[kitkat24]

US surgery safer than under NHS
By Thair Shaikh
(Filed: 07/09/2003)


Patients who have major operations on the National Health Service are four times more likely to die than Americans undergoing such surgery, according to a new study.

The difference in mortality rates was blamed on long NHS waiting lists, a shortage of specialists and competition for intensive care beds.

The joint study, carried out by University College London and a team from Columbia University in New York, found that patients in Britain who were most at risk of complications after major surgery were not being seen by specialists and were not reaching intensive care units in time to save them.

The study followed 1,100 patients at the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth and compared them with 1,000 patients who had undergone similar major surgery at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.

The results showed that just under 10 per cent of the British patients died in hospital after major surgery, compared with 2.5 per cent of the American patients.

Each year, more than three million operations are carried out on the NHS and about 350,000 of these are emergencies which carry a higher risk of complications.

Professor Monty Mythen, head of anaesthesia at UCL who led the British side of the research, said: "The main difference seems to be in the quality of post-operative care and who cares."

Prof Mythen, who also oversees the critical care facilities at Great Ormond Street Hospital, said: "In the Manhattan hospital, the care after surgery is delivered largely by a consultant surgeon and an anaesthetist. We know from other research that more than one third of those who die after a major operation in Britain are not seen by a similar consultant.

"In America, everyone would go into a critical care bed - they go into a highly monitored environment. That doesn't happen routinely in the UK."

Health ministers, meanwhile, will present new figures this week showing another annual rise in the number of intensive care beds - although Britain still lags behind America and much of Europe in critical care facilities.

[kitkat24]

Would somebody like to comment about the articles on NHS versus US ?

Comment specifically about this part:

Which brings up my other pet peeve about nationalized health plans proposed for the United States. Advocates of such plans frequently blast HMOs for interfering with the doctor-patient relationship by dictating what doctors can and cannot offer their patients. But a nationalized health system would simply substitute a single entity -- the federal health agency -- for the various HMOs. Call it the mother of all HMOs.

The trend in countries that have nationalized health care is not some utopian health care system where doctors get to treat patients regardless of cost. Rather it is a system where health care is explicitly rationed by state and/or national health care agencies and health care decisions are completely subsumed to the need to control costs.


ME:
When I post something like this, everybody just has this as a reply: "I am sure that you can find many articles to 'clog' up this BB". But nobody wants to discuss the findings:

So, should we just say, oh that is some conservative finding less disregard it like Fraser and Canada, or should we ponder it, question it, digest it, and take it to heart?

Kitkat

[kitkat24]

So, as this article points out in relationship to your comments about public health:

Public health is mostly as preventative care. Supposedly your arguement suggests that national health care is superior in their primary care, versus secondary, and tertiary levels of prevention. However, that study would suggest otherwise. That as you WAIT to see a specialist you end up having a higher mortality rate once they do perform surgery.

So much for that theory then.....
kitkat

[fergus51]

kitkat, I don't know why I am bothering to post this, because it is obvious you are not listening to me.... but here goes one more time.... The government DOES NOT determine my care. MY DOCTOR AND I DO. So it is not like an HMO that denies coverage for tests or procesures. It just isn't. A doctor here can order the tests he wants and doesn't have to worry that his patient won't be covered for them. Apples and oranges. It is the first scare tactic used whenever universal care comes up, but it just isn't true. I am not denying there are problems with our system, but that isn't one of them. I don't know why you keep spouting this propaganda. Doctors and nurses do have to provide good care, and it is not the government deciding who gets what. It is medical need that determines care. Government FUNDED and government RUN are two very different things.

[gwenith]

I will agree with Fergus WE have universal health and WOW!!! we get the doctor of our choice (GP) - IT is ONLY and I will repeat ONLY in the state run hospitals where you do not have the doctor of your choice BUT you can and do have the freedom to refuse to be seen by a certain medical officer if that is your desire. This is why we have a private/public system - if you want - all the way - the doctor of your choice you go private. It is that simple.

[fergus51]

And I am assuming that Australian doctors and nurses in the public system still have to provide good care for their patients, right Gwenith?

[gwenith]

Oh Lordy Yes'm
Why we are so poor that the family has to bring in the food. We have scrape the mould off the bread for penicillin and the Cardiac monitors have to double up as security screens We don't have a maintenance crew - just a couple of books on DIY

And we do not have patients in ICU for 3-6 months requiring repeated trips to theatre at no cost to the family - here I am thinking of the young man I nursed who, when rescued from the car had to have his pelvis UNFOLDED. We do not have home health care or goverment assistance or public health campaigns or research!!!!!

We only care for the dregs of society who spend tax payers dollars with complaints that they brought on themselves ( the middle aged man who not only dislocated his Talus bone but "popped" it out through hsi skin)

No - our system does not work

Kitkat - why do you not focus on the real villians of the American health care system - the real parasites chewing up the precious dollars????

The lawyers.

We are seeing this here - with a rise in litigation suddenly the amount that the medical officers have had to pay in health insurance has skyrocketed and so they have had to pass that on by not "bulk - billing" patients i.e. they have to charge above the goverment rebate. Sit down one day and work out how much money is being siphoned off not in big payouts but the hundreds of "nuisance" suits brought everyday and you will soon start to see who the real enemies are.

[roxannekkb]

Originally posted by fergus51
And I am assuming that Australian doctors and nurses in the public system still have to provide good care for their patients, right Gwenith?

My goodness, Fergus, what ever gave you that strange idea.

Don't you know that public health automatically equals care by quacks, felons, misfits, and any other who couldn't get into a legitimate school of medicine or nursing?

[fergus51]

Originally posted by gwenith
Oh Lordy Yes'm
Why we are so poor that the family has to bring in the food. We have scrape the mould off the bread for penicillin and the Cardiac monitors have to double up as security screens We don't have a maintenance crew - just a couple of books on DIY :

See I think that's how a Canadian finally discovered penicillin... We have so much mouldy food around because we don't care for our patients and then BAM! Penicillin.....

I would challenge any nurse to find a hospital that kicks my hospital's butt in terms of patient care.... We provide state of the art care to sick babies every day and I take it a little personally when someone would call us mediocre without ever even having been here.

[kitkat24]

Fergus
I do read your posts. I believe that is your honest opinion about your system. There are too many other views that say that indeed there are problems with care and who dictates that care. What if your doctor wanted you to see a specialist, then how long would you wait? What about surgery? Other reports say different than your experience. But, I do take heed of your opinion !

Kitkat