Why did 250k Britons die sooner than expected? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why did 250k Britons die sooner than expected?

#181

Post by aix1 » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 4:38 PM UTC

nucleardog wrote: post #176

netsharc wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about a search engine: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ambulance+wait+times+uk&ia=web E.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/20/world/europe/uk-ambulance... The waits are crazy long because hospitals are full, so the ambulances end up outside the hospital entrance for a long time, waiting for a free bed for their patient/passenger.

Your linked page has no reference to wait times on category 1 calls exceeding 48 hours (nor anything close). Neither do any of the results I clicked through on the _extremely_ helpful SERP link. I did find this page[0] which says, referring to category 1 calls: > In December 2022, the response time crossed 10 minutes, the worst performance on record. So it certainly sounds like an _average_ wait of 48 hours for a cat…

And in terms of average wait times by area, the Guardian published the following data in Dec 2022 (based on a FOI request to ambulance trusts):

For category one calls, the most urgent, where an ambulance is meant to arrive within seven minutes, several areas reported waiting times close to or more than 15 minutes.

The longest average wait for such calls was in Mid Devon, with a time of 15 minutes 20 seconds, almost three times as long as the average of 5 minutes and 48 seconds in Hammersmith, west London.

So the 48-hour average waiting time claim does not stand up to scrutiny.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/dec/01/ambulance-wa...

Re: Why did 250k Britons die sooner than expected?

#182

Post by ROTMetro » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 4:52 PM UTC

hnfong wrote: post #115

alwayslikethis wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will be no centralizing Asian power in the long run (this century). China has a fair bit of influence now, but with all the domestic problems it has, it cannot remain stable for much longer and is in for a long, irrecoverable decline.

People have been saying this for literally 30 years now...

Really? They have been saying 'this year marked the first decline in China's population' for 30 years? Because that is what China stated this year. Also that they had over reported their population by 100 million. For 30 years you say... huh, I must of missed that.

Re: Why did 250k Britons die sooner than expected?

#183

Post by reducesuffering » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 4:52 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #160

refurb wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re comparing a rate - murders over population, of a province with a vast rural population with few murders to US cities where murders are concentrated. Edit: I'm an idiot and can't read.

I am comparing states with provinces. The most populous “city” in Wyoming is Cheyenne with 63,957 people. Ontario meanwhile includes Toronto population City:2,794,356, Metro Area: 6,202,225. Yet, your more likely to be murdered in Wyoming.

If you want to talk cities, Toronto has a 2x - 3x higher per capita murder rate than my city in the US, so like GP said, it depends where you are. Sure you can generalize over a whole country, but ultimately what will matter is a city by city comparison where you actually are. And I'm safer here than Toronto.

Re: Why did 250k Britons die sooner than expected?

#184

Post by screye » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 4:54 PM UTC

rippercushions wrote: post #70

screye wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is labor exploitation & work culture. SK & Taiwan have working hours that would be considered hellish in West. At the top level & for immigrants, US working hours are similarly hellish. The British may be just as productive per hour, but they could never keep up on time. Personal life in SK/Taiwan is non-existent as demonstrated by the countries having the 2 lowest fertility rates in the world. On the con…

Israel's high fertility rates are driven by Arabs and ultra-orthodox Jews (haredim), two groups that, by and large, do not drive entrepreneurship and the tech sector. Quite the opposite, in fact, the haredim are exempted from military service and around 60% of them live off welfare. And the only country in Scandinavia with real (universal) conscription is Finland.

Thanks for the clarification. Didn't know those specifics about Israel.

Re: Why did 250k Britons die sooner than expected?

#185

Post by MagicMoonlight » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

morrbo wrote: post #171

londons_explore wrote: post #35

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.

Sorry, but this is just wrong. There is absolutely no way that an average wait time - usually 7 minutes - for a cat 1 call will be 48 hours. Unless someone made a heinous mistake and somehow forgot a call one time, it never "on occasion" goes to 48 hours. As soon as it goes over a relatively small number (30 mins odd) they start bringing in other districts to help. Are you really telling me that we just decided to le…

Lmao which area do you think has ambulances to send? There’s nothing available anywhere.

