Dying man pleads to police for help.

Kane Gorny was just 22-years-old, he was a patient at one of the main "teaching hospitals" run by England's National Health Service. His problems started when he was diagnosed with brain cancer but the therapy weakened his bones leading to the need for a hip replacement. With that operation he was unable to get out of bed.

He also required medication three times per day, without which, he was warned, he could die. The NHS staff apparently ignored Kane. They didn't give him his medication and they refused to give him water, even though he repeatedly asked for it. When he became insistent staff had security guards restrain him.

Unable to get water himself the desperate man called the local police begging them to intervene. He told them: "Please help me. All I want is a drink and no one is helping me."

Without his medication Gorny became incoherent. His mother gave him something to drink but didn't know how severely dehydrated he had become. She called in nurses who told her that her son was fine. A doctor told her not to worry. She sat there crying until another physician came by, looked at her son, and called for emergency care. She was sent out of the room and one hour later her son died from severe dehydration, all while under the care of the NHS. But it was free!

The NHS rushed to offer counseling—to the nurses who had neglected the boy, not to the family of the victim. They also said they apologized and wrote up new policies saying this won't happen again. Somehow I would have thought that the NHS would already have policies about starving patients to death, or allowing them to dehydrate to death. The BBC says the police are investigating the case at the request of the coroner.

Apparently the new policies are none too soon. Actually they are too late for many. The Express reports that a government commission found that:

HUNDREDS of patients are starving to death in hospital every year, a report revealed yesterday.
The highly critical study also revealed that up to 50,000 patients who died from illness or old age were suffering from malnutrition.

The Labour government sat on the report for almost a year, before releasing it. The government quickly announced that they were taking action—they are abolishing the commission that wrote the report. Other studies of the NHS are equally as bad. The Telegraph reports that a study found that government solutions to the long waiting time for NHS care worsened problems. The government, stung by the inability of the NHS to offer timely care to patients, as a result of the rationing which helps make British health care "so cheap", put into effect rules that hospitals had to admit patients within a certain number of hours. The rules did nothing to provide more beds so the hospitals "ignored basic hygiene to cram in patients to meet waiting-time targets." This lead to increased deaths due to poor hygiene.

The Telegraph reports: "Filthy wards and nurse shortages led to up to 1,200 deaths at Stafford hospital. They report that the Institute for Healthcare improvements was hired to study British care. IHI reported:

“The patient doesn’t seem to be in the picture.” It adds: “We were struck by the virtual absence of mention of patients and families ... whether we were discussing aims and ambition for improvement, measurement of progress or any other topic relevant to quality.

“Most targets and standards appear to be defined in professional, organisational and political terms, not in terms of patients’ experience of care.”

Imagine that! But, considering that the funds for the NHS are not provided directly by patients, but are are decided politically, is it any surprise that NHS care focuses now what the bureaucrats and politicians want, to the detriment of patients. The patient doesn't pay for his health care, at least not directly. Prof . Briama Jarman, an expert on hopsitals standards, said: "These reports have never seen they light of day. We desperately need a better monitoring system for the NHS which actually works." But a spokesman for the Department of Health said they never wanted these reports to have "wider circulation." No, I suspect they wouldn't.

Yet, in recent years, the NHS was showered with new funds by the Labour governments. Lord Warner, who was a Labour minister of health says that the tw0-thirds of the new funding was used to increase salaries. He says that Gordon Brown, now prime minister "reverted to the traditional line in health, which was to support the unions who are the paymaster of the Labour party in the runup to the election." In other words, the extra funds weren't used for more health care but to make the trade unions happy so that the unions would be there when Laabour needs the in an election campaign. This shouldn't surprise Americans as this is precisely how the Democrats treat the education system here. American education exists to make the teacher's unions happy so that the unions, in turn, support the Democratic Party. In politically provided services, employees and teachers, come before patients and students.


Warner says that between 1997 and 2007, under Labour rule, "inputs—by that I mean cash—went up by 60%. But NHS outputs went down by 4%."

Honor killing in Arizona & Let the baby die.

There are two stories that caught my attention and both are worthy of mention.

The first is the sad story of Noor Almaleki who immigrated to the United States with her Muslim family from Iraq. Not long ago the father took Noor to Iraq for an arranged marriage, one which Noor rejected. She returned to the Phoenix, Arizona area and left her family and moved in with her boyfriend.

