Apparently, the webmaster at Powerline does not approve of some of my comments and deletes them. The latest example;
“strategery123@hotmail.com (signed in using Hotmail)
I think this series would have a lot more impact if you just called it annals of british medicine…I don’t recall a single instance where you referenced any other government medicine (horror) story. surely there are stories out of spain, france, canada, italy, belgium, etc etc.
it is also disappointing (but not surprising just thought you were above that sort of stuff) that you equate the NHS with Obamacare…they are not the same…government medicine (nhs) versus government insurance (obamacare).the NHS is the equivalent of a federal dept where all employees, doctors, nurses, etc are actual employees of the government and the government owns the hospitals, clinics, etc. That is not the same as obamacare where it amounts to government insurance unless you actually believe that all the doctors and healthcare workers will be employees of the government.”
My comment in reply to this was two words; Natasha Richardson.
Natasha Richardson the actress and wife of actor Liam Neeson was skiing at a Canadian ski resort in Quebec when she had a seemingly trivial head injury. Over the next few hours she developed signs of an intracranial bleed. No CAT scan or MRI was available and, in spite of frantic efforts to transport her, she died of an intracranial hemorrhage( an acute epidural hemorrhage). Grace Kelly had a similar history but, of course, that was in 1982 when CAT cans were very new. In both cases, the high tech device was not available.
Does anyone think that a US ski resort would lack immediate access to a CAT scan ? If Natasha Richardson had been skiing at a US resort, she would be alive today. Epidural hematomas are eminently treatable, even without a CAT scan. The lucid interval is almost diagnostic of the lesion. Decompression of the hematoma is curative.
I?m impressed, I must say. Actually not often do I encounter a blog that?s each educative and entertaining, and let me let you know, you may have hit the nail on the head. Your concept is excellent; the issue is one thing that not enough persons are talking intelligently about. I’m very completely happy that I stumbled across this in my search for something referring to this.
Gee I feel dumb. I guess I’m not seeing the connection between the NHS and Canadian single payer. Is it the same thing? Is there a similar rationing or shortage of equipment in Britain? It wouldn’t be surprising but we don’t hear much about it here.
Begging for Medical Care
The medical bureaucracy sees you as a cost, especially if you have already paid. All people and organizations seek income and avoid costs. Socialized or centralized healthcare is paid up-front and delivers services after the fact. How hard will a system work to earn the money that they have already been paid? This is something that everyone can understand in his gut. A customer is lost without competition for his dollar.
The bureaucracy will ration anything and everything. The public will stand in line and die.
Now we know why US federal workers are exempt from healthcare reform. Your personal bureaucrat will be able to make decisions about you without affecting his own, privately provided, generous healthcare privileges.
carol, rationing of care is the first line of defense against cost in the NHS and Canada. We may have too many CAT scanners, or at least that was the accusation some years ago, but when you need one…
I should add that this is also an example of the poor care that the rich and famous often receive. Had a general surgeon put six burr holes in her skull she would be alive. Can anyone imagine a surgeon doing so to a movie star?
The traditional treatment for acute epidural hemorrhage before CAT scans was to place six small (1 cm) holes in the anterior skull with a surgical burr, something like a crank-style drill bit. Epidurals are almost always due to a skull fracture tearing the epidural artery, which is anterior to the ear. I have seen lives saved with this procedure. The hole decompresses the clot in the epidural space which is right under the skull.
WTF is wrong with Powerline? Who is more qualified to give an informed opinion about medical care than a surgeon like yourself? I read that blog every day. It’s fairly simple to weed out the clowns (Calee Bovee etc) from comments like yours that I value. Doc, do you have a take on this? — chuck
It may be a coincidence. I read that blog daily, myself. This is not the first time a comment of mine has disappeared. Maybe they were considered too controversial.