[TomOnTheRun]

Good article. A lot of what he said was spot on. The only thing I had a problem with was in the bit abour getting medical care in Europe when he said they blamed him:

You should have not let your strep get out of control!”; “If you don’t drink water, what do you expect!”; “See what happens when you don’t take all your quinine pills!”.

Those all seem like things a doctor SHOULD be saying to their patient under any health care system if they are attempting to care for them and give them sound advice... Doctors SHOULD tell you that it is vital to take the medicine prescribed to treat a serious condition. Strep throat can and does become life threatening if it lingers and your fever gets too high. Your Doctor SHOULD tell you that you should go in before the point of it being a life threatening condition. Dehydration kills a lot of ill people so your doctor SHOULD tell you to drink water to prevent dehydration. Is that blaming you or providing instructions for proper medical care...

[TomOnTheRun]

And frankly - not taking his medicine - not drinking enough water - and not seeking care quickly enough are things for which he should accept responsibility .. or blame as it were...

[maica]

Actually he was discussing getting gratuitous condescending comments from caregivers when he was being treated in a variety of hospitals, over the span of the past 36 years. He has a lot of experience of being subjected to a system where the patient/customer is not ‘right’, but instead, an inconvenient ‘workload’ for the caregiver. IOW, the patient is much lower in the pecking order in a socialist system, than in our capitalist system of medical care delivery.