Michael

My neighbor's mother chose hospice care and she lived with him for the last 5 months of her life as medical personal visited daily.

maggot50

Sally the way you talk its harder to enter a US hospital than the nation of North Korea. No US hospital can turn you away unlike public hospitals in Spain which are now regularly asking for cash up front for emergency care for Brits. You should be reassured that your chances of neglect and poor care are much lower than in an NHS hospital rather than being critical.

Jersey you mention one positive picture. Maybe speak to the children who are now fighting for justice for their in-laws who are no longer due to neglect in Mid-Staffs and other NHS institutions. They would probably say you were lucky sadly.

Jerseygirl

I know many more stories about excellent NHS care my relatives have received...but I don't know of any bad ones.

jeffreyhy

Maybe she meant that it's hard to get admitted to a hospital in the US. (Are there any parallels with CBP, I wonder?)

Or, maybe she meant that most people in the US are dead before they make it to the hospital to request admittance?

Regards, JEff

maggot50

You kidding me? Maybe check out the Francis report which was a public enquiry looking at tens of thousands of bad ones that too in only 1 hospital! My friends mother died in that place due to malnutrition/dehydration. Yes she died due to lack of water. He is struggling for justice due to the wall of spin that accompanies the NHS at every turn.

Jerseygirl

I do not personally know of bad experiences...only those I read about in the British press etc.

Sally Redux

I was reading about the item in the Guardian.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2...land-higher-us

Some points to note:


The work was not peer reviewed. "In an interview Jarman conceded this point but said it was because "three nations had not allowed him to publish the data". The data sets, he said, were also large. For the UK he had all the hospital episode data. For the US he had a 20% random sample from the hospitals."

"The US has lower life expectancy – two years less than that in the UK – and millions of uninsured people who struggle to find healthcare, so the finding was combustible."

Jarman accepts that the US does badly on life expectancy and concedes:
"There's no GP system in America, so life expectancy, infant mortality, is terrible in places like Harlem."

"There is an additional issue that could affect the UK-US comparisons. In America people with insurance are often discharged to die at home or in a hospice as it is less expensive for the insurer. US hospital mortality data would not capture these cases. Jarman accepted this but said it "would make only a small difference to the numbers".

I would say it is difficult to compare rates in a universal healthcare system with the US. A US hospital only has to stabilize you in an emergency, they do not have to provide treatment for a terminal illness for uninsured people.

People like maggot50 just don't get it.

scrubbedexpat099

I have a few....

Sally Redux

Same here.

Coincidentally, I have heard of quite a few hospital deaths here, including a very gruesome one where my husband works when a patient was set on fire on the operating table due to careless handling of fluids.

kins

She went to the ER? In the UK?

Jerseygirl

Yes...A & E as it's know there.

RoadWarriorFromLP

Drop in hospital death rates may mean more Americans dying at home

Most Americans would rather die at home than in a hospital, according to patient surveys.

Now, a new government study suggests more and more people getting their wish.

Researchers at the National Center for Health Statistics studied the deaths of patients admitted to a sampling of U.S. hospitals. They determined that hospital deaths accounted for 29 percent of U.S. deaths in 2010, down from more than 32 percent in 2000.

The number of inpatient hospital deaths dropped 8 percent over the decade study period from 776,000 deaths in 2000 to 715,000 in 2010, according to the report. During that time, the number of total hospitalizations increased 11 percent. Patients who died in the hospital had longer average hospital stays than all patients

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-...dying-at-home/

Statistics such as "survival rates" have to be understood and placed into their proper context. What you don't want are providers who play to the numbers just for the sake of hitting a statistical benchmark.

scrubbedexpat099

Much more common now for people top pass the GP. At my local Hospital they had issues with lack of beds meaning that Ambulances could not discharge and then there were no Ambulances for new calls.

I remember the interminable waits in A&Every well.

kodokan

Really? I'm in my early 40s, and confidently think the boomers would've fixed this for me by the time I get there. The current olds might be all 'mustn't grumble' and 'doctor knows best', but there's no chance of the self-aware rights and expectations generation following suit. They're not going to stand for dying a pointlessly painful and degrading death when there's a much more palatable alternative.

Speedwell

False.