What a f**cking day, at the NHS.

[Beazy]

Sure, in the US your place in the queue depends on how much money you have, not your condition. It must be so cool to flash a credit card and have your sprained ankle take priority over some poor guy who is having a heart-attack.

Doesn't work like that. My insurance provider knows where to send me based on what has happened.

Does the UK have hospital specialties like the US?

For instance, if I get shot, I get sent to Parkland in Dallas, if I get burnt, or my liver is damaged, I go to Baylor in Downtown Dallas, if I'm in a car wreck and have severe trauma to my chest, I go to JPS in Ft.Worth. Our hospitals are as large as the biggest bank buildings in Dallas, so wait times are spread out pretty good across the metroplex. I can't just waltz into Baylor with a broken toe bone, flash my insurance card and get priority. . . . . they will send me to a specialist that day, and hopefully within a few miles.

[Deleted]

I am sorry you had to wait that long with a dislocated shoulder but the way it works at the A&E department is emergency cases go through first. Its not on a first come first serve basis. NHS has a limited amount of resources so life threatening conditions must come first.

[oplawlz]

To which the answer becomes; tough shit.

You may be in pain, but there are other people with more critical conditions that need to be addressed first.

Because the hospital is understaffed. Yes, we already covered this.

[Deleted]

You have 4 other fingers. I have a feeling you've never dislocated a shoulder before.

actually i have 8 other fingers, but who's counting!!
and if the truth be known, i still have a dislocated middle left finger from when i was about 12.
so, yes. i do know what a dislocation is like & my finger is still bent to this day.
i never called for an ambulance then, either!!

[Elegiac]

Because the hospital is understaffed. Yes, we already covered this.

You having to wait at the ER does not mean the hospital is understaffed.

[oplawlz]

You having to wait at the ER does not mean the hospital is understaffed.

Having to wait for 5 hours in the ER has literally only that one meaning. Well, to be less specific it means the hospital is operating over capacity. It's possible they don't have enough room to serve their clientele.

[Beazy]

But hey, at the end of the day it's still a private healthcare system which always sucks.

I agree. But, IMO, the only way to have a true "free healthcare" system, is for the Feds to step in and control the prices of the med industry. That scares me.

[Elegiac]

Having to wait for 5 hours in the ER has literally only that one meaning. Well, to be less specific it means the hospital is operating over capacity. It's possible they don't have enough room to serve their clientele.

I'll give you a hint here: hospitals calculate their expected operating capacity based on the median with some wiggle room. It's entirely possible for there to be outliers where the number of patients hits a huge amount, but catering for that high end ends up just being a massive waste of money and resources.

This only becomes apparent when you actually work in healthcare; the people complaining about ER wait times for deferrable conditions mostly just suffer from confirmation bias.

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I agree. But, IMO, the only way to have a true "free healthcare" system, is for the Feds to step in and control the prices of the med industry. That scares me.

Yeah, because in America people have an irrational fear of 'gubmint' when the negative effects of government intervention in the healthcare industry seem to be a uniquely American thing.

[Deleted]

I am sorry you had to wait and I am the first to admit the NHS is not perfect but in the grand scheme of things a dislocated shoulder is not high on the lost of priorities as when triaged there are many others who are more serious. My father had a major stroke this weekend and was seen and treated immediately, saving his life

It is winter, there are a lot more cases and the NHS is over stretched but they need to see people in order of how serious the condition is

[Deleted]

You have to wait because idiots flood A&E with none emergencies aka dislocated shoulder

[Beazy]

Yeah, because in America people have an irrational fear of 'gubmint' when the negative effects of government intervention in the healthcare industry seem to be a uniquely American thing.

I don't think its irrational. Or gov is full of dip shits and liars. Just look at how close the pedo battle was last night.

[Deleted]

The emergency room we go to has never had a wait. We go to the emergency room like 6 times a year so... This is in the US btw.

