Hillarycare at it's finest

As anyone who could stand to has read this blog over it's life knows how I feel about government health care.
Being on the receiving end for 9 years in the Navy, and having exactly ONE blood test done (for cholesterol) and "the laying of hands" for my real problem... "Let me feel your thyroid,,,,,,No you don't have any hormone problems, you eat too much and don't excersize enough, you're on the 'fatboy' program."
"You say you felt and heard something tear in your shoulder? The X-rays don't show anything,,,go back to work."

Fast forward about 15 years..."Let me take a blood test and see what we've got, the Insurance will cover it." "Oh, that's not right lets get a specialist and do an MRI"
"We found a growth at the base of your Pituitary gland- minor surgery will have it out in about two hours and you'll be back at work in two days." Insurance cost for the entire thing...less than $500 out of pocket.

I told you that story to tell you this..
Growing numbers of operations are being cancelled because of a lack of sterile surgical instruments, newly released figures show.

~snip~
This is a false economy. These figures reveal a huge jump in cancelled operations simply because surgeons at the last minute are discovering that the surgical instruments still have blood on them.

‘Apart from the financial cost, this new system is not working for patients who have prepared themselves to go under the knife, only then to find that their operations are cancelled at the 11th hour.’

In 2005/6 some 1,765 operations were cancelled because no sterile instruments were available at the 58 Health Service trusts who responded to requests for information.

This is one of the models held up for our newest health care fix.
Cuba?
Russia?
China?

How about the U.K. a first world country?
It took a Freedom of Information request from a high ranking member of Parliment to get that information.

In 2002/3 that figure stood at 1,252. Sixty-one operations were cancelled because of the problem at Cambridge University Hospitals Trust in 2002/3, rising to 232 in 2005/6.

At the Isle of Wight Healthcare Trust, the figure was up 800 per cent, from just eight to 63.

At Mid Essex Hospital Services Trust, the number went up from none to 97.

The admissions will raise fears that in other cases doctors and nurses reuse equipment that should have been destroyed after one use.

The practice, often aimed at cutting costs, involves catheters and a vast range of devices including some used in keyhole surgery and internal examinations.

The extent of the practice was revealed last year when a surgeon was cleared of misconduct for reusing surgical instruments in breach of guidelines.

Simon Moyes, a specialist at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in North-West London, was accused of putting patients at risk of infections by re-using monitoring probes that should have been thrown away.

However, he was cleared of serious professional misconduct by the General Medical Council after it heard evidence that the practice was widespread to cut costs.
Ahh, yes the old "everyone does it" defense...

Too bad it's in England where the Government is almost unsuable...John Edwards could make another fortune sueing for malpractice.