My Encounter with [insert scary music] ... Socialized Medicine!

[RedEarth]

..... I posted this a few months ago, but I thought it tied in quite well the current "Sicko"-Did Michael Moore Get It Right? A Comparison of Emergency Rooms on Two Continents thread. Thanks to helderheid for posting it.

My Encounter with ... Socialized Medicine!

by Jim Wallis

My foot had been sore for a couple of weeks and it wasn’t getting better. I usually would ignore that, but we were about to leave on a two week vacation with my wife Joy’s parents to celebrate both of our big anniversaries (their 50th and our 10th). Then I have to fly to Singapore for the World Vision triennial conference. So I wouldn’t be back home for many weeks and my Washington, D.C., health care provider (over the phone) strongly urged me to see a doctor in London before we left.

I realized then that I was about to have my first encounter with SOCIALIZED MEDICINE! Now it’s one thing to advocate health care reform in America and even to be politically sympathetic to the idea of a single-payer government-supported system like they have in most of the world’s developed and civilized countries (such as Canada, Germany, and Great Britain). But it was another thing to actually go to the emergency room (or ER, but in the U.K. they call it Accident and Emergency) of a hospital in the British National Health Service. After all, I had heard the horror stories—long waits in incompetent, dirty, and substandard medical facilities; bad doctors and faulty diagnoses; and, of course, incredible bureaucracies like everything in “socialist systems.” Rush Limbaugh and every other conservative pundit have warned us all in America about the horrific practices of British socialized medicine.

So I prepared myself. I brought a big novel to read, along with my eyeglasses, a bottle of water (no telling what they would not have in socialized medicine), and emotionally steeled myself for the ordeal. Ann Stevens, the Anglican vicar with whom we stay in London (she’s my son Luke’s godmother and Joy’s old pal) took me to St. George’s hospital, dropped me off at “A and E,” and wished me luck at 9 a.m. Hoping I would be home that night for dinner, I took a deep breath, walked across the street, and made my way into socialized medicine.

The waiting room was actually quite peaceful and not crowded, I noticed, as I walked up to reception. The woman at the reception desk smiled. I didn’t expect that. “Can I help you?” “Yes,” I replied, “you see, I am an American—I guess you can tell—and I’m visiting family here—my wife is British—and we’re staying with our friend the vicar, and I have a sore foot, which I normally wouldn’t worry about but we’re going away for several weeks on vacation, and I called my health care provider in the U.S., and they told me to come in here, and thought I should get an X-ray or something.” (I wondered for a moment if it would help to tell them that I was a friend of the prime minister, but decided not.) “What do you need from me?” I asked hesitantly. “Just your name and address,” she replied with another smile. “Oh …OK.” She told me it would be about 10 minutes to see the nurse. “Yeah right,” I thought to myself.

I settled into the waiting room chair, looked around at all the people who didn’t seem to be in any distress, and opened my book for a good long read. It was five minutes before the nurse called me in to a little office adjacent to the waiting area, which seemed to be an intake room. She was pleasant and professional as she asked me what was wrong, and how long I had felt the soreness. She gently examined my foot and then told me I would be called in to see a doctor in about 10 minutes. “Sure thing,” I thought. So I went back out to the waiting room and settled in again to read my novel.

It was five minutes before a young woman appeared and called my name, “Mr. Wallis?” She was a young Asian doctor named Dr. Gillian Kyei. She was also very pleasant and professional, taking time to ask me lots of questions about how I might have hurt my foot, etc. She examined the injured foot carefully, told me that it didn’t necessarily look broken, but that we should get an X-ray to make sure. I waited in her examining room for a couple of minutes while she called down to the X-ray department to say that I was on the way. Then she came back and escorted me herself.

more.....

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2007/september/my_encounter_with_i.php

.....for those who might have an interest, here is a link to Jim Wallis site......

Sojourners: Christians for Justice and Peace
Sojourners is a progressive Christian commentary on faith, politics and culture. It seeks to build a movement of spirituality and social change.
http://www.sojo.net/

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. oh, the Horror!

not.

[jus_the_facts]

4. There ARE horrors in the USA's Charity Hospitals...

....c'mon down here to E.A. Conway Memorial Hospital in Louisiana....worked in the records dept. there and I still can't believe some of the things I read in there....and after 4 months...I never could find anywhere in that place...over 20 medical procedures/surgery done on people who never had a medical record/chart made for...to prove that they'd ever even been seen there at all....THESE places are used to measure how efficient social medicine is here in this country...by our own ass backward attempts. :evilfrown:

[Viva_La_Revolution]

8. I believe it, my last 2 were born in a 'Public' Hospital in Phoenix...

the differences from the Private hospital where my first was born were stark and unsettling. :(

[NoBorders]

2. My Encounter

My mom used to live in France, and once while visiting her, I fell ill and needed to see a doctor.

So she took me to one in a small semi-rural clinic. I don't think there was anyone else in the waiting room. A nurse led me to the exam room, the doctor checked me out, and prescribed some medicine. Then I left and got my scrip filled.

It was quick, efficient, competent. I'm not sure I even filled out any paperwork. I certainly didn't pay anything.

It was surreal. I had this feeling I'd forgotten something or something was missing.

I actuallly used to live in France myself but only saw a doctor once or twice, and it was actually a much more pleasant experience, or at least not any worse, than anything I've experienced in the U.S.

[MorningGlow]

9. Same here

On the "off day" between our wedding and honeymoon, I caught a cold. By the time we landed in Costa Rica the next day, it had developed into a full-fledged, please-tear-my-face-off sinus infection. I had one years before where the doctor told me I had nearly died from the extent of the infection, so I didn't want to let this one go to see if it resolved itself.

So the next morning, instead of seeing the sights in San Jose before leaving for our eco-resort on the coast, we availed ourselves of their SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. :scared:

The only difficulties we had were with the language barrier; DH's Spanish was a bit rusty. We wandered around the group of medical buildings till we found the place that served non-Costa Ricans, but once we got the right place, we were in and out within 15 minutes. A bit of information for the receptionist, no wait in the waiting room, a few minutes in the exam room trying to mime "sinus infection" and come up with the words for "please--antibiotics", and we were on our way to the pharmacy.

And day-um did they have kickass antibiotics. If I didn't eat a giant meal before taking one, I was flat on my ass with nausea. But the infection was gone within a couple of days.

DAMN that health care system anyway!
:rofl:

[ret5hd]

3. Don't you see!!! This is how those commies turn you! ...

Just like a drug dealer...The first one is free! Then, after they have you hooked, well you know the story.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. I had a Canadian professor when I was at university

in the 60s, and she told me of their health care system then. I felt then and there that this was the type of system we should have here.

[Quantess]

6. What do international travelers do when they get injured in the US?

Do they also get an exorbitant bill from the E.R.? I wonder.

[unpossibles]

10. probably.

they probably get screwed not knowing what to expect, price-wise.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

11. Smart travelers buy insurance before they leave home...

like Michael Moore's Aunt and Uncle did in Sicko before they would even think about crossing the border.

[unpossibles]

7. thank you

I have to wonder when people talk about long waits with unfriendly staff in unsanitary waiting rooms if they have never been to a doctor in the US.

Or maybe Rush can afford house calls, so he doesn't know what he's talking about. But I've experienced here in America every single issue brought up as a complaint about socialized medicine, except that I have to pay double for it here.