WTF are you doing that requires A&E 6x a year

[oplawlz]

I'll give you a hint here: hospitals calculate their expected operating capacity based on the median with some wiggle room. It's entirely possible for there to be outliers where the number of patients hits a huge amount, but catering for that high end ends up just being a massive waste of money and resources.
This only becomes apparent when you actually work in healthcare; the people complaining about ER wait times for deferrable conditions mostly just suffer from confirmation bias..

We define waste very differently. Having the capacity to keep a population healthy and out of pain doesn't seem like a waste to me, even if it means healthcare workers occasionally get to chill in the coffee room like most other white collar workers.

To be clear, I've only been to an ER twice, once for a car accident and once when I was a kid and got a pretty severe injury after normal doctor hours. Neither circumstance had me waiting at all. I just don't see why making your clientele wait that long should be acceptable for the healthcare industry when it isn't for literally anyone else. The occasional plane crash or building explosion being the exception, of course.

[cubby]

Dislocated my shoulder this morning, called an ambulance, they said, order a taxi as it was not an emergency. I did, finally in hospital, was sitting for around 3 hours to see a DR for 2 min, he told me, go do an x-ray, what do you know? Another 1 hour wait. Bare in mind my shoulder was still dislocated and the pain I was in I could not explain. I waited after the x ray I needed to rejoin the 3 hour queue again, what a nightmare. Fuck it, I am going private next time.

rant over.

Brutal - United States?

[Tommy T]

It's not the waiting time that annoys me. It's the workload and stress the NHS is under, that causes issues like misdiagnoses, that bothers me.

I was diagnosed with "just glandular fever" when I was young.

After not getting better for weeks on end, we went private and I was diagnosed immediately with Kawasaki disease, and was treated.
It's a common story unfortunately - the rate of misdiagnoses is staggering.

[Elegiac]

I don't think its irrational. Or gov is full of dip shits and liars. Just look at how close the pedo battle was last night.

Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe because of America's irrational fear of government, it both discourages people of talent from entering government as well as hamstrings any actions or reforms the government might take to be more effective?

No, of course not. Because big government is bad.

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We define waste very differently. Having the capacity to keep a population healthy and out of pain doesn't seem like a waste to me, even if it means healthcare workers occasionally get to chill in the coffee room like most other white collar workers.

You seem to be of the impression that hospitals have unlimited budgets.

To be clear, I've only been to an ER twice, once for a car accident and once when I was a kid and got a pretty severe injury after normal doctor hours. Neither circumstance had me waiting at all. I just don't see why making your clientele wait that long should be acceptable for the healthcare industry when it isn't for literally anyone else. The occasional plane crash or building explosion being the exception, of course.

Because it's healthcare and not 'any other industry'. Suck it up, buttercup.

[Mendzia]

Now come to Eastern Europe please.
Sometimes we wait a few years for some basic HC.

[oplawlz]

Because it's healthcare and not 'any other industry'. Suck it up, buttercup.

Surely you can see how nonsensical it is to keep something the same when it's obviously working poorly? We're talking about publicly funded healthcare here - the answer is to grant them more funding, and perhaps more competent oversight. The answer is not to shrug it off and tell people to "suck it up".

[Elegiac]

Surely you can see how nonsensical it is to keep something the same when it's obviously working poorly? We're talking about publicly funded healthcare here - the answer is to grant them more funding, and perhaps more competent oversight. The answer is not to shrug it off and tell people to "suck it up".

Private healthcare faces exactly the same set of issues because, once again, it's not a function of who funds it. It's also an issue of staffing; there are more patients than doctors or even support staff.

You're deluding yourself if you think this exact issue is not brought up constantly within the healthcare industry; things like triage exist precisely because discussions have been had about those very issues and those are the most effective strategies of dealing with it.

Saying 'just throw more money at it' is like advocating that every person should have a bus stop outside of their house to resolve commuting issues.

[Deleted]

That's called an understaffed hospital. If there are so many critical injuries coming in that someone with a dislocated shoulder has to wait hours to be seen, they're obviously working way over capacity, which highlights a flaw with the system.

Incorrect. No hospital anywhere has the resources to instantly deal with every patient as they arrive. Every emergency room practises triage.