tHealth Squeeze: UK's free health care under threat
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This Monday, Dec. 5, 2011 photo shows a plaque for Sir Alexander Fleming on a wall at the St. Mary's Hospital in Paddington, London. In January 2011, the government introduced a new health bill many fear will bring even more draconian cuts and competition from private providers. The bill is now in the process of being adopted and will overhaul the current management structure and axe more than 20,000 health jobs in the next two years. An undisclosed number of hospitals will also be shut, rumored to include St. Mary's in London, where Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin.
Sun, 11 Dec 2011 11:02:46 -0500 LONDON (AP) — When David Evans needed a hernia operation, the 69-year-old farmer became so alarmed by the long wait that he used an ultrasound machine for pregnant sheep on himself, to make sure he wasn't getting worse.
It was only after repeated calls from himself, his doctor and his local member of parliament that the hospital performed the surgery, nearly a year after it was first requested. Under government guidelines, he should have started getting treatment within 18 weeks.
"I was in quite a lot of pain," Evans said of his ordeal in Cornwall, southwest England. "It really restricted what I could do around the farm since I couldn't lift anything heavy."
Across Britain, an increasing number of patients like Evans are facing more pain and longer waits. That's because the National Health Service is being forced to trim 20 billion pounds ($31 billion) from its budget by 2015, as part of the most radical changes made since the system was founded more than 60 years ago.
For many hospitals, that means saving money by raising the threshold for who qualifies for treatment and extending waiting times for non-lifesaving surgeries.
In January, the government introduced a new health bill that many fear will bring even more draconian cuts and competition from private providers. The bill, now in the process of being adopted, will ax more than 20,000 health jobs in the next two years and shut an undisclosed number of hospitals, possibly including the iconic St. Mary's in London, where Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin.
The medical
