I was neither incredulous nor contemptuous.
I was a bit surprised, but I had been living in Fulham for months, and had realized that this wasn’t America but with people who talked funny and drove on the wrong side of the road but rather was a really different place.
Andere Länder, andere Sitten.
The consultants were and probably still are the best in the world. The apprenticeship is very long (you can be a senior registrar for years).
What I took away was that for most British people I met (this was a long time ago) the tradeoffs were worth the price. When I got home people always asked me if we should have an NHS here.
My answer was, “if you put that system in place here the government would be overthrown in a month”.
Americans are impatient, can-do, demanding people and have bankrupted the country chasing the fountain of youth.
It would be good to think the lady’s story had a happy ending, and that she had the treatment she needed. But it’s true that, especially for that generation who had held the Home Front during the war, in the hierarchy of mortal sins jumping the queue ranked somewhere between adultery and accidie.