Another Reason Socialized Medicine Sucks

Okay. I'm not sure I gave you a first reason that socialized medicine sucks, but trust me, it bites the weenie. I'm sure you probably have two or three reasons already in mind anyway.

In what can only be described as horrific failure, a hospital in the UK admits it erroneously gave cancer patients the all clear, when patients actually had cancer. And they told cancer-free patients that they had the disease and began administering unnecessary treatments.

It was announced in February that the hospital was reviewing 5,404 tissue samples, from 4,654 patients, which had been worked on by the consultant in the histopathology department between May 2006 and August 2007. It was sparked after colleagues of the suspended consultant raised their concerns about him to hospital management.

It was found 102 patients' diagnosis was wrong and their treatment needed altering. Forty people's situation was "more serious" than at first thought, while the remaining 62 were less serious or "not materially different".

The reviewed samples included biopsies, surgical specimens and cell samples. Not all the cases involved cancer patients.

A spokesman for the hospital said that while it was a "serious issue", al the patients had spoken to their consultants and are now receiving the correct treatment.

No-one has died as a result of a wrong diagnosis or lack of treatment.

So the errors happened two years ago, but they only announced they were reviewing it in February of this year. But the fact that no one died from these mistakes (yet) is supposed to make it all better. Riiiiiiight.

This is what happens when the government gets involved in health care. It sucks.

Posted by: conservativebelle at 12:00 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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