Government loves people. To death.
A high-flying television producer died from a suspected epileptic fit while waiting for vital brain scans on the NHS.
Laura Price, 30, who worked on shows such as Big Brother and Strictly Come Dancing, was found dead in her home just hours after she had been discharged from casualty.
The evening before she died, Miss Price, from Notting Hill, west London, had begged a junior A&E doctor for anti-seizure drugs but had been told they could only be prescribed by a neurologist.
Two days earlier she had visited a specialist at Charing Cross hospital and was told she would have to wait six weeks for a brain scan. She had felt “concerned and afraid” at having to wait that length of time for a test before being treated for a recurrence of childhood epilepsy, Westminster coroner’s court heard.
She had not had a seizure for more than 10 years, but after a series of “strange episodes”, including a numb face and flashing lights in her vision, she had visited her GP and was referred to the specialist.
A specialist who put her on a waiting list, just like every other citizen in the NHS. The waiting list that killed her.
Alot of noise was made about Edith Rodriguez, who died in a Los Angeles ER waiting room because someone didn’t take her problem serious enough.
Laura Price’s death was caused not by a person, but by a medical system that kills those whose problems cost too much.
Rodriguez’s family will be suing the hospital and most likely the staff on duty.
Price’s family will have to settle for a “Sorry” from the government and she is one more statisitic to add to the 462,000 dead by silk covered iron hand of the UK NHS.
And the Charing Cross medical staff was probably just filling a quota that some bureaucrat handed down.
British docs can get enough dead bodies
When Austin Hymas got his first chance to dissect a full human body, he had to share it with five fellow trainee doctors.
The 19-year-old first-year medical student says he was fascinated by what he was able to do and see, but worries he will never get enough time to dissect properly and learn the intricacies of a full human cadaver.
“Dissection in medical schools has been cut dramatically,†Hymas told Reuters in an interview. “We have only done four weeks of dissection in the whole year, whereas only 10 years ago, they probably would have done a whole term on each limb.â€
Many medical schools in Britain now use pro-sections — prepared body part samples which have been pre-dissected by a tutor and which the students are allowed to examine. Increasingly few get hands-on experience of proper dissection.
The problem, in part, is that there simply aren’t enough bodies to go around.
According to medical authorities, Britain needs around 1,000 bodies a year for use in training medical students and conducting scientific research.
Making supply meet the demand, you see.