Her father, Faleh Almaleki, felt his daughter's actions brought dishonor on the family and in accordance with his "traditional family values" and his "religious convictions" used his car to run his daughter down when she was walking in a parking lot. She was with her boyfriend's mother who was also seriously injured in the attack. Noor died.

The father then fled to Mexico where he caught a plane to London. British authorities apprehended him when he landed and sent him back to the United States where he is now in custody. The brother, Peter-Ali Almaleki said he was sorry his sister suffered seemingly tried to justified the execution by saying: "One thing to one culture doesn't make sense to another culture." No, it may not. But murder is murder and any culture that condones murder is barbaric and unworthy of survival.

Yes, traditional family values and religion can be used to do awful things to people. Oddly Americans can understand that when the evil is perpetrated by Muslims. Tomorrow Christian voters will go to the polls in the hopes of stripping the equal rights of gay people away. They do so in support of traditional family fvalues and their religious beliefs. The principle is the same, only the degree is different.

Let the baby die?

A child is born with a serious neuromuscular condition. It is one year old and has been in hospital since birth. The child can see,hear and respond to his parents. He can play with toys but can't breath on his own. The insurer tells the parents that the plug has to be pulled and the baby should be left to die.

Ask yourself if this is an example of the evils of private medical care and private insurance schemes? Isn't this sort of case precisely the reason that we are told that state medical care is necessary and compassionate. With the state behind the care, and with universal coverage, then infants like this child won't be left to die. So we are told.

The problem is that the infant is not American but British, and the insurer is the socialized medical system in England. Doctors for the National Health Service have decided that the quality of life for the infant is not good enough to warrant living. They believe that medical care ought to be removed and the child left to die. The boy's father is going to court to try and stop this.

It appears that life support has been withdrawn from children, without parental consent, when brain damage existed. But no such damage is present in this case. A loss in court could substantially change the powers that physicians have over life and death in the British national health system.

Photo: Noor Almaleki.

Is this the future we will face?

The drive to impose a nationalized health system on the US is a major goal of the far Left. They really are quite rabid about it. I've previously discussed the failures of all health systems and why I think the US is the least worst of the lot. I'm no defender of the muddled system we currently have where various laws and regulations horribly distort the system and limit choice. But I couldn't possible embrace the nationalized system that the UK has, for example. Consider these two recent cases in the British press.

Matthew Millington enlisted in the British military at the age of 16, some 15 years ago. While stationed in Iraq he was diagnosed with a lung illness and it was determined he needed a double lung transplant. But the National Health Service gave him the lungs of a man who had been a heavy smoker and which contained cancer. Because Millington was taking drugs to surpress his immune system the cancer had a field day and spread rapidly.

Remember, the NHS hospital gave Millington lungs infected with cancer during his transplant. They also gave him drugs to suppress his immune system which allowed the cancer to grow. And when the cancer was discovered they said he was ineligible for another lung transplant because the hospital's rules. I quote the Times of London: "Because he was a cancer patient, he was not allowed to receive a further pair of lungs under hospital rules." The cancer he had, which made him ineligible for a second transplant, was literally given to him by the hospital.

The Times reports: "The cancer was discovered only six months after the operation, because of a lack of communication between radiographers and consultants. The tumour had grown from 9mm to 13 mm in that period." The hospital admits "a string of problems, including difficulties with communication, record-keeping and patient handover."

Hazel Fenton, 80, came down with pneumonia and was placed in the local NHS hospital. Doctors determined immediately that she was terminally ill and placed her in a controversial NHS program "to east the last days of dying patients." The program is actually something else entirely. When a patient is placed in the program the hospital ceases to feed the patient and given them care, allowing them to die.

And that is what the NHS was doing to Hazel. They refused to feed her, to ease her last days, by ending her life. Hazel's daughter, Christine Ball, was there to fight for her mother. She fought the hospital for days before finally getting them to begin feeding her mother again. Nine months later, the woman the NHS deemed in her "last days" was alive and well in a nursing home near her daughter.

