Jihad needs scientists
in [Design]
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From: |||newspam||| on 14 Nov 2006 04:27 unsettled wrote: > Ben Newsam wrote: > > > On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 13:37:38 -0600, unsettled <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> > > wrote: > > > >>T Wake wrote: > >> > >>>See, if you had an NHS then you would realise doctors do indeed take on new > >>>patients, even if they have existing conditions. > >> > >>Is that required, or voluntary? Unless the condition is so obscure that the GP thinks the patient would be better off elsewhere. GPs are generalists and not omniscient. Some have specific areas of interest. > > It is just the way the system works. Required, if you like. Doctors > > have a contract with the health service, and presumably the devil is > > in the detail. > > The question is not answered. > > Is a doctor required to accept new patients? Pretty much. The only exceptions I can think of are for patients with a history of threatening behaviour or violence against medical staff - their choice of GP may be limited to establishments with additional security measures. And I suspect hypochondriacs may find that they spend a very long time in the doctors waiting room if they insist on daily visits... I am sure someone from sci.med can give chapter & verse. > Can a doctor refuse to accept a particular new patient > while accepting others? Yes but AFAIK only if he has good reason. Being unable to prove who you are is one. It is common in the UK for a patient to change doctors only when they move home. In Belgium and Japan you don't register with a doctor and so can pick a new one every time you get ill if you want. And the Japanese system is second to none - their life expectancy is extremely high considering that a high proportion are chain smokers. Dentists in the UK more nearly match your medicare model (as I understand it children and the elderly treated free but everyone else is chargeable). There are still a few NHS dentists left but most have full books of patients and huge waiting lists. The occassional new NHS one comes on stream (usually Polish) and has queues stretching several blocks trying to sign up within hours of opening their doors. The private dentists are expensive but know they have a captive market - few people can continue to live with toothache for any length of time. > Let's say I hear about a doctor who is spectacularly > successful in treating some condition I happen to have. > Do I have to wait till one or several of his patients > die before he'll take my case? Is there a waiting list? There might be if he is that good at lets say transplants. Many top surgeons also do some private work too so if you pay you might be able to queue jump. But medical need trumps abiltiy to pay so in a life or death situation the NHS is extremely effective. > If my taxes are paying for physician services, is there > any assurance I'll get one who is significantly qualified > to handle my issues? Or is it simply pot luck, as in > "all doctors are equally qualified"? You visit your GP and then pick a suitable consultant or surgeon or whatever. Depending on the seriousness of your condition at the local hospital, regional or national specialist centre. There is a nominal charge for every GP prescription - irrespective of the cost of the drugs. The death rates in the NHS are mostly better than those in the private hospitals (and when the private hospitals screw up they dump difficult cases back into the NHS). Cherry picking routine easy to do uncomplicated operations for the private medical sector is increasingy common in the UK. Regards, Martin Brown
From: Ben Newsam on 14 Nov 2006 04:08 On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 18:46:52 -0600, unsettled <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> wrote: >We already know that you favor Marxist socialism so it is hard >to understand why you're in such constant denail. We know the >reason we dislike it is because it is socialist. We know the reason you say you dislike it is that you say it is "socialist", which isn't quite the same at all. It is interesting to speculate just what you do or do not consider "socialist". For instance, I am almost certain that you do not consider caring for an immediate family member "socialist". I would imagine that to be "socialist", a caring action has to be performed by a government of some sort. So let's assume the existence of an extended family, in which the paterfamilias performs (with the approval of the family, of course) some caring action for a distant cousin. I guess that isn't really "socialist" either. Somehow, there exists in your mind some boundary, some limit to your goodwill or obligations for your fellow man, at which any right-minded action suddenly becomes anathematical.
From: Ben Newsam on 14 Nov 2006 05:30 On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 18:57:42 -0600, unsettled <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> wrote: >Ben Newsam wrote: >> On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 13:37:38 -0600, unsettled <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> >> wrote: >>>Is that required, or voluntary? >> >> It is just the way the system works. Required, if you like. Doctors >> have a contract with the health service, and presumably the devil is >> in the detail. > >The question is not answered. > >Is a doctor required to accept new patients? > >Can a doctor refuse to accept a particular new patient >while accepting others? Hmmm... OK... as I said, I am not sure of the exact details of the contracts between GPs and the NHS, but in general terms a GP will take on new patients if his "list" is not full. ISTR that each GP's list may have about 10,000 patients, but I don't know the actual number. A GP *may* refuse to take on a particular patient even if he has space on his list, but presumably the reasons have to be within the terms of the contract. For instance, distance to the patient's home may be a factor. If the patient is known to be abusive or violent, a GP would certainly be within his rights to refuse to treat him. >Let's say I hear about a doctor who is spectacularly >successful in treating some condition I happen to have. >Do I have to wait till one or several of his patients >die before he'll take my case? Is there a waiting list? In general, yes. Popular practices are over-subscribed and there may be a waiting list, and the reverse is true too. In practice it isn't quite like that, because there is a constant turnover of patients for other reasons than death, but at the same time there are an awful lot of people needing healthcare. I know of GPs who have particular interests in, say, mental health issues, or paediatrics, or women's health, or whatever, but they are still GPs (stands for General Practitioner, as I am sure you know) and not specialists. GPs tend not to be spectacularly good at particular conditions. He would send you to see the specialist for the condition that you have, and you would probably see that specialist as an out-patient at a regular clinic at the hospital. Let me tell you how it works at my local health centre, or how it worked for me when I registered there. There are about six doctors there, so the whole practice may take on quite a large number of patients (economies of scale and ancilliary services, and makes shift patterns more reasonable etc., etc..). When I registered, I was assigned to the list of a particular doctor, but when I attend the centre, I might in practice see any of the six doctors unless I insist on seeing "my own". As it turned out, I didn't even meet "my" doctor for several years! Other health centres might do things differently, I don't know. >If my taxes are paying for physician services, is there >any assurance I'll get one who is significantly qualified >to handle my issues? Or is it simply pot luck, as in >"all doctors are equally qualified"? It's true that GPs are reasonably equally (and very highly) qualified. It takes longer to train as a GP than as a hospital doctor, so in general you would choose a doctor by personal preference rather than by his qualifications. Pot luck is mostly good enough for me though, I can always change (and I have done) if I can't get on with a particular doc.
From: Ben Newsam on 14 Nov 2006 05:41 On Tue, 14 Nov 2006 03:16:44 -0600, unsettled <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> wrote: >Ben Newsam wrote: >> On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 18:50:42 -0600, unsettled <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> >> wrote: >> >>>It might be a part time second >>>job, or a kid might do it. >> >> Send them down the mines or up the chimneys, best place for them. > >That's *your* answer, of course. There's nothing socialist about me, remember.
From: Eeyore on 14 Nov 2006 07:01
Ben Newsam wrote: > On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 18:35:55 -0600, unsettled <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> > wrote: > > >Kennedy stood at the wall and proclaimed, "Ich bin ein Berliner." > > So he said he was a small doughnut? So what? Or was it a beer he > called himself? I forget. Probably both. Caused much amusement at the > time. A sausage IIRC but WTH. Graham |