The American Spectator : Socialized Medicine on Display

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Socialized Medicine on Display

By Hal G.P. Colebatch on 4.20.09 @ 6:07AM

The first thing to remember is that criticism and whistleblowing will not to be tolerated, as British practice reminds us every day.

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This, of course, if probably the key point: not that the administration of the hospital went rotten but that it was allowed to go on rotting for year after year, with, apparently, no complaints being made, or, if such complaints were made, no action being taken.

There are many unanswered questions here: Did no patient or family complain to his or her Member of Parliament? Did no Members of Parliament complain to the Minister? Did no doctor or nurse or administrator or even cleaner complain to their professional bodies or unions, and, if they did so complain, why was no action taken? Is nobody really responsible for hospital; standards? Are the British people actually so mentally and spiritually bludgeoned by socialism and nanny-statism that they took it all for granted? The fact the mistreatment of patients should have been able to go on for so long uninterrupted seems in a way worse and more disturbing than the mistreatment itself. Where is the initiative? Where is the gumption? Why did it take so long for any decent honest anger to be generated? Although the government behaved — perhaps with good reason — as if it thought it could get away with treating this as a one-off aberration, it looks like a general systemic and even cultural and spiritual failure of the sort associated with the latter days of the USSR.

Local Tory MP Bill Cash has now raised the question of charges of corporate manslaughter being laid but it remains to be seen if anything will happen in that direction.

After the general story of the hospital broke, the Daily Mail found another angle. It reported:

Chief executive Martin Yeates told the parents of 20-year-old John Moore-Robinson it was time to “move on” [after] Mr. Moore-Robinson died because doctors at the hospital failed to discover he had ruptured his spleen in a cycling accident.

They sent him home with pain-killers — and he bled to death. A year later, an inquest told the hospital to improve its standard of care. But it was another nine months before Mr. Yeates wrote to the family.

He told them: “I hope that the way the matters have been resolved speedily will go some way to help and your family feel that it’s time to put the matter behind you and move on. Please accept my apologies and regret for the death of your son.”

Apart from the stunning arrogance with which this letter seems to drip (How grimly accurate does Evelyn Waugh’s prediction of a socialist Britain as a two-class state of proletariat and officials seem!), one wonders what actually happened following that particular inquest result — apparently nothing. It has recently emerged that warnings — apparently quite unaccompanied by action — were raised about the hospital’s standards as long ago as 2002.

Patient groups are said to be angered that Cynthia Bower, who was chief executive of the West Midlands Strategic Health Authority, the organization with responsibility for checking standards at the hospital, from July 2006, is to set to become the new head of the health super-regulator, the Care Quality Commission.

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About the Author

Hal G.P. Colebatch’s “Immram,” Counterstrike, is being published by Australian publisher Imaginites.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (68) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

Pat Gardiner| 4.20.09 @ 6:51AM

I'm a non-Socialist supporter of Britain's NHS, but nevertheless, welcome your criticism, which is mostly justified and carries imprtant warnings for other countries especially the United States.

Britain's treatment of whistle-blowers is espcially disgusting.

I have spent almost decade on the MRSA, C.Diff disasters, day after day: there at the beginning, with pigs and in pig country when the horror story started.

We decided on a self-sufficient lifestyle and walked into a nightmare.

There is little doubt that MRSA and probably C.Diff in pigs has been leaking into the hospitals for some years.

There was a nasty mutation to a porcine circovirus in Britain in 1999 which caused an epidemic that required huge quantities of antibiotics to handle the consequences.

MRSA in pigs was the result, usually the ST398 strain.

The Dutch picked up the problem about four years ago and commendably made everything they knew public.

Both circovirus and MRSA epidemics have now travelled the world along with accompanying cover-ups. It is quite a nasty situation - now coming to light in the USA.

MRSA st398, mutated circovirus and various other unpleasant zoonotic diseases have now reached American pig farms.

The people exposing the scandal in the US are to be commended.

