4 ms·

You did save the NHS. Barely. What you're missing is that without the lockdown it would be much, MUCH worse. They stopped treating other conditions BECAUSE of C

by sputr 4y ago

You did save the NHS. Barely. What you're missing is that without the lockdown it would be much, MUCH worse. They stopped treating other conditions BECAUSE of Covid. I was in the hospital (not UK, my own country) for a very dangerous, non-covid, pneumonia in December 2020 during the height of cases. I needed intensive care, but it took 4 days for them to find me a bed and a ventilator. Why? Because the hospital was full of covid patients. There just wasn't any room for me. Covid may kill granny, as it almost killed me. Just not the covid in our systems but the covid in the systems of other people. If I died of my PCP pneumonia I would have been a victim of covid, even tho covid never entered my system.

sokoloff 4y ago
You had a condition that directly competed for scarce resources with another respiratory disease. Routine cardiac, cancer, and other diagnostic screenings do not exhibit the same resource conflict and yet were also stopped or sharply curtailed in many places.
- sputr 4y ago
  At lest in my country, it was an issue of manpower - other departments were stopped or slowed down because employees were moved to covid departments.
katkatkatkatket 4y ago
>You did save the NHS. Barely. I have a very different opinion. I believe that, like many other aspects of life and culture, our response to Covid ripped open any cracks and accelerated ongoing problems. I think we are currently seeing an accelerated and terminal decline of fully-public healthcare in the UK. It's hard to call it "saved", when people going into cardiac arrest are literally dying waiting hours for ambulances, and routine care is largely unavailable.
- sputr 4y ago
  It's the same here. "Saved" in this context, for me, means "saved from immediate" collapse.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
  How much of this would you say was preexisting issues with the NHS due to a decade of Tory rule? Not gonna take a political stance other than pointing out that conservatives are not known for bolstering social services. Actually my only real political stance in general is that any party being in power for too long is a bad thing regardless of their politics. Tories have been in power for 12 years now, which is very unusual in general since discontent with current government tends to grow with how long they've been in office.
  - fderwgtjrsewa 4y ago
    >any party being in power for too long is a bad thing regardless of their politics Indeed. I live in Wales, which has only ever been led by Welsh Labour. Since having our own devolved parliament in the late 90's, it's been Labour in charge. As we've been talking about the state of healthcare, conditions here in Wales are much worse than the UK as a whole. This also happens to be true of practically every other form of governmental function.
    - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
      It's been my observation in Norway that with a leftist government social services will become better at first, then at some point will become increasingly bloated and bureaucratic. Whereas with a conservative government they will go in and trim the fat, which is helpful at first, but eventually they'll trim so much fat there's nothing left at all. The only thing that seems to actually work is switching between them often enough that you get mostly the initial improvement, with some regression that is corrected by switching sides, and then rinse and repeat. A lot this applies to things like taxes and financial regulation too, I've found.
      - fderwgtjrsewa 4y ago
        Excellent observation. Can't disagree!
        mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
- robswc 4y ago
  Are people truly dying because they cannot get an ambulance for hours? I'm not saying I don't believe you, I want to take everyone at their word... the problem is it seems like you can talk to different people and the experience is like night and day. You're not the first person to bring up that their healthcare is awful, I see it often. I also see people saying its the best thing since sliced bread since its free and how thankful they are for it. Its so hard to tell what is the truth because I could see both being true at the same time. I try not to pry but personally, I do have a friend in Canada that their dad needs a life saving operation but just can't get one. I really don't know what that means. They say the appointment is too far out and it costs too much to get it done in the US or that they can't get approved or something. To me that just seems insane to the point where I must not be understanding correctly... but on the flip side, I see the same thing. For instance, I had a European tell me they were thankful their general check up didn't cost $1k "like it does in the US" and for whatever reason they were adamant that a routine checkup costs $1k. It's just not true at all. I feel we all may just be extrapolating headlines lol.
  - katkatkatkatket 4y ago
    Yes. https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bbc%20news%20dying%20waiting%20for%20ambulance https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bbc%20news%20dying%20w...
    - robswc 4y ago
      Wow. Sorry for doubting, that is insane. Not sure why this is the first time I've heard of that happening...
  - TMWNN 4y ago
    >I try not to pry but personally, I do have a friend in Canada that their dad needs a life saving operation but just can't get one. I really don't know what that means. They say the appointment is too far out and it costs too much to get it done in the US or that they can't get approved or something. Here's something to help you understand the state of Canadian healthcare: Right now, it is impossible—let me repeat, impossible—for people in Atlantic Canada (the easternmost four provinces) without a family doctor to get one. <https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/nova-scotia-still-struggling-to-find-family-doctors-despite-incentives-1.5880836 https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/nova-scotia-still-struggling-to-...> The waitlist has been years long for years. This is not something occurring only in rural areas; this is true in big cities like Halifax. I am hearing that the same is true in Vancouver.

