Eight Months

Here’s the latest socialized medicine success.

A 26-YEAR-OLD publishing executive died after spending eight months on an NHS waiting list for a scan that would have enabled doctors to treat her condition.

Sarah Clarke, an epileptic, was referred last August for the scan but suffered a fatal seizure in March despite a plea in February by her consultant to speed up the assessment.

Her mother Gaynor discovered her daughter’s body when she went into her bedroom to ask if she wanted breakfast. “Sarah’s death just wasn’t necessary,” she said. “I just think she could have had a long and fulfilling life if the NHS services she needed were there.”

Clarke’s death is likely to provoke a political row over the “hidden” waits that thousands of patients face for potentially life-saving diagnostic tests. It will also fuel the growing controversy over NHS targets which critics say are distorting doctors’ clinical priorities.

Her consultant, Professor Ley Sander, of University College London’s Institute of Neurology and Britain’s leading epilepsy expert, said that four of his young patients, including Clarke, had died this year while waiting for scans or operations. He said the government’s targets meant epilepsy was less of a priority in the NHS even though some 400,000 Britons suffered from the condition.

This weekend Michael Howard, the Tory leader, said it was an appalling tragedy: “In the fourth richest country in the world, people shouldn’t have to settle for this. Doctors should be able to exercise their own clinical judgment. They shouldn’t be second-guessed by bureaucrats and managers.”

Hey, the wait may be a killer, but at least it’s free!  Honestly, can you imagine this type of scan taking more than a day or two in the US?  I wonder if Mikey will be honest about the huge downside to socialized health care in his upcoming craptacular lie-fest Sicko, or if he’ll just lie his ass off as usual.