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Let's talk about the wonderful NHS....
Let's talk about the wonderful NHS....
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The thing that strikes me whenever Ive seen the NHS in action is just how disorganised and inefficiently it is run.
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You make a fair point scandinavian. The job can chew you up. Seven years and I was done and got out.
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Had a month long stay in a London hospital back in 2003. (broken pelvis)
The most important person (my surgeon) was quite brilliant. The majority of nurses were great. The weekend nurses were hit and miss. However some of the night shift nurses were a disgrace. I was on a mixed ward where some of the patients were very old. The night crew would do their first walk round, then move the 'call nurse' button to the bottom of the bed so the elderly patients couldn't reach it. Obviously didn't want their few hours kip disturbed. The worst thing that happened was to a lady in the opposite bed to me. Now this lady was extremely large, she had to have a special bed brought in. And even though we were both in some pain and were unable to move around, we used to have a cheerful chat across the ward. Anyway, the night after her operation you could hear she was in serious pain. So eventually three or four of the night nurses are standing at the bottom of here bed. The only problem was their English was very poor. Seeing how much pain the poor lady was in they eventually decided to call the doctor. It took the doctor about twenty minutes to arrive, he immediately got one of the nurses to close our curtains. You could tell by his voice he knew things were serious. After another twenty minutes or so things were going from bad to worse, that's when they pumped the lady with adrenaline. I won't forget the awful noise in a hurry. Then a few minutes after that: Silence. The doctor said "do any of you think more can be done here?" Again, silence. She was dead. Internal bleeding I think. Now I have no idea if the woman could have been saved with speedier reactions from the nurses or if the doctor could have got there more quickly. What I do know is: If you're unfortunate enough to be in hospital and things start to go downhill , you have a much better chance of the problem being resolved if it happens at daytime in the week, rather than at night or the weekend. |
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AP, let us have those nice insurance people running our hospitals,then we would find out how very lucky we have been since 1948.Your very good health.FRED.
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Just to provide a little context I was ambivalent abut the NHS for some years because I'd seen the good and the bad but a recent study into leading nations health services actually placed ours top judged against many criteria and found that it provides incredibly good value for money.
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Both parents had a combined 50 years working in the NHS, and my own experiences with it have been overwhelmingly positive, particularly with the care my mum got when she was diagnosed, treated, but eventually succumbed to cancer. Everyone was first class.
But my most recent experience left me tearing my hair out in frustration, at the total waste of money in the system. I'm very fit & active, so it's very rare for me to visit the doc or the hospital, but I'd fallen on a icy patch whilst out running one evening, and dislocated my little finger. Couldn't get it back in, so popped down the A&E for a bit of help. Thought it would be a five minute job. Eventually the A&E doctor plus a couple of students all had a go and we eventually got it relocated; quite painful but we all had a laugh at it, and I thought I'd be on my way. However, since the bone had broken the skin, they insisted I needed a couple of stitches although I thought a band-aid would suffice; but there was nobody available so it would have to be done by the surgeon in the morning. Fair enough, I'll pop back in on the bus. Was told I had to wait overnight IN A HOSPITAL BED!! despite me repeatedly saying I'll go home and come back tomorrow. Then through the night, I was seen FIVE times every couple of hours, taking my weight, temperature, blood pressure, pulse etc. I was fed, clothed in hospital nightwear. By the morning 12 hours after I first went in, they said they were ready to do the surgery. Said I'd wander down the stairs to the operating room, but they insisted the rules were that I had to be wheeled down on a bed by an orderly so we had to wait for another 30 minutes for one to become available. In the operating room, the doc wanted to give me a full general anaesthetic. For a stitch in my little finger FFS! I insisted on a local, whilst I watched the procedure, then I again I wasn't allowed to walk back upstairs to the ward where my clothes were. I had to wait for another orderly to wheel me up in a lift. And that wasn't the end of it either. They then insisted that I had to wait for the anaesthetic to fully wear off so they could check there was no infection. Another EIGHT hours!! And I had to be in the hospital bed on the ward all this time, despite me insisting that I didn't want to take up any more valuable space, time or hospital resource. They continued to do all the temperature, blood pressure etc checks during that time, and I was eventually allowed to leave 24 HOURS after I came in, with a bag full of pills and painkillers that I didn't want and told them I wasn't going to take (I think I had two neurofen and was fine). When I said I'd leave the pills with them to reuse for someone else, they said they'd just be destroyed as they had already been assigned to me!! Seems odd to complain that the treatment was too good, but I was stunned by the waste of time and money spent on me, despite me insisting I didn't want or need it, and I'd happily sign any bit of paper to take responsibility for discharging myself. The overwhelming feeling I got was that they were terrified of not giving me the full belt and braces treatment in case I sued them for any subsequent complaint. Make of all that what you will. |
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And George Osborne recently committed 2 billion quid to maintain the NHS. This after it was already exempt from the cuts.
