America: Take Note

On the subject of healthcare I'm not so keen on jumping the gun for public healthcare. As great as free health care for everybody for just slightly higher taxes sounds on paper the actual practice may not be so grand. British citizens definitely have higher taxes than U.S. citizens will probably ever have due to the fact taxes support the monarchy and their £100m a year paycheck. (This translates to around $160,000,000 a year) (Cited Here)

I'm not going to pretend I know everything I'm talking about but this is just what I've taken in since being here. Much of this we have talked about in our British Life and Culture class.

Tax brackets for the UK can be found here.

If you don't feel like checking that out right now I'll give you this one: GB citizens earning £37,401 - £150,000 a year pay 40% income tax, and the next highest bracket is 50% tax. (Note though that average income a year is much closer to £22,000/year) For Americans this is around $60,000 a year, like Britons slightly higher than the national average income. (Here is the income tax brackets for Americans) If you don't want to take a look there basically the same people who are in that $60,000 a year bracket are paying 25% tax.

Now as I've been subject to public health care over here. And okay the 2 hour wait with excruciating pain and puking may have been worth it to get off with a prescription the whole total of which only costing about £7. Ignoring the fact the prescription didn't actually do anything for me, and ignoring the fact that I don't have to pay taxes here this was great.

However the National Health Service (NHS) isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

I read this article in a newspaper today. It was not easy to track down since it wasn't on the website of the newspaper I read it from. Basically it talks about a student from the US but studying here in England died after an asthma attack. She told her friend to call an ambulance, the friend went into an NHS where she was told she should call an ambulance. Studies are being done to see if she would have died had she gotten care immediately.

This story highlights 63 unexpected deaths in NHS all due to different things at approximately 5 different NHS hospitals.

Stories of regular people not bad enough? How about elderly patients? This sad story talks about several different elderly patients suffering not only from their ailments but poor nourishment (actually being left without food and water), being left in soiled clothes, and in pain.

Another article refers to the confidence of NHS nurses. Nurses and other health practitioners are suffering from underemployment. There are not enough funds to keep around a full staff so the rest must work extra hard to run at high capacity. And with most people using the NHS over private healthcare organizations it's not wonder they have to work so hard.

This article I wanted to share just because it's rather shocking and sad. Once again I had a hard time tracking this one down from where I originally read it. Because of several mistakes by the doctor, a man, who was donating a kidney to his father, experienced kidney failure in his other kidney and needed a kidney transplant.

Most of the complaints for the healthcare relate to the elderly like this one. That article shares some horror stories to the ones mentioned above as well as others in more detail.

Please note that not all of these articles are from the same biased news source hating public healthcare. Also these stories do not occur at the same hospital or care giving facility, however they are all under the NHS. One must wonder that it's not a problem with doctors or nurses or even the hospital, but the system. 

I am not condemning the NHS, however, America: Take note.

We study history to learn from the past so we will not make the same mistakes. This history is taking place right here, right now. Learn from it and don't make the same mistakes.

You can't draw blood from hand veins. Pt 2

Once inside I told the receptionist what was wrong and he gave me a form to fill out. After I did so I promptly ran to the bathroom and puked. When I felt a little better, I walked back into the overcrowded waiting room and took a seat, on the floor, well actually I laid down because that was the only comfortable position I could get in. 

During the hour and ten minute waiting period before I could see the nurse I laid on the floor shifting between sweating and freezing and uncontrollable shaking and muscle spasms, all to the prying eyes of the other A&E patients. 


Thankfully my roommate had gotten my text and offered to call the school program as well as come down to be with me. Shortly thereafter I got a call from the program and they also offered to send somebody down to be with me. I gratefully accepted. Unfortunately neither of them got there very timely. The nurse called me in before my roommate was able to make it. 

She did everything a nurse did, asked me what was wrong, checked my temperature and blood pressure, which were probably both very off.  Told me there was a two hour wait to see the actual doctor and gave me some medicine for the pain which was supposed to take half an hour to work. 

I swallowed the pills and walked into the waiting room once more where my wonderful roommate was now waiting for me. But the pain medicine wouldn't stay down and I booked it for the bathroom where I threw up again. 


