Even though Paul Krugman has told us that horror stories about government-run healthcare in Britain “are false,” we keep getting reports about substandard care and needless deaths (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).
Well, let’s add another chilling report to the list. Here’s some of what the UK-based Telegraph just reported.
Tens of thousands of patients with terminal illnesses are being placed on a “death pathway”, almost double the number just two years ago, a study published today shows.Health service guidance states that doctors should discuss with relations whether or not their loved one is placed on the scheme which allows medical staff to withdraw fluid and drugs in a patient’s final days. In many cases this is not happening, an audit has found. As many as 2,500 families were not told that their loved ones had been put on the so-called Liverpool Care Pathway, the study disclosed.In one hospital trust, doctors had conversations with fewer than half of families about the care of their loved one. In a quarter of hospital trusts, discussions were not held with one in three families.
Remind me not to get sick on my next trip to London.
But horror stories about government-run healthcare are not limited to the United Kingdom. Here’s part of a remarkable story from an English-language Swedish news agency.
A man from Nyköping in eastern Sweden has been denied a power wheelchair despite having had both of his legs amputated as the local health authority remained “uncertain if the impairment was permanent”. The man had his legs amputated after a long struggle with diabetes, but despite being unable get about, his application for a power wheelchair has been denied.
I realize I’m a typical guy, but the first thing that came to my mind after reading this story were a couple of funny bits from Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail – the “I got better” scene and the “just a flesh wound” scene.
In the real world, however, there’s nothing humorous about whether amputated legs are a “permanent” impairment.
Both of these stories show the downside of letting bureaucrats have power over health care.
