British Flee Socialized Health Care To Get Good Care Elsewhere
As those who have read the Fish Wrapper for any amount of time know, universal health care is one of the favorite socialist topics they like to promote. After all, wouldn't it be great if we could pay higher taxes to have the government provide all of our health care? Not really. One typical feature of socialized medicine that the liberal socialists like to ignore is the long waiting time for care. People in Britain are tired of dealing with it, so, as written about in the Daily Mail, they are fleeing to other countries for better health care.
Record numbers of Britons are travelling abroad for medical treatment
to escape the NHS - with 70,000 patients expected to fly out this year.
And by the end of the decade 200,000 "health tourists" will fly
as far as Malaysa and South Africa for major surgery to avoid long
waiting lists and the rising threat of superbugs, according to a new
report.The first survey of Britons opting for treatment overseas shows that
fears of hospital infections and frustration of often waiting months
for operations are fuelling the increasing trend.Patients needing major heart surgery, hip operations and
cataracts are using the internet to book operations to be carried out
thousands of miles away.
One of the libs favorite rebuattal attempts to facts like this is that this is only true for minor procedures. Does major heart surgery sound like a minor procedure?
India is the most popular destination for surgery, followed by
Hungary, Turkey, Germany, Malaysia, Poland and Spain. But dozens more
countries are attracting health tourists.Research by the Treatment Abroad website shows that Britons have
travelled to 112 foreign hospitals, based in 48 countries, to find
safe, affordable treatment.Almost all of those who had received treatment abroad said they
would do the same again, with patients pointing out that some hospitals
in India had screening policies for the superbug MRSA that have yet to
be introduced in this country.Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said the figures
were a "terrible indictment" of government policies that were
undermining the efforts of NHS staff to provide quality services.The findings come amid further revelations about the
Government's mishandling of NHS policies, and ahead of official
statistics that will embarrass ministers.On Wednesday, figures are expected to show rising numbers of
hospital infections. Cases of the superbug Clostridium difficile, which
have risen five-fold in the past decade, are expected to increase
beyond the 55,000 cases reported last year.On the same day, statistics will show that vast sums have been
spent on pay, with GPs' earnings rising by more than 50 per cent in
three years to an average of more than £110,000.New research shows that growing NHS bureaucracy has left nurses
with little time to see patients – most spending long periods dealing
with paperwork.Katherine Murphy, of the Patients' Association, said the health
tourism figures reflected shrinking public faith in the Government's
handling of the NHS."The confidence that the public has in NHS hospitals has been
shattered by the growth of hospital infections and this Government's
failure to make a real commitment to tackling it," she told The Sunday
Telegraph.
And people think that the government can handle health care sooooo much better than private industry...
"People are simply frightened of going to NHS hospitals, so I am not
surprised the numbers going abroad are increasing so rapidly."My fear is that most people can't afford to have private treatment – whether in this country or abroad."
Low prices in India, where flights, hotels and a heart bypass cost less
than half the price charged by British private hospitals, explain its
top ranking in the survey by Treatment Abroad, a British website
providing information on hospitals overseas.Hungary's popularity rests on a boom in dentistry, thanks to a shortage of NHS dentists in Britain.
The British Medical Association advised people to be careful
when considering treatment abroad, highlighting the dangers of flying
soon after surgery, which can cause complications.A spokesman said: "Travelling can place a great deal of stress
on the body. Patients travelling abroad for surgery should consider
their fitness to fly and get an understanding of an appropriate
convalescence period before attempting to return home."A Department of Health official said the number of patients
seeking treatment abroad was a tiny fraction of the 13 million treated
on the NHS each year.Waiting times had fallen. Almost half of patients were treated within
18 weeks of seeing a GP. Most people who had hospital care did not
contract infections.
18 weeks? That's supposed to be an acceptable amount of time to wait for a medical procedure? Gee, socialized health care is efficient, isn't it?
Now, do you suppose an article like this would ever be printed in the Daily Dead Fish Wrapper? Why would they do that, when it would go against their propaganda?
Going to other countries for operations
As an American, I was shocked to find my cousin, leaving for India to have a pacemaker put in because in America, she couldn't afford it. This is pathetic. She didn't mind her experience in India but it would scare me silly! what has this world came too?
I have read all about England's ways of socialized medicine etc and the LONG WAITING PERIODS TO BE TREATED ETC ..I'd love to ask Prince Charles, "how long would YOU have to wait to be cared for?".......then look at his guilty expression........
I have read ALOT about the medical ways in France and I'm aimed towards France!...not America.
Thanks to the future "maybe" President Billary...(hahahahah)you cant afford insurance but you cant afford to live without it?
egads...I want Paris ..
Not quite the proof you need for the statements being made
"This is an excellent example of an individual not wanting care in sub-par facilities as a result of the universal health care system."
Before such cause-effect relationships are established one should perhaps provide just a bit of evidence for the link. Correlations are not proof of cause and effect. Common sense would indicate that under a privatized system that very same east European country would still likely have sub standard facilities when compared to the United States.
This is really all I tend to see, correlations made with no evidence for the link, hell no thought at all as to how and why this correlation exists. The lack of critical thinking is appalling.
Btw this isn't to those that may have a reasonable argument against socialized healthcare, in fact I would love to hear about it. Instead what I usually find is that people like to focus on that word socialized and then relate it back to socialist Russia.
Just recently, through my
Just recently, through my experience at working at a hospital, I met a patient who had gotten injured while travelling in Eastern European nation and asked him about the care he received there. He stated that the hospitals were not as good because they did not contain as much equipment and the lines to be admitted were extremely long. He went to a hospital in an average sized city, which was surprising and he flew to Dayton, Ohio to his home to be admitted to the hospital as soon as he was in stable condition, so that he could have highly qualified doctors and top notch resources take care of him. The patient did not even want to have surgery in that European hospital because he feared disease. This is an excellent example of an individual not wanting care in sub-par facilities as a result of the universal health care system. So I would agree with the view that Canadian quadruplets were born in an American hospital as opposed to the Canadian hospital they were supposed to be, because they lacked the facilities. Universal health care is very appropriate on paper and looks to create equality. But in the end it creates just as many problems as it hoped to cure.
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