4 ms·

Your point would be more clearly made if you shared the details of where you live and the medical system that you trust more than the NHS?

abigail95 4y ago
Having experienced the NHS I'll step in for them and say Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, India (!) provided me better outcomes, but not per $ spent. If you care strictly about efficiency at bargain basement costs, NHS is probably your favorite model. Unless you are actively dying nobody in the NHS will lift a finger to help you.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  The linked article is about a child dying from poor care and no one stepping in despite years of warnings the system was broken.
  - Arch-TK 4y ago
    I'm not sure how this is a point against what abigail95 said. My experience of the NHS is similar in that you really have to go all out to get help for any non-standard problem. Now I appreciate medicine is not a very well developed field and we really know almost nothing about the human body and how to solve its ailments (although what we do know, which has been greatly focused around the things which kill us the fastest, has greatly reduced human suffering, which is great). As such, expecting any health system to fix any problem is not really fair. But I think I would at least expect sympathy, to be taken seriously, and at least some attempt at helping. But the NHS is not only merely unhelpful when it comes to anything slightly nontrivial, they can be actively negative. I have had severe back pain laughed at and ignored. I have been told that sinuses can't hurt (after describing severe pain in the area of my sinuses which made me want to crawl out of my skull, regardless of whether they can or cannot hurt (the NHS website seems to suggest they can) the right response to "sometimes I have such severe pain that I forget what it's like to live a normal life" is surely not to dismiss it offhand). I have had ibuprofen and paracetamol prescribed simultaneously (by the same person) for severe pain while walking (which turned out to be flat feet, once I got referred to a specialist who produced a pair of tailored inserts in 10 minutes the pain quickly went away). I have had a GP prescribe half a course of antibiotics for suspected lyme disease because she didn't really think there was a chance that the tick that bit me had it (laboratory tests of the tick confirmed it did carry lyme disease). This was after I came back from Poland and had a massive red ring around the point where the tick bit me. Not sure what the logic was there, had to go to a private GP to get the other half prescribed. I think realistically for the average Joe who is mostly healthy until the age of 55 and only ever gets a broken leg, cut, or whatnot the experience of the NHS must be stellar. But for people like me, the experience can leave you in serious pain for large and important portions of your life. Now I don't really know what the health system in the US is like, whether it's better or not. Doesn't sound better to me. But in the instances where I've paid for healthcare in the UK and in Poland I was at least met with people who didn't offhandedly dismiss my problems or laugh at me. I don't think the problems which the NHS has are endemic to public healthcare systems, I've certainly met people in the NHS who did try to be helpful, but from all appearances of what I've heard, the NHS is constantly encouraged to be like this. I think the NHS could be a lot better.

abigail95 4y ago

Having experienced the NHS I'll step in for them and say Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, India (!) provided me better outcomes, but not per $ spent. If you care strictly about efficiency at bargain basement costs, NHS is probably your favorite model. Unless you are actively dying nobody in the NHS will lift a finger to help you.

lostlogin 4y ago
The linked article is about a child dying from poor care and no one stepping in despite years of warnings the system was broken.
- Arch-TK 4y ago
  I'm not sure how this is a point against what abigail95 said. My experience of the NHS is similar in that you really have to go all out to get help for any non-standard problem. Now I appreciate medicine is not a very well developed field and we really know almost nothing about the human body and how to solve its ailments (although what we do know, which has been greatly focused around the things which kill us the fastest, has greatly reduced human suffering, which is great). As such, expecting any health system to fix any problem is not really fair. But I think I would at least expect sympathy, to be taken seriously, and at least some attempt at helping. But the NHS is not only merely unhelpful when it comes to anything slightly nontrivial, they can be actively negative. I have had severe back pain laughed at and ignored. I have been told that sinuses can't hurt (after describing severe pain in the area of my sinuses which made me want to crawl out of my skull, regardless of whether they can or cannot hurt (the NHS website seems to suggest they can) the right response to "sometimes I have such severe pain that I forget what it's like to live a normal life" is surely not to dismiss it offhand). I have had ibuprofen and paracetamol prescribed simultaneously (by the same person) for severe pain while walking (which turned out to be flat feet, once I got referred to a specialist who produced a pair of tailored inserts in 10 minutes the pain quickly went away). I have had a GP prescribe half a course of antibiotics for suspected lyme disease because she didn't really think there was a chance that the tick that bit me had it (laboratory tests of the tick confirmed it did carry lyme disease). This was after I came back from Poland and had a massive red ring around the point where the tick bit me. Not sure what the logic was there, had to go to a private GP to get the other half prescribed. I think realistically for the average Joe who is mostly healthy until the age of 55 and only ever gets a broken leg, cut, or whatnot the experience of the NHS must be stellar. But for people like me, the experience can leave you in serious pain for large and important portions of your life. Now I don't really know what the health system in the US is like, whether it's better or not. Doesn't sound better to me. But in the instances where I've paid for healthcare in the UK and in Poland I was at least met with people who didn't offhandedly dismiss my problems or laugh at me. I don't think the problems which the NHS has are endemic to public healthcare systems, I've certainly met people in the NHS who did try to be helpful, but from all appearances of what I've heard, the NHS is constantly encouraged to be like this. I think the NHS could be a lot better.