Friday, September 18, 2009

More tales of British socialized medicine

More tales of British socialized medicine, from London's Daily Mail:
A young woman died in hospital after waiting nearly two hours for a blood transfusion that could have saved her.
Sally Thompson, 20, lost two litres [4.22675284 pints] of blood when a doctor punctured her jugular vein after failing to follow NHS guidelines while inserting a drip into her neck.
Doctors at Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) made an urgent request for blood from the hospital's blood bank to help revive her--but none arrived before Sally died, one hour and 45 minutes later.
Now a coroner has ruled that the inability to supply the blood was a 'significant failure' that contributed to Sally's death. . . .
Sally's father, John Thompson, 62, said after the inquest into her death: 'This hospital is supposed to be the cornerstone of the NHS in Manchester, but they couldn't get any blood for two hours.

According to former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, "In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We've all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false." Feel better, Sally?

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