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

British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 174 posts

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#111

Post by jugg1es »

rpiguy wrote: post #89
isostatic wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't a joke. I went to the US on business - our corporate insurance means there's a $1000 excess that we pay up front. Went to a hospital for a minor issue. At no point was there any price list shown, at the end I was asked for $390 before been given my prescription. That was the end of it I thought, sickeningly high charge for 2 minutes with a doctor, a 10p tablet, and hours of waiting around. I asked for an itemi…

Irrational yes. Broken, no just optimized differently than other systems. The system is optimized to serve those who can afford it and those who are very poor and get it for free, but not those in between. It is optimized to generate profit, but also new treatments. Rich people from all over the world come here for surgery and treatment. The pricing system is intentionally designed to be opaque so that everyone excep…

The premise of your argument falls apart if you really think about it for a minute. Switching to a single-payer model doesn't mean healthcare jobs disappear. It would kill off the insurance companies, but it would not reduce the demand for skilled healthcare workers. It seems like you are arguing that 'socializing' medicine requires that we get rid of hospitals entirely. We could still have for-profit hospitals if we drastically reduced the size of the private insurance market.

I feel like you are making a lot of assumptions about how we would fix our health care system that are unfounded.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#112

Post by phamjamstudio »

mysterydip wrote: post #107
isostatic wrote: post #40

Good job it wasn't in america, she'd have woken up, seen the bill, and had another heart attack!

My at the time 8mo daughter was in the ER for breathing issues and had to be life-flighted to a hospital with better facilities to treat her condition. I'm thankful my insurance covered it, because the initial bill was $27,000 for the flight (excluding the hospital and ER visit costs).

Hope your daughter is doing better!

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#113

Post by meowface »

t0mbstone wrote: post #108
JshWright wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that hard... you just throw some ice packs in the groin and armpits. You won't get them fully into the TTM range in a 20 minute transport, but you can start the process.

Sounds like a good way to introduce frostbite

I don't know the exact implications, but I'd probably rather have frostbite or even lose a limb than have serious permanent brain damage.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#114

Post by jjoonathan »

eptcyka wrote: post #104
rpiguy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irrational yes. Broken, no just optimized differently than other systems. The system is optimized to serve those who can afford it and those who are very poor and get it for free, but not those in between. It is optimized to generate profit, but also new treatments. Rich people from all over the world come here for surgery and treatment. The pricing system is intentionally designed to be opaque so that everyone excep…

Just because the industry is good at generating revenue doesn't necessarily mean that the quality of service is any better. Do you have some data to back up your claim that medical services in the United States are world leading? Are they better than what one would receive in Europe or Japan or South Korea? Personally, I think it's unethical to keep a process inefficient even if the inefficiencies are profitable. And…

About 5 years ago I took a health care policy class and we looked into this. In terms of outcomes, the U.S. was thoroughly mediocre, except for breast cancer and diabetes, where we were at the head of the pack (in terms of treatment) but not, say, better by a multiple.

The fact that the US has many leading medical research institutions is often abused to argue that we have the best care, but it's largely irrelevant for the overwhelming majority of delivered care and even more irrelevant for outcomes.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#115

Post by JshWright »

t0mbstone wrote: post #108
JshWright wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that hard... you just throw some ice packs in the groin and armpits. You won't get them fully into the TTM range in a 20 minute transport, but you can start the process.

Sounds like a good way to introduce frostbite

Those spots are not prone to frostbite, since the "coldness" gets distributed through the rest of the body very quickly (apologies for playing a little fast and loose with thermodynamics there). This is why they're used in the first place to cool the person quickly.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#116

Post by isostatic »

mercutio2 wrote: post #90
isostatic wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't a joke. I went to the US on business - our corporate insurance means there's a $1000 excess that we pay up front. Went to a hospital for a minor issue. At no point was there any price list shown, at the end I was asked for $390 before been given my prescription. That was the end of it I thought, sickeningly high charge for 2 minutes with a doctor, a 10p tablet, and hours of waiting around. I asked for an itemi…

In the US, patients should go to urgent care for minor health issues that are unlikely to require a fully outfitted trauma and surgical unit. Conveniently, they’re also much easier to get to in urban areas. Urgent care would have had something closer to a $100 markup than $2,000, because you’re only paying for a few nurses and doctors to be on call, not for having used the resources that are meant for trauma and acut…

> In the US, patients should go to urgent care for minor health issues that are unlikely to require a fully outfitted trauma and surgical unit

Just looked up the one near to my hotel. Closes 6PM. Not much use at 2330.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#117

Post by rkagerer »

When I began volunteer firefighting, curiosity led me to research the longest known CPR survival cases. Here are a few more rare and incredible tales:

https://web.archive.org/web/20191206164443/http://www.leapbe...

If you've never taken a CPR course, sign up for one! It could save a life one day.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#118

Post by mysterydip »

phamjamstudio wrote: post #112
mysterydip wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My at the time 8mo daughter was in the ER for breathing issues and had to be life-flighted to a hospital with better facilities to treat her condition. I'm thankful my insurance covered it, because the initial bill was $27,000 for the flight (excluding the hospital and ER visit costs).

Hope your daughter is doing better!

She's on a daily breathing treatment (and extra medicine and monitoring when she gets sick), but she is much better, thanks!

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#119

Post by slumdev »

zozbot234 wrote: post #26
orobinson wrote: post #24

It’s amazing how this phenomenon has been adapted into medical technology. When my son was born he wasn’t breathing properly and his blood oxygen levels dropped to critical levels. He was rushed to hospital and the first thing they did was cool him to 34c to reduce the risk of brain damage. He made a full recovery. I dread to think what would have happened without the cooling.

Why not cool the patient before rushing them to hospital, if the technique is so widely applicable? It could easily be made a standard feature of emergency medical services.

There are a lot of trials involving prehospital cooling. Some groups focus on trying to cool the entire body by putting ice packs in areas of the body with lots of blood flow near the surface. Others focus on intranasal methods for cooling just the brain.

It's exciting stuff, but it's definitely not widespread.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#120

Post by meowface »

pc86 wrote: post #25
unnouinceput wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more then that in this case. She had not vital signs at all, heart not beating and providing oxygen included.

The brain was provided oxygen, just not by her heart.

Also, perhaps during such a cold state more cells are able to stay alive despite having less oxygen to work with? Maybe due to a reduction in how much energy they use or need per unit time? Just speculating.
Post reply on HN