Another Socialized Medicine Success Story!

From the Daily Mail comes this gem of a story,
Hospital patient so shocked at dirty ward she climbed out of bed to clean it herself

The sick 48-year-old was so disgusted at the conditions after three days on a 'filthy' ward that she grabbed the antibacterial fluid dispenser at the end of her bed and some hand towels from the bathroom.

This could be a key component of Obamacare. You get a discount if you clean your room yourself. Saves on those pesky house keeping environmental services, jobs. Of course, chances are that the cleaners union will file a grievance and threaten to sue Ms. Tosbell.

The Patients' Association yesterday said what Miss Tosbell had experienced was 'nothing unusual'.

Its director Katherine Murphy said: 'Where there should be round-the-clock cleaners there will be one who is going round three or four wards and can only skim the surface.'

Should be, won't. England, like so many other socialized networks has built an incredibly expensive, complex, and patient hostile system that delivers third world care at first world prices. I'd expect that the hospital that PM Gordon Brown would be admitted to if it were necessary is much cleaner, has better staffing, top notch doctors. The peasants don't get that.

A Colchester Hospital University NHS spokesman said: 'In the annual health check ratings for 2007-2008 we scored maximum marks for safety and cleanliness and we have also been praised for our very low levels of infections such as C. difficile and MRSA.'

Let me run this through the bureaucrat translator for you.

Since we know when the annual health check is going to be, we clean the crap out of the hospital, make sure that all procedures are followed, all paperwork in order, and that the staff has their happy faces on. This fools the inspectors, who know that they are being fooled, but are paid to inspect, not fail, facilities. Oh, we leave a couple of minor things wrong so the inspectors can write up that they found and corrected deficiencies. After all, if they never find anything wrong, someone might figure out that they are full of shite. It's all a game, intended to perpetuate the system, prove that all is well, and protect our phoney baloney jobs. Oh, and fool the taxpayers into thinking we give a shit about them.

Then, when the inspectors are gone, the new curtains are put away until next time, staffing is cut back to normal, the place gets filthy until next time the inspection is due.

I know that sounds cynical, but I've seen the same thing here in the US when JCAHO inspection time rolls around. Fresh paint, where needed, taped signs pulled off walls, notebooks all in place with check lists, and so on. When the .gov is in charge it will be more of the same, only worse.

National Healthcare: The efficiency of FEMA, the compassion of the IRS.