Originally posted by carpedm9587
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When I was in the UK I got in a cab and the driver said it was his first day back at work after his bypass surgery. I laughed and said, 'That should have taken a year" he said, "no, it took 2 years". I asked what happened. It seems he was in line for the surgery and 3 weeks before it was scheduled, his doctor died. They moved him to the back of another surgeon's list and he had to wait another year. I lived in Peterculter Scotland, a small town, population 4000 or so, with 3 grocery stores (much smaller than those in the US), and 3 funeral parlors. The town was filled with old folks on walkers. NICE wouldn't allow any of them to get joint replacements--too much money and they were considered too old. All these old people lived in constant pain and had to climb the steep hills going to and from the town center. Socialism is so generous and comforting to those old folks, that it let them suffer for lack of money.
It took me 2 years to be admitted into a dental surgery practice. There are not enough dentists, so when my cap fell off my tooth, no dentist would help me because I wasn't their patient. I acted like a tourist and went to the Aberdeen university paupers dental practice to get it glued back in.
this is gross, but when I was working Newfoundland (I spent about 20% of my time up there over the past 8 years), I started peeing blood on the airplane. When I landed, I went to the emergency room in St. Johns. This was about 7 pm. They had about 20 people in the room, almost all of them had been there since morning. they took 1 person per hour and I realized that I would probably see the doctor about 5 am (some people gave up and left---which is what I eventually did and they charged me $240 Canadian for the privilege of wasting my time in the emergency room). The name of the game is wait out your competition in Canada. I had a friend with a compound leg fracture who waited 20 hours in the St. Johns emergency room to be seen--she was in utter agony--and I know how much agony she was in because I once broke my leg in 4 places with my foot at my kneecap, but here in the US I was in surgery within 3 hours. Isn't socialism great?
edited to add: Oh yeah, I just heard that because of the doctor shortage in the UK they are having doctors see 14-15 patients at a time in the same room. Don't you want to discuss your ED or female problems in front of all your neighbors looking on? How nice socialism is.
Please don't inflict that scourge on us.
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