This Sceptered Isle Part LXIV

Hundreds of patients may have died needlessly at an NHS hospital due to appalling standards of care, a damning report has found.

Well, OK, we’ve seen this kind of NHS report before. They are not less dismaying because they are frequent.

But this article notes additional outrages that are less often articulated, yet are so worth facing: the indifference to urgent problems and the lack of accountability, that are displayed by the NHS bureaucracy.

You’ll need to scroll well down into the article to find these paragraphs:

“Concerns about standards at Basildon were raised as long ago as 2001, when the Royal College of Nursing described conditions there as "third world" . . .

“Katherine Murphy, director of the Patients Association said . . . "We’re sick and tired of NHS managers and senior staff walking away unscathed when families are left with a life sentence of grief.”

These problems were identified 9 YEARS AGO? The NHS bureaucrats who let them persist might walk away "unscathed"? This is no utopian dream, it is a hellish nightmare. Yes, the UK Hell is an inexpensive Hell - if government Hell on the cheap turns you on.

I have seen no evidence or reason to believe that Americans won’t also experience the same kind of bureaucratic indifference to urgent problems and lack of accountability, after our government takes over the American health care system. I fear for my children and for my grandchildren.

As Zed remarked to J, "Sucks, don't it?"