need and not worry about how much it will cost. Thats also the same for lots of people who have medical insurance but what about those who don't?!
I can think of several cases of people coming to England for treatment because they can’t afford it in other countries. I don’t agree with it since it is a “National Health Service” and not an “International Health Service” but that’s another story. I treated one lady with diabetes who was from California but moved to England after she had both feet amputated as a result of not having insurance and therefore not being able to pay for the drugs she needed to control her diabetes. As a result, there is now a 30 year old lady registered as disabled and her whole life turned upside down because she wasn’t one of the fortunate ones like you who can afford insurance.
Lesley - at the moment theres lots of stuff going on with the "superbugs" hype. I'm currently working in the Infection Control Team at my local hospital and being on this side has really shown me how much the media blows things out of proportion. Your Mum could easily have had MRSA BEFORE she went into hospital. Infact they estimate that around 20% of the population have it and don't know it. Lots of us would probably test positive for it since it's found everywhere from swimming pools to bed linen. The hard part is that we don't know where most people contract MRSA but because it's usually discovered in hospitals, people just assume it had been picked up from there.
Bottom line - don’t knock it until you’ve been on the other side and really understand it!!!!!
All i know is had my Grandma had that accident in America she would not have been left over night with an open wound.
A few years ago i had a nasty lump on scar tissue in my leg and i found out that same day that it was not cancer. In england i would have waited weeks if not months to have even seen a specialist - this i know because i did wait months for respiratory specialist and dermatologist.
Most people that have problems with the financial side of insurance do not invest a small amount of money through their employment to cover the monthly cost (pre tax) and live lavish lifestyles with big houses and stylish vacations. The system however does fail genuine people that cannot pay for it in the case that you cited.
US does need a reform but having the government provide health care is not the answer. Mitt Romney's answer was the best - go read it.
Hayley, thanks for your comments I totally agree there is a lot of good done by the NHS, but there are plenty of things that happen which I could relate but won't that are totally unacceptable. There is good and bad in most healthcare systems and finding a system that works for everyone is a tall order. So I do feel ok about knocking the system because I have been on the other side!!!!! Keep up the good work i'm sure it's very interesting working on the Infection Control Team.
Fantastic comments by everybody. This can be a sensitive subject. Hayley I appreciate your employee perspective. I will address two thing. 1) National Health Service is not free, your paying for it just not through health insurance, but taxes. Additionally, what hit does your economy take when its government stifles a healthcare market. Its obvious to everyone where I stand on the political field, and as a conservative, I don't enjoy raised taxes. Americans are often classified as snobby, stupid, and arrogant. Some of that might be because Americans take for granted the freedoms and qualities of life they afford, we need more humility in our country. 2)Currently, Jess and I's financial situation affords us the some of the worst insurance out there. If there was a national health service in america, we would be benefited greatly at our current income level. So, my opinion is not biased by my ability to afford insurance.
England is a great country, and I am amazed at its stability. I think England has alot of great things, including my wonderful wife and her family. I love all your opinions, and want you to all know I respect them all. The purpose of this blog is opinion, so everybody should feel good about giving theirs.
Thanks
Well I don't know enough about the National Health System to comment with good authority on how it is administered; but I do know that when we visited Grandma last night she looked better than we had seen her look in a long time, her face and skin was fair and bright with plenty of colour and with a happy spring in her voice, she could not say enough to compliment the nurses and hospital staff who were attending her – she said they were wonderful and you couldn’t fault them in any way.
Therefore one could conclude on this experience alone that the human element of the National Health System is caring, good and kind, with the very best intentions to support and strengthen those that have the unfortunate experience of being there. Maybe it is the system alone, albeit designed to give the best on all fronts of activity, administration and safety that can sometimes miss or let down the ‘one’ in its endeavour to meet all of the objectives raised by the people and government.
Pops
ben, i'm always afraid to scroll down on your blog for fear of seeing this picture. you need to make more posts, so this thing can go in the archives.
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