The head of the Accident & Emergency service has said he would be unhappy if one of his relatives was admitted to hospital over the weekend - because of a shortage of consultants. A person undergoing routine surgery at the weekend is more likely to die than if he had the same surgery on a Monday because of the afore-mentioned shortage. A patient died on the way to hospital in a police vehicle because an ambulance was not available to take him. The incident is part of a growing trend of vulnerable patients being taken to A&E by police officers because of a shortage of ambulances. General practitioners are being paid bonuses to put elderly patients on a death list in an attempt to save money by cutting the number of people who die in hospital. Those behind the scheme insist its main aim is to give patients a better death. I am not speaking about Barbados here. All of the above currently obtains in Britain according to the Mail on Sunday. Britain - the country with arguably the best healthcare system in the world. It looks after you from womb to tomb - free of cost at the point of delivery. But, alas, things look set to change. In seeking to reduce healthcare costs the government has imposed a bigger strain on the national health service. The government is between a rock and a hard place. The situation either calls for an increase in taxes, which would be anathema to the general population, or some contribution from patients for their treatment. This is unavoidable and eminently reasonable. Governments do not wallow in money - they have to raise money through taxation, borrowing or printing it. So here in Barbados we need to cut our government some slack! Everything comes with a cost. There is no such thing as a free lunch - especially in these trying economic times.
Posted on: Mon, 21 Oct 2013 00:33:50 +0000
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