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Esmin Green, 49, had been waiting in the emergency room for nearly 24 hours when she toppled from her seat at 5:32 a.m. on June 19, falling face down on the floor.

She was dead by 6:35, when someone on the medical staff, flagged down by a person in the waiting room, finally approached, nudged Green with her foot, and gently prodded her shoulder, as if to wake her. The staffer then left and returned with someone wearing a white lab coat who examined her and summoned help.
Until the staffer's appearance, Green's collapse barely caused a ripple. Other patients waiting a few feet away didn't react. Security guards and a member of the hospital's staff appeared to notice her prone body at least three times, but made no visible attempt to see if she needed help.

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Over the next four months, the hospital will attempt to shorten the median waiting time to around 10 hours.

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a study was released by doctors at Glasgow University showing that 464,000 deaths had been caused over the last 30 years by the NHS in Scotland and that "the vast majority of people - around 250,000 - who died due to inadequate or delayed treatment were heart or stroke patients".

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ORIGINAL: Archer

In the interest of equal time for the follies of socialized methods of healthcare.

http://www.freemarketcure.com/socializedmedicineissicko.php


Another short, Two Women, chronicles the sad story of Janice Fraser who, unable to urinate, needed to have a pacemaker-type device implanted to control her bladder. Unfortunately, the hospital arbitrarily rationed the operation by doing only one per month. Janice was number 32 on the list - nearly a three year wait. She ended up waiting so long that she developed life-threatening infections, had to have her bladder removed in an emergency procedure, and will now wear a urine bag for the rest of her life.

a study was released by doctors at Glasgow University showing that 464,000 deaths had been caused over the last 30 years by the NHS in Scotland and that "the vast majority of people - around 250,000 - who died due to inadequate or delayed treatment were heart or stroke patients".

In 2003, Diane Gorsuch of Manitoba died while waiting more than two years for elective cardiac bypass surgery. But, of course, it's in the interest of single-payer advocates to mislead Americans and make them think that Canadians only endure long waits for varicose vein treatment and lap band procedures.

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ORIGINAL: Casie

Sad story. Tragic that she was over looked. However I don't think the socialized medicine is the answer. There are plenty of people who die waiting for life saving surgeries there. I say we get the government out of the equation. I say we drastically cut the size of government. Get rid of income tax replace it with nothing. Then people will have more money to spend on things like  health care. I say we get insurance companies out of there to.  Doctors pay people to process insurance. That right there cuts cost.We pay 90 a week in insurance. Shitty insurance at that. If we didn't have to pay so much in taxes, insurance and doctors had to be competetive we would have no problem paying for our healthcare. At the moment that it's the case. Even with insurance I can't afford to be sick. Then doctors would have to honestly repersent the prices. People would be more involved in their health care because they would have to show more interest.When you actually see the money you have to spend you are more likely to look into the risks and benifts. In my opinion that alone would cut on malpractice suits and again save doctors money lowering the cost for us. A doctor would have to provide good service and have a competitive rate to stay in business. The government seems to screw everything up. What makes health care differnt? Further more I don't trust our government to decide who lives and who dies. And them deciding what they will and will not cover and for whom is doing just that. Taking from one to give to another even with good cause is still theft.  (Emphasis added.)

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...completely tied to the welfare system....
 
hizgeorgiapeach

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ORIGINAL: Archer

Government rationed healthcare is not exactly the argument that one wants to use to argue against 24 hour waits, when the waits for help in many government rationed healthcare are often far longer.

Who you want deciding who gets healthcare and who doesn't? Because when you nationalize it you just put the power to control exactly that in the hands of the government.

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ORIGINAL: hizgeorgiapeach

Reading this thread makes me Really glad that the hospitals around my area are so good. 
 
When dad had his stroke, it was 5 minutes from time of call to time of ambulance arrival, a 15 minute drive to take him to the hospital he specified and straight into an exam room in the ER upon arrival (which they had waiting for him, since he was being brought by ambulance) - 30 minutes in the ER while they drew blood, checked his heart and breathing and etc, and got the paperwork ready for him to go down for an MRI and a CT, and then straight from the CT into the ICU ward until they did surgery the next morning first thing. 
 
The times that I've been in that ER - whether for myself, one of my spawn, or friends who were to sick to drive themselves - the wait times have been less than an hour, consistantly.  OTOH, the hospital that's downtown, about a 10 minute drive from home rather than a 3 minute drive from home?  Wait times typically about 5 hours unless you're bleeding profusely or they think it's something immediately life threatening like stroke, heart attack, gunshot wound, etc.  The difference is that the hosptial downtown is where 95% of the people who are druggies, gang members who've shot/stabbed each other, homeless, taken in by the cops while on the way to jail, or completely tied to the welfare system go - not just for emergencies, but for what would otherwise be Routine medical care.  While their staff is good - they're so overworked you couldn't Pay me to go there, even if I needed an ER due to a car wreck across the street from there - I'd be telling them to take  me the 10 minutes away to the next closest hospital, where dad got treated, if I wasn't unconscious.