The NHS, the truth

As some of you know, I am active on Yahoo Answers.  I started to post there as I saw some outright lies, as well as half truths being told by members and supporters of the BNP.  Well one of the other things I noted, was the debate on healthcare in the USA.  I saw some terrible things being said about healthcare in the UK, and of course, working in the NHS, I could not let such things go without being challenged.

Well, now, there are a few posters who are regurgitating the same facts.  And to be fair, some are right, but loads are blatant distortions.  So this post is dedicated to pointing out the truth with these statements.




Question a doctor and lose your child - This article in the Times is one on child protection.  In the vast majority of cases, parents know better than doctors when it comes to their children.  I am a parent after all and we in the health professions respect that.  But there are cases there parents do not know.  And in cases, where a child is at risk of harm or abuse, then we as healthcare workers have to act in the best interests of the child.  The many cases where such actions help children is not reported in the news, but the very few stories where healthcare workers get it wrong, or where it makes good headlines do.

'Doctors told me it was against the rules to save my premature baby' - this article (in a paper known to have supported Hitler in the past) refers to a baby born at a gestation of 21 weeks and five days.  The youngest child to have survived was born at 21 weeks and six days, that being a very rare occurence.  Yes, there are guidelines by the UK that state that resuscitation should not be carried out on babies born before 22 weeks but the thing that makes it even more interesting, is that these posts made by Americans make no mention that in the USA, babies born before 23 weeks are considered non-viable!  

Daughter claims father wrongly placed on controversial NHS end of life scheme - This refers to a claim, not a fact and the Liverpool Care Pathway which it refers to is not controversial really.  Yes, like with all things, there are people who disagree with it, but then there are those who think that the earth is flat.  Is it controversial to say it is round, or that the sun is a ball of hydrogen within which nuclear fusion is taking place?  Some would say such statements are completely wrong!

NHS is paying millions to gag whistleblowers - I am not going to claim that some authorities do the best they can to hide things, but the NHS as a whole encourages people to speak up in order to help patient care.  Those from abroad forget that, or never bothered to listen when told otherwise.  Or never knew about it and did not find out more.

Patients forced to live in agony after NHS refuses to pay for painkilling injections - an interesting headline.  But if you look at the article, "A spokesman for NICE said its guidance did not recommend that injections were stopped for all patients, but only for those who had been in pain for less than a year, where the cause was not known."  Something that our American cousins seem to miss when they quote this on Yahoo! Answers.

People in the UK face longer waits for non-emergency surgery and struggle to see GPs out-of-hours compared with other western countries, a survey says -  again an interesting article, because in the comparisons, the US fails big time.  But the BBC link while it reports some of the findings in the Commonwealth Fund article, does not mention those that US posters fail to realise!  These of course refer to medical error rates and those who skip healthcare due to costs.  Click on the link above if you want more on that story!

Britain's healthcare system 'worse than Estonia's' is another headline article that has been quoted.  However, when it was posted, the person who used this to bash the NHS neglected to mention that this was when it came to patient satisfaction and neglects to mention that when it came to "access" and "efficiency" that the NHS scored much, much better.   

Others in the USA have posted how the NHS is to be reformed.  And yes it is.  But it is still to be a service that is funded through the government that is free at the point of delivery. The reforms are controversial, with not everyone being in favour of them.  And the reforms are only taking place in England, not in the other areas of the UK.

Now, the fire service in the USA can be run like the healthcare system has been run under the rule of the GOP.

And the video does show how that would work!

There is the statement dealing the the death rates for unhealthy teenage girls which is high in the UK.  But not as high as that in the USA.  The article quite rightly mentions that the UK has high death rates for boys and girls, the chance of them living till 60 being high, but not high enough.  But the people who quote it forget the rates for the USA!

Another article states "Die in Britain, survive in the US" using figures that date back to 1996!  The same article, written by someone who is plugging his book mentions the US healthcare system, as well as it's failures, but fails to mention the latest facts on the management of chronic conditions.  A fact ignored in this article which looks at UK cancer survival rates, again quoted against the NHS.  In them, the USA rates better than the UK in just one of the outcomes.  In all the others, the UK beats the USA.  So, yes, there are some areas where you do better if you live in the USA than if you live in the UK.  But there are so many other ways in which having access to the NHS gives you better outcomes.  And you do not have to become bankrupt to do so.


And of course, there are these facts...


FACT - Insurance companies in the USA admit to pushing up prices, buying politicians and not paying out claims when they should
FACT - PER PERSON the USA spends more on healthcare than any other nation on the planet
FACT - Obama debated his plans before the election for healthcare
FACT - the chance of a child under five of dying in the USA is greater than industrialised nations with universal healthcoverage
FACT - Obama was elected by the American people to bring in change
FACT - Obama wants to stop insurance companies from screwing the American people
FACT - The reforms Obama wants work in the Netherlands and in Switzerland

Sorry of this causes offence to some.  That is not the intent and I am always open to debate.  If you want to debate, feel free to e-mail me using Yahoo! Answers, or if you want, you can post comments here.  If you want to post abuse, or a negative comment, I am more than happy to publish those posts as well. 

But, remember, rationing occurs in all healthcare systems.  It is up to the people of a nation to decide if they want that based on health related factors, or on the ability to pay.