The Times reports: "Doctors say Fenton is an example of patients who have been condemned to death on the Liverpool care pathway plan. They argue that while it is suitable for patients who do have only days to live, it is being used more widely in the NHS, denying treatment to elderly patients who are not dying." Miss Ball was equally blunt: "My mother was going to be left to starve and dehydrate to death. It really is a subterfuge for legalised euthanasia of the elderly on the NHS."

Ball says that while she was trying to convince the hospital her mother was not dying a nurse asked her for instructions on what to do with her mother's body.

The Times also writes: "In a separate case the family of an 87-year-old woman say the plan is being used as a way of giving minimum care to dying patients." The daughter of the woman in question says that her mother was put on "the plan" and "her medication was withdrawn. As a result she became agitated and distressed." Justified as a way to make the last days easier for the patient it appears "the plan" is a way to make medical care cheaper and meet budgetary restraints by denying treatment to old people.

Meanwhile another scandal is brewing in regards to NHS staff members who become sick. It appears that the National Health Service doesn't trust its own care when it comes to their staff members. Recent documents reveal that over the last three years the NHS spent £1.5m (about $2.4 million) so that their staff could receive private treatment outside the NHS system. Some 3,000 NHS employees received private care paid for by the NHS, care denied to patients of the NHS. Norman Lamb, Shadow Health Secretary for the Liberal Democrats said: "If the NHS thinks it necessary to pay for private treatement for its staff to jump waiting lists then it raises serious questions about whether the current system is working as it should."

One local newspaper looked at how the NHS paid to have ambulance staff receive private care and was told by a spokeswoman for the amubulace service that "we want to get [our staff] back o work as quickly as possible so they can continue to provide services to the people of the east of England..." Apparently to give quick service they have to scuttle the NHS and go private.

The BBC recently reported that a report on NHS procedures show that: "More than 5,700 patients in England died or suffered serious harm due to errors lastest figures for a six-month period show." And another NHS report shows that one in 50 patients are receiving treatment to undo the harm done by the NHS with previous care. This includes those with reactions to medication, those suffering from "misadventures" during surgery and "adverse incidents" related to medical equipment.

Another example of how nationalized systems lower costs comes with the drug tocilizumab. This drug appears to work very well for patients with rheumatoid arthritis who have not responded well to other medications. But nationalized systems are known for being cheap and being cheap means not offering medical care deemed too expensive. The NHS has an agency called the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (which they abbreviate as NICE). NICE is not nice when it comes to recommending drugs. NICE said that the medication is too expensive and has advised against its use, not because it is ineffective or dangerous, but because it costs too much. The National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society says the decision is "extremely bad news."

However, while they can't afford to pay for medication that would ease the pain of patients, the NHS can afford to continue to pay executives who no longer work for the NHS. A publication in Wales reports: "The Western Mail understands that chief executives and finance directors displaced by new arrangements that came in last week have a guarantee that their existing salaries will be protected for 10 years." So, a job is ended, but the staff member stays on salary for 10 years at full pay.

Photos: Upper left, Lester Millington with a photo of his deceased son, Matthew. Mid right: Christine Ball with her still quite alive mother, Hazel Fenton.k

UK's health system: more bureaucrats than doctors.

I was reading the British news, as I often do, and came across a story regarding the National Health Service in the UK—an institution that the Obamatrons and sundry statists in America want to emulate. The UK, as might be suspected, has had problems keeping medical costs down. As new technologies develop more medical options are available. And the more that is available the more that gets spent. One easy way to cut medical costs in any country is to simply ban all new technologies and drugs. If you want 1950s health care costs then use only 1950s health care technology.

But the UK doesn't want to be quite that drastic, even if they do restrict medical choices significantly. So the upward pressure on their health budget has a tendency to get completely out of control. Apparently the Labour government commissioned a study on how to cut NHS expenses. The report came back suggesting cutting 137,000 staff members.

I find that highly unlikely. Remember these are 137,000 government employees. Many of them have families and friends. They will be angry if they get sacked and they vote. So a political decision is likely to be made to keep the staff and cut costs somewhere else, where they hope it won't harm election night totals as much. One thing to remember under a politically-controlled health system is that what's good for the ruling party comes before what may be good for the patient. So the report looked for ways to cutting staff, without actually cutting staff, not filling vacant positions, for instance.

