141–150 of 204 posts
Strange that the article doesn't mention Brexit. Many nurses (and doctors) in the UK used to be from EU countries.
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The UK NHS budget has been steadily increasing. You can't plausibly claim that the Tories have defunded public health over decades. Some might claim that the funding should have increased at a faster rate, but there are limits to what any society can spend on healthcare. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-...
Just cause the dollar amount is increasing doesn't mean it isn't being defunded. You have to account for inflation, population size, and population age distribution.
Ay, there's the rub.
In my district in the UK, there were occasions when average wait times for an ambulance for a Category 1 incident (eg. person not breathing) reached 48 hours last month. The target is 90% of patients reached in 15 minutes. Yet the reality is the average wait was 48 hours. I can't see any way that kind of thing isn't contributing to a shorter life expectancy.
I don’t get why people are even bothering to call at this point, surely you’re better off calling a taxi or driving the person yourself and then just carrying them into the ER and shouting for help. They’re in the building that way and they can’t just ignore a collapsed person in the middle of a hallway
They literally did nothing. Contrast to Latvia where I bisected my thumb with an axe and they put it back together about 20 minutes later and charged me €9.
I also have a 8 week old child - zero checkups, no vaccination appointments available, no doctors appointments available. No follow ups for my wife after birth. Oh, and we had to do it all at home, as there is no space in hospital for childbirth - the beds are all full of people who should be in old people’s homes, but there are no spaces in homes for them to move to.
I am ridiculously glad to be back in Portugal as of today, and tomorrow I will take her to the village clinic, where she will finally have a medical inspection.
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Medical students pay the exact same way as all other university students. They pay via student finance loans for the first four years. The NHS pays for the fifth and final year, as Student Fianance (England) will not cover the cost. Medical students have the same student loans of £60k+ as any other student doing a four year degree
And the average US doctor has student loans of around £207,340, so the point stands. UK doctors do pay towards their education, but it’s heavily subsidised.
It is hardly genuine comparing to the US system, which is the most expensive in the world.
What is the comparative cost to other European countries?
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My understanding after reading this article is that the problem has nothing to do with ambulances or medics. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/20/world/europe/uk-ambulance... First order problem, the hospitals have no beds. This means that ambulances end up waiting for hours and medics twiddling their thumbs at the ER until the staff can finally take the patient. Medics can't just abandon the patient because there lega…
b) is not exclusive to Britain. A very large portion of the US benefits from poorer countries to the south with high birth rates and porous borders. Probably applies to almost all large developed countries.
Same for doctors, dentists, etc. too.
As a Brit I can't help but notice that on every axis, our country appears to be in decline at the moment. Even before Brexit, things hadn't been going well, as this article shows. It's making me seriously consider moving away. I want to have hope that as a country we can turn around this societal regression, but I fear it's a deeper problem than just the current government. The class system and an unhealthy nostalgia…
I never moved back to the UK mainly because of the cost of housing though, it feels like such a rip-off - like almost US-level prices, but nowhere near US-level salaries or Scandinavia-level new build quality, etc.
But really everywhere has issues, once you move abroad you'll see how much you take for granted - language, technology, etc.
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One counter-argument to this would be: A nation with a 10x higher per capita of truly productive scientists and engineers (with a well functioning R&D system that wasn't just publish-or-perish or other friction that reduces efficiency) would perform roughly as well as a nation with 10x the population. Somewhat but not perfectly analogous to how some countries invest more, or more wisely in their military budget, and…
But as other nations 'catch up' and turn out productive scientists and engineers in similar ratios, the disparity in the denominator becomes overwhelming. E.g. China.
As a Brit I can't help but notice that on every axis, our country appears to be in decline at the moment. Even before Brexit, things hadn't been going well, as this article shows. It's making me seriously consider moving away. I want to have hope that as a country we can turn around this societal regression, but I fear it's a deeper problem than just the current government. The class system and an unhealthy nostalgia…
FWIW As a US citizen I feel similarly. The switching cost feels too high to move, as I can't really see myself living somewhere other than the West Coast (family, friends etc) It's a shame humans don't have more empathy and sympathy for each other, and that governments have been so obviously co-opted by the wealthy and powerful for their own benefit. One of the things that does make me feel better is being more invol…
Income tax is 40+% and VAT usually 25% so you lose so much income to the state.
Meanwhile there is often no property or inheritance tax, and capital gains tax much lower than income tax, so wealthy aristocrats and landowners pay a far, far lower amount of tax proportionally.
It's just that the wealthy in the US are mainly industrialists, whereas in Europe they're landowners and aristocrats.
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I don’t get why people are even bothering to call at this point, surely you’re better off calling a taxi or driving the person yourself and then just carrying them into the ER and shouting for help. They’re in the building that way and they can’t just ignore a collapsed person in the middle of a hallway
There isn’t much point in going to A&E - there are no doctors. I amputated my fingertip (halfway up the final joint, with a blunt instrument - crushed the thing off) a week ago and was told to go home and use glue and tape to close the wound, and to throw away the tip. I’ve been dunking it in meths to sterilise and dry it. They literally did nothing. Contrast to Latvia where I bisected my thumb with an axe and they p…
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The ambulance still shows up to declare someone dead.
Can a paramedic declare someone dead?