The Best Healthcare in the World!

Written by Andy Smith, MTM publisher

Quite a few countries claim that tag, in fact probably mostof the western nations might do so. So clearly they cannot all be right, andmost likely all but one is wrong.

What is certain, as recent polls in Canada have highlighted,is that healthcare is far and away the biggest area of concern for voters. Thesame can be said of the UK and the US. As a result those elected to office allhave a view colored by the lens of their political biases.

In the US this ranges from the extremes of left and rightand from ‘free healthcare for all’ to the ‘free market system is the onlysystem’. In the UK any debate is impossible as the healthcare unions (whoseinterest really is the patient!) and the left treat any debate as a threat tothe ‘system’. That the system was set up in 1952 and urgently needs scrutinywould ensure the immediate labeling of anyone suggesting such a thought as afascist etc. etc.

However, irrespective of your country, we all know thatpoliticians are quick to promise the ridiculous and slow to deliver on commonsense.

Most European countries, including my own UK, would classthe US Healthcare system as anything from inhumane to massively expensive and operatinga two-tier system where the poor and weak lose out. Canadians might well saythe same and probably do, but they are quick to cross the border for treatmentwhen they want or need (and can afford) it and not when their own system can eventuallyprovide it, if it does.

There is the difficulty; in many government administeredsystems treatment may not be available, where you live, or when you feel youneed it or, depending on what treatment is required, may not be available atall. (I am not talking about elective treatments bafflingly favoured byincreasing numbers of young women but things like cataracts and hernias).

In many cases there are not enough hospital beds or theregion has run out of budget.

In a privately run system anything is possible, though bankruptcy might be your end point. Or if you have no money then with luck something may be available at some stage. If you can afford it you will be encouraged to visit other specialists, some of the time with reason, and you may well undergo entirely unnecessary, expensive treatment on the basis of ‘prevention’. However, within five miles of where I sit, two new hospitals are being built and aside from access to my own doctor, I could walk into 4 or 5 well equipped urgent care centers, not to mention my local pharmacy that is now offering broader healthcare services.

New hospitals in the UK are rarer than hens’ teeth.  A recent party promise to build six new ones(for a population of 60m plus) had to be abandoned immediately because thebudget wasn’t available. Anyone who can afford it in the UK avails themselvesof private insurance and most can.  It isunlike the US where many cannot afford the over priced and over complexmonopoly insurance offers with very high patient payment. However, as heartdisease and cancer have been given national priority status, free care in theUK for these two conditions very possibly matches ‘bankrupting’ levels of carein the US.

So where does this leave healthcare education? Despite themassive resources available to governments and their ability to accesspopulation data and model the future they have, in many cases, failed to makeappropriate provision, or as mentioned above, cannot alter their systems totake account of demographics, new treatments, new drugs and new medicalconditions.

As a result, while the US appears to be building healthcarefacilities at a massive rate, there are not enough medical schools and notenough residency places for the ones that exist. I.e. there is enough money inhealthcare but not enough in education. A shortage of nurses already exists,and too little too late is being done.

The UK recently launched six new medical schools, withmodern curricula, but cannot find the money to build new hospitals.

Healthcare education and training professionals across thedeveloped world seem to be accessing the latest technologies as they become availablebut are struggling to adapt their pedagogy to the new, more applied, realisticmethods of instruction. Some educators of course resist these changes and aneven higher percentage of hospital based physicians will insist that the oldways are best and that through their career education and training isadequate.

As to the wider question of what is the best healthcaresystem, there are many answers but clearly ‘all government’ or ‘all the market’do not suffice. The two will have to live together, but both will have to beoperate significantly more efficiently than they do now.