We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Nurse!!! Dave Barry links to this:
Phil Henry said he went to Helen Ellis Hospital in Tarpon Springs and was admitted for abdominal pain. A few days into his stay, his I-V malfunctioned causing his right arm to swell.
“On Tuesday night my right arm started hurting. I rung for a nurse. I didn’t get anyone and my arm got swollen up about the size of two golf balls and started bleeding,” Henry said.
After ringing for a nurse several times, he decided to take matters into his own hands.
“I took my urinal can and threw it out in the hallway, still got nobody. I hollered two or three times. Nobody came so I picked up the telephone and dialed 911.”
He said he told the dispatcher his name, where he was and described the problem with the I-V.
He then asked the dispatcher to call the hospital.
“Then I got a nurse. After that they took good care of me.”
Warning to British people: Do not try this with the NHS.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
With a shining example like this to guide us, why do we persist with the nationlised British system?
Just think, for even more money than we already pay in taxation, we, too, could have service and care just as crappy as we already have! C’mon, people, you just know it makes sense.
EG
Fuckin’ hell. I would have felt like taking my swollen arm and ramming in down someones throat.
Disgraceful.
I had nearly the exact same thing happen to me at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, NY. For the love of God, do not ever, EVER go there. You are, honestly, better off dying while trying to get to the other hospital in town.
They had completely screwed up a spinal tap the day before, and I had to come back by ambulance because I was in so much pain that I could not walk or get up. I waited about 10 hours just to get the IV, I was terribly dehydrated. But the idiot who put it in botched it, and no one would come fix it — this, despite the fact that there was a nurse behind a desk, 10 feet away, directly in front of me (and my roommate, as well) They forgot to give the guy next to me his pain meds when they were supposed to, so he had been hitting his call button. Every time he did, the nurse in front of us would turn around and shut it off, and go back to her magazine. She did the same thing when I started hitting mine — there was a goose egg sized swelling in my arm.
I ended up pulling it out myself, and several hours later when someone actually tok notice of me I got yelled at by a dotor for doing it. He told me, that they “could have re-used that IV” WTF? He then proceeded to yell and me and tell me that I was faking everything to get drugs. If I could have gotten up, I would have killed that man, right there, with my own two hands.
Among other things, they screwd up my paperwork and billed me instead of my insurance (for $13,000, no less) They gave me medications out of spite that they most definitely would have known would make me vomit on an empty stomach, then they let me sit in my own puke all night. The nurses were downright rude and callous, no matter how nice you tried to be to them.
It was the worst 3 days of my life, and it took me 3 weeks to be able to even stand up for more than a moment or two. I can’t imagine what would happen if we switched to nationalized healthcare, it would be a friggin nightmare.
Well, the NHS would probably have finished you off properly, and not just sent you hgome to recuperate. These days, you’re lucky to get a bed, lucky to get treatment and even more lucky to walk out again without having caught a really nasty antibiotic resistant infection. Complain and they blacklist you. And whatever you do, if you’re over 60 – don’t get sick and don’t break anything. You’ll be bottom of the list after everyone else’s torn finger nails and split lips. Bed rationing and financial considerations mean that it costs too much to keep the elderly going – so reduce their chances of survival to a minimum. If they can survive untreated on a trolley (sorry gurney) for 24 hours or more, you better treat them.
Don’t bother suing the NHS, they simply drag it out for so long you run out of money and time. And you won’t get legal aid either. That’s reserved for asylum seekers and “human rights” infringement for rapists, burglars and muggers.
I sincerely hope that Tim and others in these US hospitals have sued. I certainly wouldn’t have let them get away with it. As for those who argue that I am too harsh on the NHS – with costs running at £1 billion for each person in Britain, how could it get worse? Why am I so scathing – the NHS in London killed off my mother by not even providing basic hygiene in the wards and then failing to even bother treating the “minor” infection she caught in their filthy ward after major surgery.
No it can’t get much worse.
Is the Grey Monk a parody, or just a nutcase? I’m asssuming the former, if only from the “£1 billion a head” cost of the NHS…
On the off-chance that he’s serious, and given that Brian elsewhere seems to believe that he is… it’s always dangerous to let personal emotions get in the way of your though processes. Old people die; this sucks; doctors (however they’re paid) can only do a limited amount to save them; it’s natural to blame them when they don’t; this doesn’t make it right to do so.
(incidentally, asylum seekers don’t get legal aid in David Blunkett’s world. No, it’s deportation to certain death all around).
Does NHS treat the sorts of injuries associated with that sort of action?
🙂