Friday, September 18, 2009

Good Thing We Don't Have Socialized Medicine...

...or this might happen: a man who suffered a stroke died while waiting 90 minutes to see a doctor in the ER waiting room.

I know I said I was getting off the healthcare stuff for awhile, but this just happened to come out today. And you know, in this instance, it may have been an honest mistake -- the nurse who screened him didn't diagnose it as a stroke for whatever reason so it wasn't classified as an urgent matter. Or maybe it was because he had a history of problem drinking, so his condition wasn't taken seriously. Obviously, they're still figured out what exactly happened.

But even if it turns out to just be a mistake, albeit a tragic mistake, the point remains: you can't criticize a socialized system for forcing patients into dangerously long waiting times for medical attention (which doesn't actually happen anyway) when that's something that routinely happens in our current system.

steps off soapbox

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