theblogprof: Single-Payer Hell: British patients sue over 33% failure rate for operations

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

The National Health Service (NHS) in the U.K. is the 3rd largest employer in the world! Just behind the Chinese army (!) and Indian rail, which is government owned. Does such a huge entity lead to better treatment for all? Not at all! Nightmare scenarios come out of the National Health Service in Britain at a pretty good clip these days. Same with CanadaCare. That is why the really sick in both systems come to the U.S. for treatment. The guy in this story should have done the same. From the U.K. Daily Mail via Doug Ross @Journal: Foreign surgeons flown to UK to cut waiting times 'botched one in three operations'.

A hospital which flew in Scandinavian surgeons to reduce waiting times is being sued after it was alleged that one third of the operations carried out were botched.
Surgeons from Sweden, Denmark and Finland were flown into Britain between 2003 and 2006 as part of a £3million scheme to speed up hip and knee replacements.
But concerns were raised about the quality of the work carried out and many patients fear the surgeons were insufficiently trained or skilled.
More than one third of people operated on at Weston-super-Mare General Hospital (WGH), Somerset, had an unsatisfactory result and six legal cases are now being considered.

Terry Heath, 65, [pictured right - ed] who lives with wife Patricia in Bristol, is taking the hospital to court after a botched knee replacement operation left him unable to walk without crutches.

The former Airbus worker said his life has been 'changed completely' by the overseas surgeon's mistake.

But hey - they saved a few bucks! This is what happens when healthcare providers are mutated by the force of the state into bureaucrats. And this is what Obama wants to import over here to the U.S? Doug Ross comments:

Look on the bright side: it was only one in three!

Indeed. It could be worse. Much worse. For a first-hand perspective of NHS care, read this over at Pajamas Media: British Health Service: A National Disgrace. Also, here's some more reading in case you want to really be sick (HT: Doug Ross @Journal):

Fury after hospital sends heart attack mum home to die: 8/3/2009 [Daily Record]

NHS 'failings' over elderly falls: 3/25/2009 [BBC]
Learning disabled 'failed by NHS': 3/24/2009 [BBC]
Cancer survivor confronts the health secretary on 62-day wait: 3/21/2009 [The Scotsman]

Culture of targets prevents nurses from tending to patients: Patients Association, 3/21/2009 [Telegraph UK]
Children being failed by health system, says head of watchdog: Sarah Boseley, 3/21/2009 [Guardian Unlimited]
Our cancer shame: Survival rates still lag behind EU despite spending billions: 3/20/2009 [Daily Mail(UK)]

Failing hospital 'caused deaths': 3/17/2009 [BBC]
Health gap drive 'wasted money': 3/14/2009 [BBC]
Longer GP opening hours branded wasteful 'PR exercise' by doctors: 3/13/2009 [The Scotsman]

"Political meddling" threatens general practice, warns GP leader: 3/13/2009 [Management in Practice (UK)]
Children at risk through lack of training for doctors and nurses, report warns: 3/13/2009 [Telegraph UK]
Chocolate should be taxed to control obesity epidemic, doctors are told: 3/13/2009 [Telegraph UK]

1,000 wait for a dentist after just one NHS practice opens: 3/10/2009 [Daily Mail(UK)]
Study proves the folly of NHS Alzheimer's drug ban: 3/7/2009 [Daily Mail(UK)]
NHS charges to rise in England: 3/5/2009 [BBC]

Disabled children wait up to two years for wheelchairs: 3/4/2009 [Guardian Unlimited]
NHS under fire over waiting times: 2/25/2009 [The Scotsman]
Specialist nurses 'vastly overworked': 2/20/2009 [Harwich & Manningtree Standard]

Hundreds of operations cancelled at Lothian hospitals: 2/19/2009 [The Scotsman]
Stop asking for antibiotics to cure coughs and colds, Government tells patients: 2/17/2009 [Daily Mail(UK)]
Stroke services are 'UK's worst' : 2/17/2009 [BBC]

Hospitals curb caesarean births: 2/15/2009 [The Times]