Free Republic

Since Ed and I have each written about the latest round of Obamacare-exacerbated premium hikes, let’s check in on Britain’s single-payer system, which many American liberals fetishize: An official inquiry into failings at [Stafford] hospital, where between 400 and 1,200 patients died needlessly due to a catalogue of failings and appalling standards of care, is due to be published later this month. The report is expected to blame managers who cut costs and reduced staffing levels in an attempt to hit "efficiency" targets and win foundation status. Before taking control of the health service, Sir David ran the health authority...

If it feels like you’re spending more time in the waiting room of your doctor’s office these days, it’s not your imagination. Family doctors are busier than ever. For many people, it is becoming difficult to even find a doctor, say experts who blame Obamacare for accelerating the nation’s doctor shortage. … What’s driving the trend, health experts say, is the nation’s growing population of older Americans using more healthcare resources. At the same time, as many as 1 in 3 practicing physicians are nearing retirement age. What’s more, the addition of some 30 million patients newly covered by insurance—as...

FULL TITLE: 60,000 patients put on death pathway without being told but minister still says controversial end-of-life plan is 'fantastic' Up to 60,000 patients die on the Liverpool Care Pathway each year without giving their consent, shocking figures revealed yesterday. A third of families are also kept in the dark when doctors withdraw lifesaving treatment from loved ones. Despite the revelations, Jeremy Hunt last night claimed the pathway was a ‘fantastic step forward’. Outcry: Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt provoked outrage by saying the death pathway was a 'fantastic step forward' In comments that appeared to prejudge an official inquiry into...

Much like the Greek debt crisis offered a glimpse of that fiscal day-of-reckoning 'Obama bucks' America is soon to face, the UK's  ever-ailing National Health Service -a 60-year-old system of socialized medicine known as the NHS- provides Americans a useful preview of all the expensive, unnecessary disasters our own Obamacare will soon be bringing on this side of the pond. And the prognosis?  Hope you're sitting down... The Guardian (UK): Senior doctors warned that the findings reflected their increasingly frantic efforts to find beds for the growing number of emergency admissions and that repeated breaches of the 85% (capacity) limit meant...

I’m not easily grossed out or nauseated. Heck, I’m on email lists for a half-dozen softball teams and you can only imagine the strange/filthy/nasty things that guys send to each other. But I read a story about the death panels in the United Kingdom that left me discombobulated. I can’t even begin to describe how I feel.Here’s the intro of a disturbing report in the Daily Mail.Sick children are being discharged from NHS hospitals to die at home or in hospices on controversial ‘death pathways’. Until now, end of life regime the Liverpool Care Pathway was thought to have involved...

"Her family was told she was brain dead..... Now she’s back at home cooking dinner with her family....The world of organ donation in Denmark is in turmoil. A documentary was aired earlier this month which showed family members reacting in anguish to the news that their 19-year-old daughter was brain dead after a car accident, agreeing to donate her organs and allowing doctors to turn off her respirator.....“But we made a mistake underway and made the family believe that their daughter and sister would die.”....The hospital acknowledged that the question of organ donation should not have been raised as there...

NHS patients are receiving an "unacceptable" level of care from a growing army of unqualified healthcare assistants, who have taken over nursing roles on wards and in care homes, an independent commission warns. Basic tasks which were once the job of trained nurses are being carried out by more than 50,000 low-paid and unregulated assistants due to budget cuts and growing demands on nurses' time. Putting vulnerable patients in the care of well-meaning but "unreliable" nursing assistants raises "serious concerns about public protection", a commission led by Lord Willis of Knaresborough, the Liberal Democrat peer, says in a report published...

Family doctors are being told to try to talk women out of having Caesareans and very strong painkillers during birth to save the NHS money. New guidelines drawn up for GPs urge them to encourage women to have natural labours with as little medical help as possible. But for many women the prospect of giving birth without the painkillers is unthinkable. And critics have said the move has been made without any thought for the women themselves. The guidelines also remind doctors to tell women to consider having their babies outside hospital in midwife-run units or in their own homes.

The long awaited 2010 nationwide examination of the euthanasia law in the Netherlands was published in The Lancet on July 11, 2012. The study found that: * the number of euthanasia deaths has grown significantly since 2005 (4050 in 2010, 2425 in 2005) * the under-reporting of euthanasia in the Netherlands has grown since 2005 (23% in 2010, 20% in 2005) * there is a growth in deaths by terminal sedation (12.3% in 2010, 8.2% in 2005) * the percentage of requests for euthanasia being fulfilled has increased (45% in 2010, 37% in 2005) * the number of deaths without...

Thousands of doctors and nurses may be sacked unless they agree to drastic changes to their pay and conditions as hospitals strive to make billions of pounds worth of savings, it has been claimed. NHS bosses have suggested terminating all staff contracts and reoffering them on different terms, according to a leaked document obtained by The Sunday Times. New terms could include pay cuts of up to 5%, an end to overtime for nights, weekends and bank holidays, and reduced holiday leave, the newspaper said.

A Canadian study released Wednesday found that many provinces in our neighbor to the North have seen patients fleeing the country and opting for medical treatment in the United States. The nonpartisan Fraser Institute reported that 46,159 Canadians sought medical treatment outside of Canada in 2011, as wait times increased 104 percent — more than double — compared with statistics from 1993. Specialist physicians surveyed across 12 specialties and 10 provinces reported an average total wait time of 19 weeks between the time a general practitioner refers a patient and the time a specialist provides elective treatment — the longest...

Supplies of a type of BCG used to treat bladder cancer have been completely halted due to a flood at a factory in Canada. The bacterium, which stimulates the immune system to fight cancer, is used on about 6,000 patients a year. In more than half of them it can stop cancer spreading almost indefinitely. But Sanofi Pastuer, which makes the most widely-used product, called Immunocyst, does not expect production to restart before late 2013, according to a letter to doctors from Professor Sir Mike Richards, the NHS cancer ‘csar’. He warned it was now “almost inevitable” that patients would...