Cutting staff may not be a bad idea for the NHS, however. Buried at the bottom of the news story were some figure regarding staffing at the NHS. The NHS employes 1,368,694 people. Of those 49%, or 666,863 are classified as "non-medical staff." So for every medical staff member they basically have one staff member who is not medical. What I found interesting is that the total number doctors (both general physicians and hopsital doctors) is 121,808. The entire staff of doctors of the NHS are outnumbered by administrators alone, 178,151. If you add in the "senior managers" then the bureaucrats, 219,o64 of them, who control the system outnumber the 121,808 physicians who work in the system. For every 100 physicians in the NHS there are 180 administrators.

Video: Just some appropriate amusement from the classic British series, Yes Minister.

How England Saves Money on Health Care

I have argued that the main method by which nationalized health care systems, such as the National Health Service in the UK, saves money is simple: deny health care. Care is bureaucratically rationed out. Some people get it, some people don't and it often depends on the whim of untrained bureaucrats or by which "health district" you reside in. This story illustrates NHS health savings in action.

Expectant mother Carmen Blake had sudden and unexpected contractions indicating that her fourth child was about to be born whether she liked it or not. The contractions were strong enough that Carmen realized that she had virtually no time left and called the hospital for an ambulance. The hospital refused her an ambulance and told her to walk. Under normal circumstances that is not too unreasonable as she did live close by. But she was already in labor when she called. Blake recounts: "They said they were not sending an ambulance and told me I had nine months to sort out a lift."

Blake, with some friends also on foot, tried to walk to the hospital as instructed. But she didn't make it. The woman couldn't move any further. A passing woman, Helen Ivers, who is a physio-therapist ended up delivering the child on the sidewalk. Worse yet the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby's neck so she wasn't breathing. Ivers said when she got there she shouted: "Where are the paramedics." Ivers said "When the baby's head came out I realized the cord was around its neck. Its all a bit of a blur but I think instinct kicked in and I just pulled it over the baby's head."

The friends had called the hospital which, now realizing that Blake was giving birth on the public sidewalk, thanks to their cost-cutting, finally sent the ambulance she had previously requested. The communications manager for the ambulance company said: "This was clearly a traumatic eperience for all concerned." I suspect it was more traumatic for Blake because she was refused an ambulance and then traumatic for Ivers who had to do the hospital's job on the sidewalk because the NHS was saving money.

A spokesman for the state-run hospital said: "We are disappointed that Ms Blake was not happy with the advice and care she received and will of course investigate any complaint." Wow! How compassionate! Note that they didn't apologize for telling a pregnant woman to walk to hospital. Instead they said they are disappointed that she isn't happy. And they again pretend they offered care, which they did not. Blake wasn't disappointed by care she received but by the absence of care requiring her to give birth in front of traffic.

At roughly the same time another expectant mother, Rebecca Molloy, turned up at an NHS hospital. She was 38 weeks pregnant and having contractions. The hospital told her that she wasn't ready and to go home, they were unwilling to admit her. (Too costly you know.) Three hours later Rebecca found herself on the floor doubled up in pain from contractions.

Husband Tony called the hospital for help but "could not get any response." (Perhaps the NHS staff were busy writing letters in defense of state-managed care in England because the criticism they received from opponents of Obamacare.) Left hanging by the hospital, Tony ran out and got the car to rush Rebecca to hospital.

When he returned she told him it was far too late and the baby was being born. Tony Molloy began delivering his daughter. The infant was ashen gray in color and not breathing. It too was born with the cord around its neck. Remembering birthing videos he had watched Tony removed the cord from the child's neck and slapped her on the back to start her breathing. Tony said: "She was grey and not breathing. I was talking to her, saying 'come on little one, breathe for daddy."

When the NHS hospital was asked by the media about their sending a very, very pregnant woman home, without being helped, the hospital spokesman said: "We would encourage the family to contact our patient advice service if they have any concerns over the care received." Actually wouldn't that be "over the care NOT received?"

There is no magic in cutting health care costs—just cut health care. That is how it is done in England and that is how it can be done in the US. You do get what you pay for. Pay for less, get less. It's not that hard to understand. So why does the Left believe that Obama is some messiah who can magically take "a loaf of health care," bless it, and pass it around so that everyone has as much as they want at no additional cost? When government controls health care it saves money by denying treatments and services to people.

