By Doug Bandow
Great Britain continues to remind us what happens when the government rations care to save money. Reports the Times of London:
DAMNING reports on the state of the National Health Service, suppressed by the government, reveal how patients’ needs have been neglected.
They diagnose a blind pursuit of political and managerial targets as the root cause of a string of hospital scandals that have cost thousands of lives.
The harsh verdict on the state of the NHS, after a spending splurge under Labour between 2000 and 2008, raises worrying questions about the future quality of the health service as budgets are squeezed.
One report, based on the advice of almost 200 top managers and doctors, says hospitals ignored basic hygiene to cram in patients to meet waiting-time targets.
It says “several interviewees” cited the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells [NHS Trust in Kent where 269 deaths during 2005-6 were caused by infection with Clostridium difficile bacteria].
“Managers crowded in patients in order to meet waiting-time targets and, in the process, lost sight of the fundamental hygiene requirements for infection prevention,” the report stated.
Is that really what Americans want? If not, they had better make their views known in Congress before ObamaCare is crammed down their throats.
Doug Bandow, American Conservative Defense Alliance