Sunday, February 28, 2010

Me? I'd like to kick the bucket at my own place of residence, thanks...

The National Audit Office (NAO) and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence advise that all patients should have access to 24-hour nursing services. But a report by the NAO in 2008 found that only just over half (53.2 per cent) of local health authorities provided such a service to all patients seven days a week.

The variation has created a postcode lottery in areas such as Dorset, where round-the-clock nursing care is funded in the east of the county but not in the west. Charles Campion-Smith, a GP in Dorchester and Macmillan adviser, said that there was no cover in his area from 10pm to 6am the next morning.
Oooooo...can we have half-assed nationalized healthcare here, too?

Read the article. The main issue is the fact that nearly 70% of all terminally ill folks in the UK wish to die at home. However, only 20% are given that comfort. The reason they tout suggests that the Physicians just don't address the issue. I would bet it has more to do with having the time to address the issue, and whether the hospital loses funds by not having a captive patient.

Only one in five deaths occurs in a person’s home, despite two thirds of people saying that that is where they would prefer to die. By contrast, about 60 per cent of people die in hospital.
Giving the people what they want is so yesterday.

More than a third of family doctors are not reviewing the needs and wishes of dying patients, while round-the-clock nursing care is not available to give patients support and pain relief at weekends and at night in many areas.
This is what Obamacare would reap...