I have extensive records available to anyone researching the link and can often answer general questions quickly and accurately.
–
Regards
Pat Gardiner
Release the results of testing British pigs for MRSA and C.Diff now!
http://www.go-self-sufficient.com and http://animal-epidemics.blogspot.com

Appleby| 4.20.09 @ 6:57AM

Come north to Kanukistan and you will find the same conditions here, mainly caused by the fact that the illegal aliens they hire to *clean* in hospitals cannot read or understand either English or French and have no personal idea of how to keep hospital style sanitation levels. We even have had lawsuits won by Muslim women who REFUSE TO WASH THEIR HANDS as it requires showing an inch or two of arm to the ravening gaze of sexist males.

And criticizm of course leads to shrieks of racisim and Islamophobia.

Change you can die for. Stock up on bleach and get ready to bring out your dead.

Bob| 4.20.09 @ 7:30AM

Don't any of you do research? You anti-intellectuals are so full of ideology that you don't look at the data. Overall infections caused by C. diff more than doubled between 2000 and 2005 in the U.S., according to the latest government figures. In 2005, 301,200 cases of C. difficile-associated disease (CDAD) were logged in discharge records kept by the nation’s hospitals. Some 28,600 people who had the infection died.

C. diff is a worldwide epidemic. Our health care system is not immune.

That's only hospitals, however. Counting nursing homes and other care centers, the number of cases nationally is likely closer to 500,000, experts estimate.

Contaminated health care settings remain the main source of C. diff infections, primarily because they treat so many people with serious diarrheal illness. The NAP1 strain has been found in other sites and populations in recent years, infecting young adults and pregnant women with no history of antibiotic use, according to federal sources.

Despite the concern, scientists don't know how many people contract NAP1 infections, or how many die from them. C. diff infection is not a reportable condition in most states, although a rare pilot project that mandated reporting in Ohio in 2006 found more than 14,000 cases in hospitals and nursing homes that year, according to the state health department.

The lack of objectivity and research that you guys at AmSpec show is the precisely what is hurting the Republican party. I was able to get the statistics above from Google in a matter of a couple of minutes. Can't you take the time to show you have some level of intelligence?

Now I'm not a fat of the British health care system, but not being objective is an easy way to lose your case.

Pingback| 4.20.09 @ 7:36AM

Socialized Medicine on Display links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Authority, the organization with responsibility for checking standards at the hospital, from July 2006, is to set to become the new head of the health super-regulator, the Care Quality Commission. Read More Share and Enjoy: Related posts: Obama’s Big Government Gamble The more than 300,000 Americans who attended tea parties... Just Following Orders Obama administration chief of staff Rahm Emanuel…

Jay| 4.20.09 @ 7:50AM

We are headed in the right(left) direction! NHS in England is set up for trauma treatment, which tey do acceptably. The real crux of the problem is that as here, when cuts are necessary to budgets, no Congressperson losses a perquisite, fire and police services stop. Libraries close and teachers lose jobs. This lets the citizenry know just how serious things are.

Well in Britain you can add to that list the NHS. They get cuts first to prove the seriousness of the fiscal irresponsibility of government. That will happen here too.

Pingback| 4.20.09 @ 8:43AM

New Paltz Journal » Blog Archive » Excited about “universal” health coverage? links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…smoothly humming along through its 61st year of steadfast health care, to guide us in our quest for a truly efficient “universal” system. For instance, we don’t want our nurses acting out like this: Latest news in the exciting saga of Britain’s socialized medicine is that a nurse, Margaret Haywood, aged 58, has been struck off for the crime of exposing neglect and mistreatment of…

MarkS- Jupiter FL| 4.20.09 @ 9:01AM

The most chilling sentence for Americans facing the prospect of government monopoly healthcare in Colebatch's report: "Did no patient or family complain to his or her Member of Parliament?" And the next is, "Are the British people actually so mentally and spiritually bludgeoned by socialism and nanny-statism that they took it all for granted?" because the answer is "apparently so". Welcome to the Left's world where the personal truly is political.

