First, I want to say that my personal experience with socialized medicine is a pretty good one (minus the taxes of course). The issue of socialization is so complex and politicized that I don’t want to get into that here, however, my opinion has been that social medicine is great today for those who need it and tomorrow not so great for everyone.
I have had socialized medicine since I was 17 years old, that is when I joined the army. Then after the army the Veterans Affairs medical benefits took care of my medical stuff and now the German system.
Yesterday, my son had a surgery that we had to drive two hours for and he had to stay there overnight, that was normal. And that was probably the only normal thing about it.
The surgery itself went well, but we only knew that because we had to ask a nurse. We never saw the surgeon and my 4 year old son spent two hours in a recovery room with and elderly man, who sounded like he was dying, and a bunch of loud nurses who were bitching about everything from their schedules to the hospitals logistics. Not a very nice place for a terrified young boy to recover.
After the recovery room, they transported us in the back of a utility van to a children’s hospital nearby on the same campus grounds. We were brought to our room by some lady, no idea if she was a nurse or what, who couldn’t answer any questions or tell us anything about what we were supposed to do. We didn’t receive any prescriptions or instructions only a piece of paper to log how much and when our son drinks.
Our room is big and shared with another boy (7 or 8) and his father. It appeared they had been in a car wreck cause they both had dressings on, who knows. Since my wife was spending the night (only one parent aloud) they kicked the boy and his father out because we can’t have a man and woman sharing a room (thank the gods) even though my wife could have easily kicked his ass.
As the day goes on we gather a little information piece by piece along the way. My son who hasn’t eaten since 7pm the night before, finally gets a lunch around 1:30. Best he has eaten in a long time! Once everything is situated I head home and leave them there for the night, we still don’t know about prescriptions or after care but at that point we found out the surgery went well.
The next day I figure they will see the dr first thing in the morning and be outta there pretty quick since I know they will need the beds. They see the dr at 8:30 and finally get some information and I get there around 11am to take them home. We ask the nurses how long it will be and they say “oh go take a walk and come back in an hour you should be ready to go by then” My wife and I already know if they said an hour it will be three.
At 2:pm finally a knock on the door! Oh great, it’s another patient to share the for the room not our doctor coming to release us. The other boy is the same age as my son but wild and you can tell the type already. He really wants to play with my son and my son tolerates it so we allow it. I mean the nurses were in there too watching and even warned us about the boy’s behavior but it was okay to see them playing together.
Half hour goes by and a nurse barges in and says we just got the other boys test results back and he has a virus/bug he has to leave now and go to a separate station so he can’t infect anyone.
What the fuck!?!!? He is just been playing with my sons toys, sharing cookies with him, sitting in his bed. How can you let this happen!?!?!
I am a chill dude but when I get mad I go off. The nurse had ran away before I could catch her so I went through the station looking for the nearest white coat I could find.
I found a doctor who was well aware of the situation and I could see she was actively trying to calm down panicking nurses. Meanwhile everyone else is still in our room in shock no idea what to do. I tell the doctor how messed up her hospital is and all she can do is tell me it’s not her fault. Now I am irate.
“I don’t care! Just tell me what we need to do!” She has no idea so I run back to the room and grab my son outta there and tell my wife “let’s go!”. She is in a panic now cause she knows how I get and she comes right along. I run into another nurse in the hallway so I start letting her have it too. By now they already have the infected boy out of there and the nurse turns and says “it’s fine your about to go home soon anyways.”
Holy crap. I was pissed. “No, we are going now!” We run back in the room frantically rubbing hand sanitizer over everything including our boy and before we are finished packing the doctor magically arrives with our discharge papers “so, any questions?”. By now I am done and I know if I say anything it could be bad so I gave my wife the look and she knew to start talking.
The doctor assured us we have nothing to worry about it’s just a minor bug and they are only taking precautions cause that boy was really weak. Turns out the needed an extra bed downstairs and sent the sick boy upstairs before getting the test results. Major breech in protocol. You can bet your steem backed dollars that the hospital will be getting notified from us what took place and if my boy gets sick, they will be getting a call from our lawyer!
Rant over!
Woah! After just being in surgery too, when he'll be much more susceptible! Fingers crossed your boy doesn't get sick.
