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in Venezuela -- another casualty of left wing progressives.  I've posted the continuing deterioration of a once prosperous South American nation that swallowed the left's nostrums.

 

 

     "MARACAY, Venezuela     (AP) -- Evelina Gonzalez was supposed to undergo cancer surgery in July following chemotherapy but wound up shuttling from hospital to hospital in search of an available operating table. On the crest of her left breast, a mocha-colored tumor doubled in size and now bulges through her white spandex tank top.

 

Gonzalez is on a list of 31 breast cancer patients waiting to have tumors removed at one of Venezuela's biggest medical facilities, Maracay's Central Hospital. But like legions of the sick across the country, she's been neglected by a health care system doctors say is collapsing after years of deterioration.

 

Doctors at the hospital sent home 300 cancer patients last month when supply shortages and overtaxed equipment made it impossible for them to perform non-emergency surgeries.

Driving the crisis in health care are the same forces that have left Venezuelans scrambling to find toilet paper, milk and automobile parts. Economists blame government mismanagement and currency controls set by the late President Hugo Chavez for inflation pushing 50 percent annually. The government controls the dollars needed to buy medical supplies and has simply not made enough available.

 

"I feel like I've been abandoned," Gonzalez, 37, tells a bright-eyed hospital psychologist trying to boost her morale. Her right eye is swollen by glaucoma diagnosed two years ago but left untreated when she had trouble getting an appointment.

 

Doctors not allied with the government say many patients began dying from easily treatable illnesses when Venezuela's downward economic slide accelerated after Chavez's death from cancer in March. Doctors say it's impossible to know how many have died, and the government doesn't keep such numbers, just as it hasn't published health statistics since 2010.

 

Almost everything needed to mend and heal is in critically short supply: needles, syringes and paraffin used in biopsies to diagnose cancer; drugs to treat it; operating room equipment; X-ray film and imaging paper; blood and the reagents needed so it can be used for transfusions."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/V/VENEZUELA_SICK_HEALTH_CARE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-11-06-00-10-00

 

TRUTH -- THE NEW HATE SPEECH!

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I have personally been to and seen the terrible practices that have arisen in some government run HC systems.  In one country I visited, patients were required to bring their own linens to the hospital if they wanted them.  If they did not they slept on the naked plastic mattresses.  In another, a children's ward had no medicines for fever or antibiotics on the 15th of the month.  They get their suppl yon the 1st and it is intended to last until the end of the month.  We took money out of our packets and went to the pharmacy and bought anitbiotics so the docs in the children's ward had medicine to dispense.

This is typical of a system where the government number crunchers mind the store. There were surgeons who were govenrment employees, but they are only required to do so many cases.  After they do those cases, they then go to their private clinics and ORs to operate for cash.  They would do all their required cases the first week of the month and freelance the rest of the time.  you could get an open heart surgery in a free standing clininc for $1500 cash up front.  That included overnight stay in the clinic and then you were sent home.  the survival rate was not good, that is why you paid up front.

I'm getting ready to go to Hungary, and was reading about a great business--medical vacations. 

 

Budget European airlines bring English over to Budapest for surgeries and dental work.  And the going rate on dental work is about 1/3 the rates in the U.S.  The English cannot get simple medical procedures done promptly, and many find it in their best interests to pay out of pocket in other modern countries.

 

My niece had cancer surgery in the London area last year.  Because she lived in a very expensive town/neighborhood, she got a surgeon that trained at Harvard.  Had she been living in a working class neighborhood, her doctor wouldn't have been so well educated and it would have taken longer to have the surgery.

 

I may look forward to Medical Vacations after so many U.S. doctors retire and Universal Healthcare is brought into the U.S.  O'Bama's ultimate goal in healthcare is for Big Daddy to control all facets of our lives.

I was in Hungary a few years ago, and it is a wonderful little country.  Went to the town of Kesshemet, which was a trade route to the Carpathian Mountains. Not sure I would want to go there for medical care, but it was clean and the people were nice.  Saw lots of gypsies, and the architetecture was a throwback to the old Soviet style apartment buildings.  Downtonw Budapest was really nice and the food was good.  You will enjoy the visit.

Awe, now.  I actually saw braces on the teeth of the English when I was in London last year.  I found their grooming to be greatly improved from SoHo grunge of 10 years ago.  Too bad The Queen never put braces on Princess Anne.

 

Europe has come into the modern world in recent years.  I never thought that the German ladies would shear their legs and underarms.  And Tiroleans actually are using deodorant--it's about time.

 

We're also going to Vienna and Prague in April.  I'd rather not be a medical tourist if I can help it.

The article quotes a pair of dentists, one from a Paris teaching hospital and one from the French dentistry association, and offers the following statistics (without citing sources).

- one million French citizens never brush their teeth

- half of all French do not brush their teeth in the evening

- 57% of French children under five have never brushed their teeth

- the average French citizen uses between one and two toothbrushes in a year

http://www.economist.com/blogs...who_needs_toothpaste

 

Seven MILLION Britons don't brush their teeth regularly - with many going at least two DAYS before they pick up a toothbrush

  • 21% of Britons also forget to floss regularly
  • 25% forget to cover their mouth when coughing and fail to wash their      hands after going to the toilet
  • 7.5 million Britons also forget to shower daily


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/hea...h.html#ixzz2jxsmLw2B
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

 

Originally Posted by Quaildog:

I knew it all along; you teabaggers on here have been to a foreign country and now you is one. lol haha. i'll bet dire and t picked up an accent. LONG LIVE OUR KING OBAMA. lol

yall are losers and you look real silly.

cut the crap, you've whined enough. Obama da man.

"King Obama"???

Oh, I forgot...this is coming from the "low brow, low intelligence" arze kisser...

 

 

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