2Anglico| 4.20.09 @ 9:13AM

Way to change the subject boob...er...bob. The article's point was less about filth and sluttishness and more about cowardly GOVERNMENT officials unwilling to address the fact that their GOVERNMENT run health system is broken.
But actually, thanks bob, you reinforced the author's conclusion by using the same tactics.

Interested Conservative| 4.20.09 @ 9:38AM

Bob - 2Anglico gets to the essence, which is what you apparently missed. Your googling minute is fine, but what does that have to do with NHS practices, or more broadly, remedying defects of socialized health care?

For that matter, given your googling, how will the US health care system handle this vs. the NHS or any socialized system?

Given what we now know, who would you prefer to handle this, the mixed US system (from CDC, to big pharma, to your local heavily regulated hospital) or what seems to be the suppressive govt. integrated systems of Britain and others.

I take that to be the point of the article.

Thanks for your comments.

Bob| 4.20.09 @ 10:25AM

IC -- I do not take seriously the threat of a British type of socialized medicine. We are not a monarchy and even Democrats want something different. The Obama administration is talking about paying by outcomes, not procedures. In business we pay for results. This is wholly consistent with our economic system. Furthermore, our system is tremendously inefficient. I believe we will end up with a system more like Taiwan than the U.K. They've reduced administrative costs substantially through a centralized payment system based on outcomes and electronic records. I think that will take out 3-5% of our costs. Even Democrats want to choose their own doctors, so I don't see that choice going away because Democrats do want to be reelected.

There is a tendency here to point out the weaknesses of nationalized health care with straw dogs like this C. diff argument. It is a false argument which I pointed out.

Now do you really believe that the government is going to muzzle all of you here at AmSpec, muzzle Fox News and Rush? Not on your life....

I want some efficiencies in the health care system. I want to reduce administrative costs. I want electronic records and a more efficient payment system. I want businesses to have lower health care costs so they can be more competitive and build manufacturing plants here. This is what fiscal responsibility is all about.

Most of you tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater through the use of sensationalized posts that stretch the truth. This subject is no different in that respect. To complain about another solution without having an alternative yourself is cowardice.

jharp| 4.20.09 @ 10:59AM

Good thing no one is proposing a socialized medicine system here in the U.S.

Though it's cheap, about a third of what we pay. It leaves a lot to be desired.

But it seems your post is simply to mislead American's away from any health care reform.

You should be ashamed.

Stunned by your stupidity| 4.20.09 @ 11:11AM

Wow!!
You Guys really are nuts..
Socialised medicine - I can see how that sticks in the craw of you guys- whats up? your share price sdropping in the private health insurance sector???. Don't use Margaret Haywoods case to attack healthcare when needed rather than on the size of your wallet. You have simply displayed an incredibly badly thought out right wing diatribe with no thought to evidence or fact. You are a disgrace. We will see Margaret OK and justice done. There is much wrong with the British NHS but we need no lessons from money sucking vampires like you 40 million people in the US with no access to health care?? Take care of your own back yard before commenting on us
A UK RN

henry| 4.20.09 @ 11:14AM

Forty years ago, when I went into medical practice, we had a different system. There was a distinct hierarchy in the hospitals; we were supervised by more experienced practitioners so that our learning curve would cause no harm. Every hospital ward had a matron and head nurse, who ruled the nurses and nurse aids with a rod of iron. They were ultimately responsible for what happened to the patients in their charge, and were automatically held accountable.
Our disciplinary bodies comprised our peers, usually the same experienced professionals who examined us for our finals.
Our greatest fear was to be judged as incompetent by our fellow doctors.
Today the professional bodies are primed with bureaucrats, career political suck-ups who know little about medicine. The old hierarchy is gone; walk into a ward today and ask for the nurse in charge and you are met with a blank stare. It’s politically incorrect to insist on a system of accountability.
It’s ironic that the mountain of litigation which haunts the profession these days has not had the desired effect. According to your sister magazine in Britain there were seventy four thousand iatrogenic deaths in Britain last year. These people died because of wrong or delayed diagnoses, bad or negligent nursing care, or the wrong treatment.
But the biggest sin is to expose the system. Once the politicians take over, the most important agenda is to cover up the stuff ups caused by their policies.