I have to admit, that for all the complaints about the British NHS, in comparison to Australia they were always pretty good (it's been over a decade since I was there, though, things could have changed). My daughters both had grommits and the hospital was a children's one, so no adults in the beds and only children who were there for operations, not sick children in that area.
Yes, nurses were overworked and very busy, but always helpful when needed. Hospitals and GPs, when it came to children, always erred on the cautious side. Maybe they feared being sued, but even growing up they were always pretty good. Some places talked about nightmare waiting times, but they were rarely more than an hour. Here you can be in the ER for half a day before you're sorted. Not for lack of staff, but because every case requires an army of them to double check each other, sign paperwork off before they can even put a stitch in, have someone check first if they're even allowed to put a stitch in, then sign that they can. Then someone needs to watch them dispose of sharp tools used and sign that off. Then once stitched the dressing needed approval.
People here will get turfed out of the hospital onto the street outside, often with what they arrived with after emergency admission (that is, not much and sometimes half dressed), because they need the beds and that patient was stable.
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Sorry for the delayed response! The bureaucracy is ridiculous. Dr is too scared to save patients. I think here in Germany it would be virtually impossible to sue the hospital and win. I am not certain though but I have never heard of it. In the us nurse is a glorified job, as should be, still overworked but decent pay and lots of respect. In Germany, nurses are let's just say not respected and way underpaid. So you really notice that as nurses are the backbone of any hospital and that's really sad. I think health care is a nightmare that will never be resolved unless there is some miracle science invention that clear of of earthly malodies.
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Sounds like every hospital everywhere. It's the same here...Incompetence I mean. Here they leave people in the hallways for lack of beds or rooms..Kinda crazy. I hope it works out.
Good rant.
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Oh wow! Incredible, but I totally believe it. I did my public service in a medical institution for the elderly near Berlin, and I could not believe the conditions. A multi-million-euro facility, on the outside appearance ritzy luxury, but the staff is so stressed out (understaffed and overworked) that they don't even "have time" to say hello to the patients or visiting relatives. My take-home lesson was: never get old, or if I do, try to make it to the grave by bypassing these kind of insitutions (even the expensive ones).
Then I hear my friends in the States talk about European (socialist) health care as if it was the bee's knees... Well, I don't know. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Though I'm sure as a service member and veteran of the US armed forces you've seen socialism! According to a friend of mine, a sociologist who grew up as a "base-brat" on various US Army bases, the US military is Marx's wet dream.
Here in Mexico I can afford the luxury of a super inclusive insurance, giving me access to the best hospitals money can pay for. (Private healthcare, baby. Yeah right!) Well... long story, but the service isn't any better, by any means! When I was treated for my broken clavicle five years ago, they committed so many mistakes (which fortunately all ended up without any problems) that I could have sued them several times.
As a result, I don't think that it really matters whether the service is public or private. I think what it comes down to is time and attention dedicated to the individual.
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Very true horror stories everywhere in regard to healthcare. The reason the healthcare in the army is so good is because the military has an annual budget of 7+billion dollars. And by those standards I guess they should have invented a cure for dying by now!!!
I got to ask in general how is it it Mexico? As far as healthcare I mean. I just have bad visions in my head but blame that on American news media!
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Well, there is public and private health care. Public hospitals are either in the ISSTE system for public employees, the IMS system for people who work in the private sector, and then there is a third one I don't know much about... These hospitals are generally overrun with patients, while understaffed, though some are worse than others, depending on where they're located. One of the things that I can't seem to get used to, is how every time someone needs surgery they have to organize a blood drive among family and friends, in order to replenish the blood reserves they're going to use up during the operation. But at least they don't need to bring their own food and toilet paper to the hospital, like it's common in Hungary!
Then there are private hospitals, for which you need a private insurance (or loads of cash), and they are supposedly much better... still, see my own experience! So in a way, they are not that much better. And sure, there are also so called "first class" hospitals, which even my private insure doesn't cover, but guessing from the German nursing home I worked in, the actual difference in service may in fact be voice-operated window shades, or some similar gimmick.
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Fucking hell! Good thing you were there but what a clusterfuck.
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Howdy sir badger! wow, I think this kind of operation is way too common but it sure shouldn't be! Hopefully no one in your family will need to go to the hospital again!
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