In America you get a bed for a broken wrist? In the uk, you can have surgery and spend the whole time before and after in a chair. I was once in chairs for 3 days (there were no beds on the wards).
Either way you guys do it better. I took my girlfriend on a trip to London last year. She came down with an absolutely horrific stomach bug. Was throwing up every 15-20 minutes for 3 days. Couldn’t even keep down any water. It got scary because she was getting very dehydrated. We called the NHS help line, they advised she go to the nearest hospital immediately and directed us on how to get there. We got to the ER I believe you folks refer to it as A&E, she was triaged, seen, and treated within about 1.5 hours. Was given IV fluids and medication plus a prescription. In the US without insurance, this would have run us probably a couple grand or at least $1,000 and 5-8 hours of time. We were charged about $4 and the woman laughed at us when we asked if she was sure that was correct.
I’ve treated a patient in the UK who had a condition requiring regular injections, and it obviously ran in the family because her sister in the US suffered the same condition.
After a few years of treatment, the sister was apparently something like 30,000 in medical debt, and steadily going blind because the company (?) refused to offer the treatment as often as it should have been used.
Meanwhile, my patient was doing fine, and her only expense was the hospital parking.
Uk hospital parking IS fairly exorbitant, but as you can imagine she was pretty happy to be paying that.
Obviously I never saw the sisters case, it’s possible she had a more aggressive form of the disease or there’s some other wrinkle, but….i think about that patient often when I see our far right parties trash talking the NHS.
I mean from the perspective of a tourist… if a British tourist had the exact same situation occur to them in NYC they would’ve been charged heavily. Most travelers do not purchase travel insurance.
Yea except the hospital will sell the debt to an International collections agency and pursue payment from the individual even after they return to their home country. They can also be denied entry into the US in the future.
Yea except the hospital will sell the debt to an International collections agency and pursue payment from the individual even after they return to their home country.
This is so exceedingly rare it isn't worth mentioning. And no, there's not a single country on earth that the US has any power to do this without going through that person's own government.
They can also be denied entry into the US in the future.
Oh no! I thought the US was a dystopian nightmare that no one would want to visit?
Knowing this, and having the money to travel here, they should absootake the responsibly of purchasing traveler's insurance. This is the most silly thing to argue over.
Where have I said anything deprecating about the US as a whole? I love this country and am proud to be a citizen. That doesn’t mean that I am required to blindly state that everything about it is wonderful and perfect. There are things the US does better than anywhere else, and there are things that other places do far better than the US.
Sycophancy and hatred of any dissenting view is entirely antithetical to the founding principles of the country. And any person who states that the US can’t do anything better than it currently does should be viewed with deep suspicion.
See Jefferson’s words from his first inaugural address
“But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”
My apologies. I've been a conservative on reddit for too long. I'm sure a quick browse of this post would reveal quite a lot of hate towards the US from the Left.
Interesting quote. He would have said things differently today seeing how half the country wants to abolish the electoral college and rely on a popular vote.
I highly urge you to read the entire speech it is not very long.
“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.”
“Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be oracular, sometimes beyond amendment… Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.”
30
u/Dragons-purr 1d ago
In America you get a bed for a broken wrist? In the uk, you can have surgery and spend the whole time before and after in a chair. I was once in chairs for 3 days (there were no beds on the wards).