Consider poor Ms. Blake. Had she lived in the US, she would have called the ambulance saying she was in labor. It would have showed up and the cost of that would be added to America's health care costs. She would have gone to hospital where she would have had the child, again racking up costs toward the US health care total. All that care, in the current debate, would be counted AGAINST America's health care costs and would be considered a bad thing.

In contrast, in the UK, she was told to walk to hospital, to save on ambulance costs. She delivered on the sidewalk with care given by someone not being paid by the NHS to deliver that service. All that added up to health care savings for the NHS. And, based on the tenor of the debate over Obamacare the costs show that NHS service is superior to health services in the US precisely because the NHS doesn't cost as much. Imagine how efficient the NHS would look if it had patients perform their own heart bypass at home! (Sort of the way NHS patients were forced to pull their own teeth because the government rationed dental care.)

The NHS, life expectancy and America's health care debate.

Bureaucrats who work for the British government’s health care system are unhappy that their system of centrally planned care is being used as an example of what Americans should fear with Obamacare.

One such individual, from the Faculty of Public Health, Alan Maryon-Davis, claimed “The NHS (National Health Service does a damn fine job.” And his proof:

“We spend less on health in terms of GDP than America but if you look at health indices, especially for life expectancy, we have better figures than they do in America.”

What is interesting is how Maryon-Davis was able to include so much misinformation into one sentence. It is almost breathtaking. So let’s unpack his claim one phrase at a time.

“We spend less on health in terms of GDP than America...” This is true. But does it mean anything?

Americans spend more on cars, in terms of GDP, than do Brits. Does this mean Brits have better automobile transportation than Americans? Not at all, they have significantly less. The British government puts a lid on health care in some very simple ways: they deny it. So you can’t get the treatments in the UK that you can get in the United States.

Americans can choose to spend on these treatments, British subjects can not. If we cut the amount of health care we give out, we could cut our costs significantly. Take one example that was in the news recently, because this British woman, agreed to be interviewed by opponents to Obama’s take-over of health care.

Katie Brickell asked for a pap smear when she was 19. The NHS told her she could not have it. When she turned 20, she was told, she could ask again. She asked again, one year later. Now they told her they had changed the rules and she could only have a pap smear when she turned 25. So, once again she delayed the test. When she was 23 they told her she had cervical cancer, the very thing the test is designed to detect. She said: I gave an interview and everything I saw was truthful...” She said: “I would say to anybody in my situation now that if they had the money, they should go private.”

Luckily she was working a company that also provided private insurance. So she was immediately put on drugs that, so far, have saved her life, and appear to have put the cancer in remission. She has to take two different drugs and she acknowledges, that under NHS care “I would have had to get a lot of clearance to get that level of care. On private, that just was not an issue. If I needed a scan, it was immediate. On the NHS, it was often a two or three-week wait.”

The NHS was doing what it was designed to do: cut the costs of health care by rationing health care according to edits set by bureaucrats as their best guess as to what, is a good idea, on average. The rules are set to cut costs. In most cases a 19-year-old doesn’t need a pap smear, Katie wasn’t “most cases.” The system can’t individualize needs the way that private care can.

Thelma Nixon was told that her case of wet macular degeneration would mean she would go blind. She need injections into the eyes to prevent this. Injections, or blindness, there was no other option. The NHS told her she didn’t fit their guidelines because the cost was too great. So they decided she needed to go blind, after all NHS provides health care at a lower cost than the US and that’s a good thing.

Thelma remortgaged her home while the Royal National Institute for the Blind went to bat for her. The press caught on to the story and started campaigning for her. Since British health care is politically controlled this was causing bad publicity for the ruling party and the NHS relented—for Thelma. Those who don’t manage to create a media frenzy around themselves are not so fortunate.

But Thelma’s initial treatments were paid for by herself, from the house mortgage. And when that ran out a local businessman gave her the funds for two more treatments. Other readers of her local paper rallied to her case and provided funding. ONLY after this media frenzy was created did the NHS relent. They sent up new guidelines for assessment and will not disqualify people from care according to the new policies.

