Can you say: INCOMPETENT?  

Ok..I don't even want to know how or what happened there, but how could they miss that? Freaky man...just freaky!

But what has that to do with our american doctors and getting universal health care to everyone, my son who is out of work has no insurance as he is still too young for medicare, so we are to let a third of our country go withour adequate medical care because those who have medical insurance do not want the poorer people to get universal health care.
I am all for it, sorry to disagree but here we can respect each others
views and agree to disagree. that was horrible what those doctors did not do but that is England and not here.I feel strongly that we all hae a right to good health care not just a privileged few who have money but all of us,now I am lucky as I have medicare and a gap insurance as I am elderly, but I do not want to fight with my friends here so am just agreeing to disagree but with friendship and good will. How stupid were those doctors not to see she had that handle embedded in her bottom. thats just so awful she must have been in such pain.

Yes I have experience with the socialised medicine El..

I am not saying it is all bad but I lived in England for years when my son was small and we were very bad off ..he was very sick and had a rash on his chest..he was only 5 yrs.

The docs ignored me and would not take note.

He wound up with rhuematic fever from strep throat and they told me it was a nettle rash. (an allergy to plants)

Well, I carried him on my back up to the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford with 104 degree fever and that doctor was so rude she would not bother with him and he was so red in the face she asked him if I had dropped him in hot water..she was a real pompous bi888!

So anyway I nearly lost him with that bout of illness, I heard the death rattle in him and he couldn't walk for 2 months..I thought him dead..because of neglect, they would not treat him or give him meds..National Health system.

Luckily he has the good strong Irish blood in him, and after he lay on his death bed, the next day the poor lad got up and walked down to the kitchen to me..I still have a pic of him in his jammys ..oh yeah they can be the most pompous neglectful bas**s!

Many elderly wait years for a hip replacement..it is ridiculous!
People die as this woman did.

Shouting about one bad apple does not prove that the whole barrel is rotten. I'm quite sure that, if I searched the American press, I could come up with any number of stories about how doctors have failed just as spectacularly. In cases like the one you quote, it's not the system that's at fault, it's clearly the individuals.

My experience of the National Health Service is quite different from the above story. I have never paid for a doctor's appointment or for hospital treatment (though I suppose that my parents did for the first seven years of my life). I have never had to worry that my insurance cover was inadequate or to take out loans or dig into savings to cover hospital bills. I have, of course, like everyone else who works, had a proportion of my earnings taken for National Insurance contributions. This is supposed to cover not only health care but also to provide a basic pension on retirement. (Whether it actually does or not becomes part of a complicated economic juggling act which different governments handle differently and should not concern us here.)

The treatment that I and my family have received has, on the whole, been timely, relevant, effective and efficient and that is also the experience of everyone I know and who I have discussed it with. Our health service is not perfect, of course (and I believe that the Germans do National Healthcare rather better than we do) but it does work - and has done so for 63 years.

Yikes, no x-ray or anything?

This is so bizaar! I've never heard of anything like this! She shouldn't have been drinking to begin with. Like you, I think the doctors should have done the job right the first time. I don't like Obama's health care plan, either. In fact, I don't like him at all.

Thank heavens for the good old National Health here in the UK !!

I've heard a lot of horror stories about socialized medicine. When my 89 year old dad finally got the okay for his knee replacement last month I urged him to do it ASAP. I didn't tell him do it before Obama-care kicked in because he thinks the POTUS is the greatest thing since sliced bread. He's a union guy from way back and a hard core Democrat..he got it done two weeks ago and is doing fine, will be active once more. Heck, he was still driving his tractor up till last year when his knee got so bad.

We in the U.S. don't realize how good we've had it. I'm sure there are lots of stories about good medical professionals in England but I haven't heard any--you know, they only publish the bad stuff. But I fear for my parents once this new "healthcare" kicks in. It had nothing to do with healthcare, it was insurance reform and a chance to take more control over our lives.

OMG! What a waste of a precious life because of such an oversight! That poor woman had x-rays and yet they missed the fact that she had a toilet brush imbedded in her buttocks?

In Western Australia where I live there have been 90 medical blunders that have seriously harmed or killed patients. 48 out the 90 actually died because our hospital is stretched to the limit, they are short staffed and under funded and the medical staff are under a great deal of pressure. Basic medical care is too much to ask apparently.

I am with you bahhhhhhhhhhh