Re: Why did 250k Britons die sooner than expected?

#186

Post by morrbo » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 5:30 PM UTC

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #185

morrbo wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but this is just wrong. There is absolutely no way that an average wait time - usually 7 minutes - for a cat 1 call will be 48 hours. Unless someone made a heinous mistake and somehow forgot a call one time, it never "on occasion" goes to 48 hours. As soon as it goes over a relatively small number (30 mins odd) they start bringing in other districts to help. Are you really telling me that we just decided to le…

Lmao which area do you think has ambulances to send? There’s nothing available anywhere.

To actually answer your question and not bow to the HN-is-reddit comment above: London draws on Kent/other surrounding areas temporarily... big cities (usually) feed into small ones. This (usually) is how it works. In the case of COVID we saw 999 response units being shipped all over the country, including call handlers (ie. England handling Scotland's calls) and response units. There are SO many plans in place for this/time-slip/major incident handling that it's mind boggling.

Source: worked for the NHS, still alive despite there being 48 hour cat 1 waits and no ambulances in the entire country.

Re: Why did 250k Britons die sooner than expected?

#187

Post by Retric » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

reducesuffering wrote: post #183

Retric wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am comparing states with provinces. The most populous “city” in Wyoming is Cheyenne with 63,957 people. Ontario meanwhile includes Toronto population City:2,794,356, Metro Area: 6,202,225. Yet, your more likely to be murdered in Wyoming.

If you want to talk cities, Toronto has a 2x - 3x higher per capita murder rate than my city in the US, so like GP said, it depends where you are. Sure you can generalize over a whole country, but ultimately what will matter is a city by city comparison where you actually are. And I'm safer here than Toronto.

I can’t find any independent US city with crime rates that low. If by city you mean some wealthier part of a larger metropolitan area then compare it to a similar portion of Toronto.

Re: Why did 250k Britons die sooner than expected?

#188

Post by tcmart14 » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 6:03 PM UTC

nivenkos wrote: post #145

lotsofpulp wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nurses in the US earn at least 3x their UK counterparts though. Same for doctors, dentists, etc. too.

Yea, but we are starting to see upcoming issues with nurses in the US where some places just don't have enough. Granted, this is more because hospitals are trying to keep their number of nurses as low as possible. The hospital my wife works at, they suppress the number of nurses when they in fact need more and just hire travel nurses on demand. Then they complain that travel nurses cost too much. I don't think pay is the only factor here. Nurses get paid great by hospitals, but also still get treated like shit. My wife doesn't even get bathroom breaks during her 12 shift and most of the time no lunch break because there is never a nurse available to cover for a 30 minute lunch or a 5 minute bathroom break.

Re: Why did 250k Britons die sooner than expected?

#189

Post by specproc » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 7:24 PM UTC

I think anyone with a passing understanding of the UK could see the answer coming a mile off.

This is the inevitable result of the brutal austerity programme pushed through by the Cameron government. It's hard for me to see Brexit outside of this context as well.

What riles me about this piece is that the Economist was championing these exact policies at the time.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2010/10/21/ouch

Everyone these days loves to hate on the spivs and chancers that emerged from this mess, but it's people like Cameron and Osborne who got us here.

Re: Why did 250k Britons die sooner than expected?

#190

Post by barrysteve » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 8:44 PM UTC

alwayslikethis wrote: post #74

barrysteve wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the long run, the British culture of checking, enduring, regulating and filling in insufficiency will be vital to balancing the world against a centralizing Asian power. There's a growing longing in people's hearts - a pull - toward authoritarian and religious control. People are chasing Moby Dick's white whale and are filling their hearts with that craving and emotional desire to follow a goal. It can be really d…

There will be no centralizing Asian power in the long run (this century). China has a fair bit of influence now, but with all the domestic problems it has, it cannot remain stable for much longer and is in for a long, irrecoverable decline.

True it will go in waves this century, but in 160yrs was my aim with that comment. Maybe too long of a time frame to think about, but the next big change in structure will be then.