Jane Tomlinson knew that the squeeky-wheel gets the grease in the NHS system. But she didn’t want to go that route. She was an avid supporter of the NHS. She worked for the NHS as radiographer. She spent much of her time raising additional funds for the NHS. It is estimated that she raised close to $2.9 million for the NHS.

She was diagnosed with cancer. Her medical team told her that the best option for situation was treatments with Lapatinib. But that costs $11,000 for a year’s worth of care, but that’s just a fraction of the funds she raised for the NHS. Were the bureaucrats thankful? No. They told her she could not have the treatment in her region. Had she lived in other regions of the country, the bureaucrats had decided differently and she would have had the treatment. She died. The NHS Trust said: “We were deeply disappointed not to be able to offer Jane the treatment she and her consultant wanted. We support Jane and Mike’s (her husband) views that we need to debate about access to drugs that have not yet been licensed or nationally approved.” They were disappointed! Tell that to her her small son.

Remember, it is easy to cut the percentage of GDP spent on health care. Just ration it. Cut the amount of care that people are allowed to receive and you will cut the costs.

What matters, is not the percentage of GDP you spend on care, but what you get for it. We could give Americans 1950s costs on health care if we limit the care to 1950s technology. Cut out CAT scans and you can save a lot of money, and lose a lot of lives. Cut out bypass surgeries and you can lower the total amount spent on care. There is no magic in cutting health care costs. It’s easy and it is done in country after country, merely by limiting the supply of care.

We could cut the costs of education in America the same way. Just fire half the teachers and ration education. We could set up schools with waiting rooms where kids line up in the morning and the first 200 in get to go to class and the rest go home. Of course, they can try again tomorrow!

The proponent of government-run health care only whine about the costs of health care. If education is being discussed they attack America for “not spending enough.” When it comes to public transit they whine about “not spending enough.” When it comes to government programs then more. When it comes to private services then more is evil. It isn’t the cost that offends them. In the UK the same proponents of socialized care want government to spend more. Spending more is only considered evil when it is done privately.

Let’s look at the second phrase in the defense of the NHS: “if you look at health indices, especially for life expectancy, we have better figures than they do in America.”

The problem here is that life expectancy is not a measure of health. It is and it isn’t. It is a measure of life expectancy which is determined by countless other factors, of which health care, is just a small factor.

Imagine two towns, with the identical number of people, fitting precisely the same profiles. They get the exact same health care. But in one town the villages like to drive wildly, while the other town is inhabited by people afraid to drive fast then 20 mph. Which town will have a lower life expectancy?

People who smoke have a lower life expectancy than people who don’t, even if they get the identical care. A town with a higher murder rate will have a lower life expectancy than a town with few, or no murders. People who exercise and eat their vegetables will have a higher life expectancy than people who don’t. There are literally hundreds of factors which impact life expectancy which are entirely outside of the health care system.

This is widely known, but that doesn’t stop the proponents of socialized health care from using this statistic. The numbers they use are correct, but the spin they put on them isn't.

What is an objective criteria that can be used? How about survival rates for patients, suffering similar conditions, under various systems. Since the examples I used earlier, of Katie Brickell and Jane Tomlinson, involved cancer let’s explore the survival rate differences between the US and Great Britain.

The British medical journal, Lancet Oncology did just that. When it came to measuring the survival rates of cancer victims guess who came in first place: the United States, where 62.9 per cent of female patients survived. In England the rate was 52.7 per cent. For male cancer patients the news was better Americans but worse for the Brits. Sixty-six per cent of American male patients with cancer survive. In England only 44.7 per cent do.

Survival rates for cancer victims does measure health care, especially health care around the issue of cancer. Yet, the NHS apologists avoid mentioning this statistic and instead trot out life expectancy, which has little to actually do with health care. But then, what choice did Maryon-Davis have in order to make his case?

Photos: Photo #1 is of the queue outside one of the few NHS dentists in Wales taking new patients. To limit costs the NHS strictly limits the number of dentists. The results are long lines of people hoping to be allowed to see a dentist. Some pensioners have suffered so badly from tooth aches, and facing NHS restrictions on care denying them dental care, that they have resorted to pulling their own teeth. But, when they pull their teeth, instead of the NHS doing it, it lowers the percentage of health care as a part of GDP, and that's a good thing according to NHS proponents. Photo #2, Jane Tomilson and the family she left behind.