by sputr 4y ago

sokoloff 4y ago

You had a condition that directly competed for scarce resources with another respiratory disease. Routine cardiac, cancer, and other diagnostic screenings do not exhibit the same resource conflict and yet were also stopped or sharply curtailed in many places.

sputr 4y ago
At lest in my country, it was an issue of manpower - other departments were stopped or slowed down because employees were moved to covid departments.

katkatkatkatket 4y ago

>You did save the NHS. Barely. I have a very different opinion. I believe that, like many other aspects of life and culture, our response to Covid ripped open any cracks and accelerated ongoing problems. I think we are currently seeing an accelerated and terminal decline of fully-public healthcare in the UK. It's hard to call it "saved", when people going into cardiac arrest are literally dying waiting hours for ambulances, and routine care is largely unavailable.

sputr 4y ago
It's the same here. "Saved" in this context, for me, means "saved from immediate" collapse.
mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
How much of this would you say was preexisting issues with the NHS due to a decade of Tory rule? Not gonna take a political stance other than pointing out that conservatives are not known for bolstering social services. Actually my only real political stance in general is that any party being in power for too long is a bad thing regardless of their politics. Tories have been in power for 12 years now, which is very unusual in general since discontent with current government tends to grow with how long they've been in office.
- fderwgtjrsewa 4y ago
  >any party being in power for too long is a bad thing regardless of their politics Indeed. I live in Wales, which has only ever been led by Welsh Labour. Since having our own devolved parliament in the late 90's, it's been Labour in charge. As we've been talking about the state of healthcare, conditions here in Wales are much worse than the UK as a whole. This also happens to be true of practically every other form of governmental function.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
    It's been my observation in Norway that with a leftist government social services will become better at first, then at some point will become increasingly bloated and bureaucratic. Whereas with a conservative government they will go in and trim the fat, which is helpful at first, but eventually they'll trim so much fat there's nothing left at all. The only thing that seems to actually work is switching between them often enough that you get mostly the initial improvement, with some regression that is corrected by switching sides, and then rinse and repeat. A lot this applies to things like taxes and financial regulation too, I've found.
    - fderwgtjrsewa 4y ago
      Excellent observation. Can't disagree!
      - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
robswc 4y ago
Are people truly dying because they cannot get an ambulance for hours? I'm not saying I don't believe you, I want to take everyone at their word... the problem is it seems like you can talk to different people and the experience is like night and day. You're not the first person to bring up that their healthcare is awful, I see it often. I also see people saying its the best thing since sliced bread since its free and how thankful they are for it. Its so hard to tell what is the truth because I could see both being true at the same time. I try not to pry but personally, I do have a friend in Canada that their dad needs a life saving operation but just can't get one. I really don't know what that means. They say the appointment is too far out and it costs too much to get it done in the US or that they can't get approved or something. To me that just seems insane to the point where I must not be understanding correctly... but on the flip side, I see the same thing. For instance, I had a European tell me they were thankful their general check up didn't cost $1k "like it does in the US" and for whatever reason they were adamant that a routine checkup costs $1k. It's just not true at all. I feel we all may just be extrapolating headlines lol.
- katkatkatkatket 4y ago
  Yes. https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bbc%20news%20dying%20waiting%20for%20ambulance https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bbc%20news%20dying%20w...
  - robswc 4y ago
    Wow. Sorry for doubting, that is insane. Not sure why this is the first time I've heard of that happening...
- TMWNN 4y ago
  >I try not to pry but personally, I do have a friend in Canada that their dad needs a life saving operation but just can't get one. I really don't know what that means. They say the appointment is too far out and it costs too much to get it done in the US or that they can't get approved or something. Here's something to help you understand the state of Canadian healthcare: Right now, it is impossible—let me repeat, impossible—for people in Atlantic Canada (the easternmost four provinces) without a family doctor to get one. <https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/nova-scotia-still-struggling-to-find-family-doctors-despite-incentives-1.5880836 https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/nova-scotia-still-struggling-to-...> The waitlist has been years long for years. This is not something occurring only in rural areas; this is true in big cities like Halifax. I am hearing that the same is true in Vancouver.