Chisco| 4.20.09 @ 11:16AM

I was wondering how long it would take to see the usual obama-apologist site pests to show up on this thread: 4 posts! But, never fear, "Bob" showed up to correct the situation for us "anti-intellectuals"!

However, having worked both in hospitals where even trained nurses made obvious mistakes and in food service, where the slovenly habits of ILLEGAL alien workers were continually on display (who they had to be ORDERED to wash their hands by Spanish-speaking co-workers and management), I can assure you that the conditions described in this article will certainly be the result of what's coming down the obama road to his new "socialist nirvana"........

However, the site pests are all too eager to come in and defend the indefensible....they will continue to believe in the obama magical makeover tour until at least one of their relatives (if not more) die as a result of similar situations to what is described in this article!

Stan Redmond| 4.20.09 @ 11:57AM

Yeah, but it's free. I saw it in a Michael Moore documentary.

Dagny Taggert| 4.20.09 @ 2:09PM

Bob-
"I want some efficiencies in the health care system. I want to reduce administrative costs. I want electronic records and a more efficient payment system. I want businesses to have lower health care costs so they can be more competitive and build manufacturing plants here. This is what fiscal responsibility is all about. "

Tell me how putting the feds in charge of our healthcare system gains any of the improvements you seek. Are there ANY examples in government-run systems of ANY kind that have resulted in improved efficiencies and/or lower costs?

UK RN- that 40mm number is an oft-repeated myth. At what point is it reasonable to include ILLEGAL immigrants to get to that figure? Might as well call it 3 billion un-insured if the USA is going to take responsibility for the healthcare of the rest of the world.

Wake up healthcare socialists: The equation is simple--the only way gov't-run helathcare brings down costs is by rationing healthcare.

Vaemar| 4.20.09 @ 2:27PM

The UK system began quite well, though very expensively for the tax-payer, in the late 1940s - it provided rreasonable care for all. Unfortunately under socialism and bureaucracy it has become less and less efficient ever since, and is now, like any socialist enterprize which lasts long enough, simply a vast feather-bed for bureaucrats, more and more of its resources going to administrative salaries, less and less to providing patient care. Only wholesale privatisation and a return to the type of practices which Henry describes might reform it. Yet the truely apalling thing here is the extent to which homicidally bad patient care has gradually come to be taken for granted - what a comedown from the standards of the past!

Marc Jeric| 4.20.09 @ 2:35PM

I was exposed to socialized medicine in a communist country (Yugoslavia) and in socialist France. One evening I fell and broke a leg: I waited 8 hours in the hospital corridor for somebody to see me - but that was the problem for the next shift of the unionized workforce (you know, work rules). In Paris I visited my girlfriend with a broken wrist and found her in a corridor full of dying patients in make-shift beds - shit and piss was all over the floor. After 4 hours of waiting for a doctor - they were all busy with more critical cases - I took her to a private doctor operating illegally and thus emptied my savings account. Solzhenytsin, right. But the politicians had a separate health plan, with private clinics closed to ordinary citizens.

Robert Rosencrans| 4.20.09 @ 2:50PM

All government sponsored health care is rationed. After the disaster we just had in housing thanks to the giveaway concepts, what will happen when the government gives away health care to all, and that's all it will be no matter how it is couched. In the meantime, read this critical article about the Canadian monopoly of health care and it's innate built in system of guaranteed failure.

http://www.pierrelemieux.org/artbroken.html

With a universal public system that creates entitlements and encourages over-consumption, and a public monopoly to run the delivery of medical services, the Canadian system combines the inefficiencies of government-run enterprises with the failures of monopoly. The result is not surprising: waiting lines. The Fraser Institute, a free-market think tank in Vancouver, has calculated that, in 2003, the average waiting time from referral by a general practitioner to actual treatment was more than four months. Waiting times are high even for critical diseases: the shortest median wait is 6.1 weeks for oncology treatment, excluding radiation which takes longer. Extreme cases include more than a year median wait for neuro-surgery in New Brunswick. The median wait for an MRI in Canada is three months. Since 1993, waiting times have increased by 90 percent. A class action lawsuit has been recently launched against Québec hospitals on behalf of 10,000 breast cancer patients who, since October 1997, have had to wait more than eight weeks for post-surgery radiation therapy.

