Here follows a rant in support of our wonderful NHS.
The NHS was created in 1948 to provide 'health care free at the point of delivery'. We all pay National Insurance (% of salary) which covers medical and dental services, medication, vaccinations and certain benefits. Before 1948 everyone had to pay for all treatment, from a doctor appointment, any medication or hospital treatment. It's possible to buy private medical insurance: there are private service providers; many medics work in both the NHS and the private sector. Any complications and a patient is transferred to the NHS where subsequent treatment is free. You don't have to die because you can't afford to pay.
With advances in medicine, resources have been in great demand and successive governments, both Labour and Tory, have sought to privatise sections. For the last ten years it has been seriously underfunded by the Tory government, alongside an increase in training fees for professional staff. (eg. There were nearly 94,000 full-time equivalent advertised vacancies in hospital and community services between July and September 2018, including 40,000 nurses.) The way PM Johnson talks, you'd think his party had nothing to do with it. There has been a commitment to recruit more staff since the 2019 election.
So we come to the Covid-19 pandemic with an immense shortage of skilled staff. Sufferers are still treated FREE; no worries about having a big bank balance or an insurance policy which may or may not cover you, force you to chose a particular hospital, withdraw funding at a time of their choosing. The joke in the UK is that if Breaking Bad's Walt had had cancer here he would have had free treatment - no financial worries - and no need to make crystal meth!
Both UK and US governments had plenty time to prepare for the outbreak but Trump chose to say it was no more than flu, would disappear, and our lot were simply incompetant. They are getting in gear now and we have to follow the lockdown rules to ensure our own health and that of others.
I believe implicitly in the fundamental ethos of the NHS and comparable systems work in Canada and many European countries. I've had immediate treatment over the years for pneumonia, facial cellulitis, a brain tumour, successive kidney stones and, most recently, suspected Lyme disease; I did queue for a knee op. For all the current NHS failings, I'm glad I live here and not in the US where its socialist principles seem to be anathema.
