Archive for August 11th, 2008

NHS Love Letter

NS August 11th, 2008

After watching Michael Moore’s film on the crisis in US healthcare, Sicko, a couple nights ago, I feel the need to write a bit of a love letter to the NHS. It’s not perfect but it’s there, and that’s what matters. As someone who watched her parents struggle to pay medical bills after losing a child to cancer and as someone who went without insurance for three years as an adult, words cannot describe the peace of mind a national system of health care brings me. The thought of reentering the American system is probably the single biggest reason that I don’t move back. Being held hostage by insurance companies, HMOs, deductibles, denials, preexisting conditions, big pharma and hospitals that care more about making money than healing humans does not sound appealing in the least. So, because I don’t say it enough, here are the reasons I love the NHS:

  • First and foremost, because it does not deny care to anyone, no matter their age, medical history or socioeconomic status
  • Free prescriptions for under-16s, over-60s, pregnant women and those who cannot afford to pay even the minimal charge
  • Free dental care for pregnant women
  • House calls from doctors and midwives
  • A maternity system that allows every woman the right to choose where she gives birth, be that at home or hospital
  • Never having to wait more than a half hour to be seen at Accident & Emergency (in my own experiences)
  • Not being asked for any ID, to sign any forms or to prove that I have a right to be there
  • Knowing that if a family member or friend were visiting from overseas and got sick, they would be taken care of without question
  • NHS Direct, a 24-hour phone line staffed by nurses and other health care professionals that I can ring and ask for medical advice
  • It was started in 1948 out of the strong post-WWII belief that every citizen of a nation deserves health care as a basic human right

    • Like I said, it certainly has problems. It’s an imperfect system, like any. But it’s there and it’s mine as much as those who were born here, like my husband and daughter and her soon-to-be sibling. C’mere and give me a big wet one, NHS, I think I’m in love!