Quite interestingly, Canadians are not much more satisfied with their health system than Americans. An opinion survey reported in a Health Affairs article reported that, in 2001, more below-average-income Americans (35 percent) than Canadians in the same income class (23 percent) are deeply dissatisfied with their health system, but note the small difference; and in the above-average-income category, there was no statistically significant difference in dissatisfaction between Canada and the United States. An older (1999-2000) survey showed that 40 percent of all Americans were satisfied compared to 46 percent of all Canadians. But dissatisfaction in Canada has been growing fast recently, and opinion polls now show that a majority of Canadians would like to see a parallel private system.

The American system is far from ideal, but the reason is that it is too socialized and regulated, not because it needs more government intervention. And at least the American system leaves room for free market competition, consumer choice and evolution. Moving towards the Canadian system would be moving in the wrong

2Anglico| 4.20.09 @ 3:08PM

I see by "UK RN"'s post that the British educational system is as broken as their medical. How sad, the English can't write a proper sentence in English. I'll bet GOVERNMENT RUN is the common denominator.

David Thomas| 4.20.09 @ 4:00PM

Please see the comment of 2008 on

http://davids-home-now.blogspot.com

ARealist| 4.20.09 @ 6:04PM

A very interesting internet tour is to actually read - readily available on the internet - the newspapers of Canada, UK, and Sweden (english version), and in the "search" box type in medical care or hospital.
You will get , straight from the horse's mouth, real info on what really is going on.
I used (mid to late 90s) to travel freqently to Alberta, Canada on business and would stay one or two weeks at a time. Of course, I would read/ hear stories about health care.
It certainly woke me up about socialized medicine and its problems.
By the way, I think our system here in the USA leaves much to be desired (I have full medical coverage), but socialized medicine is no panacea either.
Also, my sister in law - an American - lived in the UK for about 7 years and, as one would expect, had to use medical services there on occasion.

Her exact comments about the govt. medical services she rec'd are un-printable in this forum.

When something is subsidized, you will get more of it ; and there is simply nothing you can do about it. When folks "believe" that medical care is free, the demand WILL skyrocket. The govt. will have to respond by rationing care and imposing price controls.
They will have no choice .
This has happened EVERYWHERE socialized medicine has been implemented.
Of course, price /service controls , where ever tried, for any commodity or service - housing, food, petrol, etc., ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, always leads to crappy service, shortages and rationing.
All those in favor of socialized medicine please note that the politicians who support this will be insulated and immune from deficiencies in service/treatment; they have political connections and will not only jump to the front of the very long line, but they will be able to receive the latest and greatest service, while all of us, the average folks, will get totally screwed.
This happens in Canada, the UK, everywhere.

Again, I do think our system leaves much to be desired. It is to darn expensive and full of wasteful bureacracy due to insurance and govt forms.

There is no doubt that if the insurance companies and the govt. played ZERO role in health care, the costs would drop through the floor. (Imagine if everyone purchased groceries via insurance companies - what an expensive mess that would be !!)
Many years back the state of Washington had all state employees (premiums paid from payroll deductions + state coffers) on the world's greatest, most fantastic health insurance plan you could imagine; I know, I read the entire policy very carefully. A minimal co-pay (10 bucks or so) and the rest of your care was literally free.
In a few years they found that the costs skyrocketed because too many folks were visiting the doctor . This is what one would expect when folks believe stuff is near-free. Of course, the co-pays, premiums, etc. had to be changed to rein in costs.
Of course, when the federal govt. gets their plan through and costs go thru the ceiling - which they will - individuals will pay more, doctors/nurses will be paid less (this , of course, will lead to a shortage of doctors and nurses, but that is a matter for another day), and service MUST be rationed.
I wish I were smart enough to know the best solution, but I am not.

thinkingabovemypaygrade| 4.20.09 @ 9:02PM

Sad to hear that so many elderly in Britain are getting substandard care!

