Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 461 posts

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#181

Post by jeffh »

11101010001100 wrote: post #60
dmix wrote: post #13

Canada is having the same issue with 20hr waits in the emergency room and others being rejected outright https://globalnews.ca/news/9066662/emergency-rooms-canada-bi... I’ve heard a big part is all the doctors have been going on vacation all at once now that COVID is largely over, after not taking them for two years. They don’t have enough staff to cover even partial shortages. That plus the elephant in the room of p…

As always, it very much depends. We just went to the emergency room and experienced less than 30 minutes of wait time.

Certainly it does, but one can guarantee more than 30min wait time at some emergency rooms coming up as they are closing outright due to staffing issues. https://bc.ctvnews.ca/8-more-overnight-closures-on-the-way-f... It's a real problem, and not just in BC. Some have argued this is a politically manufactured issue to force more talk of private care ... regardless, people are suffering in the mean time.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#183

Post by pookha »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #164
cas14655 wrote: post #146

Quoted post unavailable.

Compared to the cesspool that is the US system? The NHS was amazing. We don’t talk about it, but people still die for non-COVID emergencies because hospitals in the Us are routinely full in 2022. Privatization of hospital systems in the US have lead to very warped incentives, where C sections are the norm because it’s faster and more money for the hospital and Drs.

Here in the US I had stage III cancer. I was receiving full blown cancer treatment(s) less than a week after I went to the ER with symptoms (chest port + three types of chemo drugs). And that's routine. The US health care failures are mostly the fault of administrators and insurance companies gaming the public. The care is fast + extensive and it's not a cesspool.

And the "full hospital" meme isn't entirely accurate. The US hospital wards are -- by design -- supposed to be full. If 100 beds are allocated for severe flu cases (example) but there's only 25 patients they'll shift the flu ward to 35. Thus they achieve a 75% capacity for the flu beds and allocate the additional beds to other sections. Sometimes the American media (sensationalist by design) will report this as "OH MY GOD THE FLU WARD IS NEAR CAPACITY. 75% FULL!!" without reporting total beds vs flu beds.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#184

Post by dekhn »

pas wrote: post #132
simonswords82 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As somebody else in this thread pointed out the numbers don’t stack up. This thread is subjective at best

could you link to that pointing out? which parts don't stack up? the 12+ hour wait times, the hospital occupancy, the discharge rate, the aging population and the slashed spending are all seem to be hard numbers (dare I say facts?) ... what doesn't add up?

If you can wait 12 hours, you didn't have an emergency.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#185

Post by dekhn »

pjc50 wrote: post #149
trappist wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NIH budget has increased over 40% since 2015. https://officeofbudget.od.nih.gov/pdfs/FY22/spending-hist/Me...

That set of figures is for the US and therefore completely irrelevant?

also it's a research institution, not a medical care facility.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#186

Post by selectodude »

pookha wrote: post #183
nobodyandproud wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to the cesspool that is the US system? The NHS was amazing. We don’t talk about it, but people still die for non-COVID emergencies because hospitals in the Us are routinely full in 2022. Privatization of hospital systems in the US have lead to very warped incentives, where C sections are the norm because it’s faster and more money for the hospital and Drs.

Here in the US I had stage III cancer. I was receiving full blown cancer treatment(s) less than a week after I went to the ER with symptoms (chest port + three types of chemo drugs). And that's routine. The US health care failures are mostly the fault of administrators and insurance companies gaming the public. The care is fast + extensive and it's not a cesspool. And the "full hospital" meme isn't entirely accurate.…

It's laughable to call the US healthcare system bad, but I feel like that sort of treatment should be commonplace and universal for what we pay here. The UK has spent about 10 percent of GDP over the last ten years. The US spends 20 percent. It's going somewhere, but I don't think it's going towards care at quite the same rate as over healthcare systems. Even 15 percent of US GDP would be $3 trillion, or more than the entirety of UK total GDP.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#187

Post by adolph »

dekhn wrote: post #184
pas wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

could you link to that pointing out? which parts don't stack up? the 12+ hour wait times, the hospital occupancy, the discharge rate, the aging population and the slashed spending are all seem to be hard numbers (dare I say facts?) ... what doesn't add up?

If you can wait 12 hours, you didn't have an emergency.

And if you can't wait 12 hours you become excess mortality.

Sometime before the 12 hour period, one must make a choice whether to seek care or not.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#188

Post by dekhn »

adolph wrote: post #187
dekhn wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can wait 12 hours, you didn't have an emergency.

And if you can't wait 12 hours you become excess mortality. Sometime before the 12 hour period, one must make a choice whether to seek care or not.

the 12 hour wait is once the person enters the doors of the facility. In a hospital, if you walk into the ER, people are observing you closely and expediting people at immediate risk of death. A person who can sit in a chair for 12 hours waiting didn't have an emergency. Instead, they were using the ER for non-urgent care.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#189

Post by eikenberry »

xtracto wrote: post #124
oliwarner wrote: post #116

This isn't a collapse of emergency healthcare, it's a very predicted collapse of community social care: hospitals can't discharge if they need a care home place that doesn't exist. Without inpatient bed availability, ERs and AMUs can't admit to specialties and everything gums up at the front door. Let's be clear: we do need many more doctors and nurses, but the existing ones can't do their jobs because their wards ha…

It is too bad that corrupt government officials keep systemically defunding Social Health programs with the objective of pushing private for-profit healthcare (which just doesn't make sense). Then they point to the deficient healthcare and blame the "socialized" aspect of it for the issues. Here in Mexico we've seen it all play out: We had an amazing social healthcare system (in the form of the IMSS) in the 70s and 8…

When you put politicians in charge of healthcare they will play politics with it. Politicians playing politics doesn't make sense to you? Remember most don't really care that much about the healthcare itself, only how it can be used to further their agenda and be spun for their constituency. It's the tradeoff from private where the money rules.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#190

Post by eikenberry »

dekhn wrote: post #188
adolph wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you can't wait 12 hours you become excess mortality. Sometime before the 12 hour period, one must make a choice whether to seek care or not.

the 12 hour wait is once the person enters the doors of the facility. In a hospital, if you walk into the ER, people are observing you closely and expediting people at immediate risk of death. A person who can sit in a chair for 12 hours waiting didn't have an emergency. Instead, they were using the ER for non-urgent care.

What is the situation of urgent care establishments in the UK? Places you can go for non life threatening but life stopping events, like say a broken leg?
Post reply on HN