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Couldn't you have insisted on going home Danno? They couldn't force you to stay there surely.
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Rob - they couldn't have stopped me walking out I guess, but they said the only way I could get the minor surgery was to wait in that fashion or it wouldn't be allowed. That was the "system" apparently. I even said I'd wait in a chair in the A&E waiting room if I had to stay overnight, but they said that the only option was to be put into a hospital bed. They kept going on about the risk of infection (albeit minor), so they had to insist on the surgery. They never told me that I'd be waiting 24 hours in total - I would have walked out it I'd have known in advance.
Also had to miss a whole day of work, so it wasn't all bad news  |
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OK, fair enough.
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I am basically all for the NHS and I can’t abide the culture of whinging and whining about everything that a certain class of Brit seems to love doing. But how do they decide what is free and what is not? I have paid thousands and thousands of pounds in my life for glasses and contact lenses and sight tests etc. Through no fault of my own I have terrible eyesight and am thankful that we have the technology today to allow me to lead a normal life. Going back 100+ years ago god only knows how I’d survive. But I do pay. Why isn’t it free? IVF is free(I think), stomach pumping cos you drank too much alcohol is free, sex changes are free, some treatments that cost tens of thousands of pounds to keep someone alive in a not very well state for a few months or so etc are free. Small whinge over, I’m just thankful (touch wood) that I haven’t had to spend much time dealing with the NHS to date, which makes me lucky.
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Nothing is free with the NHS, all NHS services are paid for by taxes.
IVF I think is free up to a certain amount of tries, three I think, and between certain ages. The problem is, because the NHS is so big, the fifth biggest employer in the world behind the Chinese red army, Indian Railway Network, walmart and Mcdonalds, that so many people will have experienced it and in turn the horror experiences they encountered will always be the ones that stay in bedded in your mind and make better stories to tell, so if seems like everyone wants to slag them off, it's not because they are a certain class of Brit imo it's because as Brits we just like to whinge fullstop  |
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Second line seems a contradiction, what I mean is after the first three treatments, you go private and pay probably more than what you've paid into the NHS.
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danno,if they dont do everything by the book and something happens mr no win no fee will try to get involved
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Facts
01 Dec 14 23:31 Dealing with ill, often abusive,ungrateful patients, cleaning up and clearing up, faeces,urine,vomit and blood. Facts 02 Dec 14 01:13 Hmmm - I don't think cleaners would be holding sick basins,changing patients soiled garments or wiping patients bottoms or fitting catheters or stripping the beds, Nurses on the maternity wards at Queens Hospital, Romford and Newham General Hospital, don't do clearing up. They refuse. Cleaners have been hired to do it. I would imagine that other London hospitals may be the same. My response was to your first post, but if you want to move the goalposts with a second post, that's your choice. You think everybody that craps, bleeds and vomits, misses the floor? |
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I didn't move any goalposts. That's your interpretation. My post referred to patients being cleaned and cleared up, I.e relating to their person. Despite this I've witnessed nurses cleaning a person up and the soiled bed and floor. Often with a sweep of paper towels/disinfectant and into the metal bin.
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Despite this I've witnessed nurses cleaning a person up and the soiled bed and floor. Often with a sweep of paper towels/disinfectant and into the metal bin.
I never said you hadn't seen it. I said you won't see it in the maternity wards of the two hospitals I named, and that there are probably more. |