The Nazis didn't take them out years back---but they lived to be "taken out' by their own country's neglect!

moron| 4.20.09 @ 9:09PM

Hey Bob. Have you not heard your Messiah is borrowing and spending $3 trillion dollars AND is lowering the taxes for 95% of Americans??? Wait, have another Kool-Aid. And electronic records, bureaucracy will INCREASE efficiency, improve healthcare results by bureaucratic oversight , provide the best most expensive tests and doctors, and REDUCE health care costs and provide coverage for EVERYONE at a reduced cost. May I have some of your Kool-Aid or at least a gallon of vodka? Yes we can. Britain and Canada can't, but we can provide it all!!! Hillarycare and Obamacare are here to save us and 95% will receive a tax cut and healthcare will cost less and provide more!!! More vodka please.

MT| 4.20.09 @ 10:59PM

The UK nurses are slutty? What is that about? On second thought, I don't want to know.

Lily| 4.20.09 @ 11:40PM

Two class state: Proletariat and the officials. Sounds like us under the fascist liberal, Obama. God help us.

Smitty| 4.21.09 @ 1:46AM

This reminds me of our public school system: Both are disasters. I do not want socialized health care--what a terrible nightmare--and no one is responsible. Just like our public school system.

Joyce| 4.21.09 @ 1:55AM

I am surprised that none of you have mentioned the Walter Reed debacle and the mess that was found in that government run institution. Our government had to privatize the Post office because it couldn't efficiently get a letter from one side of the country to the other and we want them to run something infinitely more important?

KyMouse| 4.21.09 @ 4:30PM

I'm going to make photocopies of this article and take them to several department heads at the hospital in which I've been volunteering (in the ER) for the past nine years. I think they will be interested -- at least, I hope they will.

In all of those years, I've had only two encounters with paid staff members that concerned me; more incidents probably happen, but I haven't seen them. The first was when a nurse simply put a fresh sheet on a gurney after the patient had been discharged, and didn't wipe it down first with disinfectant, in preparation for the next patient. (I wiped it down and put on a fresh sheet.)

The other time, I was offering to help a tech with a female patient, and asked if she wanted me to get her a vaginal speculum. She looked puzzled, so I described it to her. She said, "Is that what it's called? I just call it a pistol."

I suppose two such occurrences in nine years of once-a-week volunteering isn't much, and they aren't bad by some standards, but I'll admit that they made me a bit uneasy. (And yes, I did notify my supervisor afterward).

Thanks for sounding the alarm.

MT| 4.21.09 @ 4:40PM

No accountability. Government is NEVER accountable for its screw-ups. Arrogant, actually--like the Brit health care management in this article. So friggin' scary!! I DON'T want it here.

Pete| 4.21.09 @ 4:41PM

OMG!!

Pete| 4.21.09 @ 4:41PM

OMG!!

Jill Brock| 4.21.09 @ 10:21PM

Nice for the well -off right wingers that they get taken care of because they can affore health insurance while some poor person working two jobs gets to bleed to death both literally and financially. No really. Do you ever care about anybody else but yourself? This is truly pathetic.

Jimbo| 4.21.09 @ 11:43PM

Health care is not a right and when the government promises to end poverty they are using you to get elected. Liberals have been promising to end poverty for decades now and the voting public keeps buying.

Socialized medicine is the quickest way for us all to have no medicine at all.

There are many common sense steps that can be taken to reduce medical and insurance costs in this country. Socializing medicine is not one of them.