Here’s the thing about the National Health Service: it’s paid for by taxes. Essentially, patients pay for the service by paying their taxes and the government decides how much of the loot we get. For their tax money patients get: all their treatment, all visits to the doctor, all emergency services, all ambulance journeys, every damn healthcare thing they could wish. Every single resident of this country and many outside it gets this. No worrying about medical bills, no medical insurance to pay each month (unless they decide to go private), none of that.
This is, I think, a fantastic idea. Healthcare for all! I’m proud that we have such a national health service. When asked what I’m proud of in the UK, the NHS is one of the first things I say.
But we’re underpaid, understaffed and overworked. I work for the ambulance service and we simply do not have enough money, staff or vehicles to do what we need to do. Our job is impossible. And we try our best, god knows we try our best. If I can get a patient on an ambulance I will.
But because people are so used to the NHS being a “free” service, they abuse us. They use the ambulance service as a taxi service. Today I had at least 20 patients who got fed up with waiting and made their own way home. If they can make their own way home, why the fuck did we need to take them in in the first place? It’s not like these were people who rang 999 for an emergency ambulance. I work on the non-emergency side. We took these people in for pre-booked hearing aid appointments, or to see the chiropodist. AND THEY WENT HOME ON THE BUS WHEN THEY GOT FED UP WITH WAITING FOR AN AMBULANCE TO TAKE THEM HOME.
Get a fucking bus in the first place, you cunting bastards. Leave the ambulances for people who need them.
Well there ya go. I’m not trying to make light of your frustration or saying this isn’t a potentially serious problem, but . . . there’s an obvious market effect working here. When the price of goods or services is artifically set below its true value (that value being the price which consumers are willing to pay and with a taxpayer funded system such as you have, the price has essentially been set to zero), a shortfall in the availability of those goods or services will always follow. Always, always, always.
And now I’ll step down from my free-market capitalist soapbox and offer you some commiseration.
Also, Francesca I have some small idea of what it is to be in such a frustrating position, I only hope that those few times that you can make a difference are worth the rest of your while.
The NHS ambulance service is a wonderful thing. They were so helpful to my ex after her bicycle accident.
Now, it is usually my experience that ambulance rides are a one-way affair. I mean, you don’t see ambulances tearing down the road, lights flashing and sirens wailing, to take someone back to their own house. What, did these people have “desparate need for a nice cup of tea” emergencies? Francesca, perhaps you need to put up a sign: “Don’t count on the ambulance to take you home, if you’re capable of taking a bus or taxi, or I will kick you there myself.”
Yes, and when people need medical services and can’t get them, get them, get them – as is the case here in the U.S. – they suffer, suffer, suffer. And they die, die, die. But you don’t care, care, care, do you, do you, do you?
Put me down as one who is not particularly proud of the way the U.S. treats poor people.
Here in Canada we have a similar universal health care system, and we have exactly the same problems with people abusing it. I worked in the hospital system for a couple of years, and the way people in Canada take advantage of the system is just frightful. One the one hand, you have the abusers (doing exactly what Francesca said, calling ambulances for every little thing, etc.), and on the other, you have the truly sick and in need of services on waiting lists forever because there isn’t enough service to go around. I would love it if the Canadian government could legislate common sense into our national health care system.
Well Fran, that must be pretty bloody infuriating. I take it such people just hold up the despatch service for people who actually aren’t capable of taking a bus or making their own way.
How frustrating for you, Francesca. I feel the same way myself when people take absolutely no responsibility for their own health but expect us to repeatedly fix what they’ve neglected or abused.
I’m surprised that there’s no oversight of abuse within the system. There’s no oversight agency that reviews and intervenes on abuse of services? If those freeloaders had to pay a fine for non-emergency use of emergency services, they would be taking the bus.
I’ve been treated on the NHS when I was unemployed (and hence poor), and now, when I’m earning a more or less average wage. Can’t say I’ve noticed any significant difference.
I sympathize about the freeloaders, Francesca, but I’d rather live with that problem than the ones in the US.
Was in Italy, and my GF wrenched her arm. The family I was staying with took her to the hospital, showed their residency (or something like that) card, got her treated immediately, and left. No paperwork. No fussing over the fact that she was a foreigner who didn’t even know what company her insurance was from, much less policy number. No charge.
Maybe that’s why there isn’t more of a movement to end it.
I was hit up the arse last week by some skunk-freak at a considerable lick. Went to hospital in the ambulance, spent six hours there in a neck brace and some kind of back brace … never really experienced the NHS before. Absolutely fucking brilliant.
Especially the ambulance team - incredibly kind and professional.
Regarding the OP: If you take people somewhere (in any circumstances), they kind of assume you’ll take 'em back again - might not be right but, in my experiance, it’s a ‘nomal’ expectation / assumption in any area of life … init ?