Britain shamed by NHS death rates (UK Socialized Medicine kills 400% more after surgery than US!)

The Observer ^ | September 8, 2003 | Jo Reville

[ArcLight]

They're pining for the fjords.

[ccmay]

It's really bad in Britain if their hospital-related death rate is worse than ours. In America there are far too many, and there's no effective oversight.

OK, smarty pants, why don't you tell us what an acceptable level would be, and what sort of "oversight" you think would get us there.

-ccm

[WaterDragon]

"Every single year, close to 100,000 people die fom infections they get in the hospital. Medical errors -- giving patients the wrong drug, the wrong dose, the wrong organ transplant, even operating on the wrong body part __ take thousands more lies. The monetary cost is large, close to $30 billion a year in medical bills, based on data from the Harvard Medical Practices Study. The federal government pays 45 percent of that tabl These infections and medical errors are largely preventable. What's standing in the way of reducing them?

Astoundingly, Medicare. Medicare pays the same fees to hospitals with the best care as it does to those with high infection rates, numerous medical errors, and substandard survival rates...."

This is from the article "Dangerous Hospitals and Medicare" by Betsy McCaughy in the latest issue of American Enterprise Magazine. More...

"Medicare does business with any hospital accredited by the Joint Council on the Accredition of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO). How tough are JCAHO standards? They're "not likely to give you an idea of the safety and quality of hospitals," says Arthur Levin, director of the Center for Medical Consumers.

The problem is that JCAHO is funded by fees from the hospitals it accredits. Consequently, it doesn't ask questions that hospitals don't want to answer..."

Over 100,000 deaths a year from hospital staff negligence sounds pretty horrendous and "unacceptable" to me. And it doesn't sound as if there is ANY oversight whatsoever!