18 Mar 2007 London Times: “Nothing Quite Like It Has Been Witnessed Since Lord North Lost the American Colonies”

Britain’s Daily Telegraph reports that 12,000 doctors marched through Central London Saturday, protesting their National Health Service’s new doctor training system, which is leaving many doctors without work assignments.

As Britons suffer waiting lists few Americans can even imagine, British doctors are increasingly looking to emigrate to practice their chosen profession.

Losing doctors is no way to shorten waiting lists.

Some also believe the National Health Service plan is weakening the training of the doctors Britain manages to keep. An editorialin Lancet says says surgeons previously underwent approximately 30,000 hours of training; this will now decrease to 6,000 hours.

Lancet calls the new plan a “debacle.”

The Times of London, editorializing March 19 about the matter and British public attitudes toward their National Health Service generally, wrote: “Nothing quite like it has been witnessed since Lord North lost the American colonies. It is crazy.”

It also recommented that the National Health Service director be fired, “preferably from a cannon.”

(Yes, it actually says that.)

Government-run medicine is working out great in Britain, isnt it?

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Labels: Government Health Care, Health Care