Monday, June 27, 2011

Swedish Meatball MedCare & Scottish Non-Care

Over the years, we've chronicled the (mis)doings of the MVNHS© and CanuckCare. Some critics have asked why we don't focus as well on more...ahem..."successful" national health care systems, such as Sweden's. Aside from the fact that America is more culturally akin to Great Britain and Our Neighbors to the North©, there's the rather striking fact that Sweden's health care scheme is not exactly a paragon of virtue.

And now, the Swedes have proven once again that their system is, in fact, broken:

"After sustaining an open chest wound of 10cm long while trimming her horse’s mane, Sweden’s emergency response services refused to send an ambulance, suggesting the 11-year-old girl take aspirin instead." [ed: 10cm~4"]

The girl's mother called the Swedish equivalent of 911; the dispatcher refused to send an emergency response team and instead suggested that mom simply dress the gaping, bleeding wound and give her daughter an aspirin.

Great bikini team, not-so-great health care.

And speaking of the MVNHS©, we would be remiss if we missed noting the sage wisdom of Dr Brian Keighley, who chairs the British Medical Association Scotland. Which is nice for him, but maybe not so nice for his (and/or his colleagues') patients:

"The leader of Scotland's doctors has questioned whether society can afford to pay thousands of pounds to keep terminally-ill people alive for weeks or months ... the GP said the country had to debate the merits of these kinds of aggressive treatments and the effects they had on the NHS budget."

Indeed.

But don't you dare say "Death Panels."

Or else.

blog comments powered by Disqus