For reasons I don’t understand, some Americans–a minority, to be sure–want us to adopt socialized medicine along the lines of the United Kingdom, Canada and other countries. This view can be held, I think, only by those who know little about the quality of care under such systems. The latest comes from the U.K., via the Telegraph: Parkinson’s sufferers face “appalling gaps” in care.
The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Parkinson’s Disease found a postcode lottery in services across Britain and said there were too few specialist nurses to treat the estimated 120,000 sufferers in Britain.
They also warned that health professionals, including GPs, had a “poor understanding” of the disease.
Ministers and NHS managers are to blame for “appalling gaps” in services and a “lack of leadership of neurological services at national and local level” the report found. …
Jim Henry, 66, a Parkinson’s patient, told the inquiry: “I had to wait six months to see a specialist for my initial diagnosis, but received no information about Parkinson’s at that or any subsequent appointment. “At once stage, my neurologist went on sick leave for more than a year, with no notification or replacement service.” …
Ann Keen, the health minister, said that people with Parkinson’s disease “deserve the right to access to the essential services they need. She added that ministers were working with NHS managers to ensure that the Nice guidelines were implemented.
The Nice guidelines were promulgated three years ago. But, hey, when your health care is the responsibility of government bureaucrats, and you have no freedom of choice, what’s the hurry?
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.