As I was going to let the nurse know I had thrown up the medicine, a doctor came for me. At this point my roommate went to find the woman from the school program who had just gotten there so we were separated. I couldn't tell you the doctor's name even if I had remembered it. I believe he was Indian and I had trouble understanding his accent, although not as much as he seemed having to understand mine. After much prodding and many questions he informed me that he thought I might have appendicitis but that he wanted another doctor's opinion. 


After another period of waiting another doctor appeared. Hooray! A white doctor surely he's British!
Nope, he also had a hard time understanding my accent, but this doctor was from a country called Kosovo which only become a country in the last 20 years or so: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo


He deduced that it was not in fact appendicitis but some inflammatory infection in my lower abdomen. I mentioned that I've had family with ovarian cysts. They decided to run some blood tests. 


Once in another room the Indian doctor hovered while the Kosovoian doctor attempted to draw blood from my arm. He couldn't find a vein in my arm but noticed that my hands had prominent veins (too much internet and gaming I suppose..) and he attempted to draw blood from one of the veins in my hands. 


No. You cannot draw blood from hand veins. Ouch. They left the needle in so they could use it as an IV. By this point the Kosovoian doctor was needed elsewhere so he left the Indian doctor to try and draw blood from my other arm. After he got another set of needles he put on a pair of gloves, checked for some veins, then asked one of the nurses in the hallway if she was busy. She was, he had to be the one to draw the blood. He came back, washed his hands and got a new pair of gloves, checked for veins again, then decided that he needed to fill out a form telling a nurse what medication I needed. Another session of hand washing and new gloves. 


It took a few minutes before he decided there was a vein he could use, and another few for him to get everything set up. After he was done I was left with a puddle of blood on the bed with me and a slightly irritated vein in my arm. 

After he took off to check on another patient a paramedic (according to his name tag) came in to give me some medication through the IV and orally. Luckily I didn't puke it up this time. 


Once he was done my roommate and the woman from AIFS found me and were able to keep me company until the doctor gave me a prescription for antibiotics. 


Luckily after this I was able to go home. 


I got a call a few hours ago and apparently my blood tests came back with the result that I had some sort of infection and should come back if I experience more pain.

You can't draw blood from hand veins. Pt 1

Two doctors learned this today at the A&E (accident and emergency) in a London hospital.

I left my house this morning ready to go on an adventure with my wonderful roommate. I figured my back would start to feel better, it'd been a bit off all morning.

After arriving at Buckingham Palace and realizing once again we were too late to get right up next to the gates to watch the changing of the guards we decided to wander the area. By this point the pain in my back was getting worse and I started to feel a cramping sensation in my lower abdomen (like regular period cramps but only on one side and pretty intense.)

We went around for a bit before I decided I couldn't deal with the pain and sat down while my roommate walked around Hyde Park to take some pictures. It was too much, I needed to go home and lie down. Unfortunately I didn't make it home.

This is the same map I used before, ignore the underlined parts

We were right next to Hyde Park Corner on the Piccadilly line. I couldn't decide if I should take the tube all the way up to Belsize which is a 10 minute walk from our home, or Camden Town Station which has a bus stop near it. The bus stop is closer to the house than the tube station so it'd be less of a walk, but recently we've had to wait close to 20 minutes almost every time we wait for the bus. I ended up taking the tube to Leicester Square where I changed to the Northern line. By then I decided I'd go to Goodge Street because I knew there was a bus stop very close and I could at least sit while waiting for a bus. Unfortunately by the time I got off the tube the pain was immense and I was having trouble walking because of it.

As I was walking towards the bus stop I saw my bus go by (there was no way I could catch it) and I was formulating in my mind what to do once I got home. I could try and sleep it off (even though I wasn't sure I could get up the stairs by that point) or I could ask my homestay family to take me to a nearby hospital (because I was fairly sure I was dying.)

"Excuse me"

I whirled around, there was a man with a big fancy camera asking for my attention. I turned and gave him a half smile attempting not to feel as awful as I did.

"Do you think you could help me out? ...I'm doing something for blah mumble mumble, and I just need somebody to push a few buttons blah mumble blah"

Uh oh.. My stomach had turned and my mouth was watering, there was no mistaking this feeling. I started walking away. from him.

"Is that a no then?"

I waved him off, attempting to apologize but that I was going to be sick. I knelt by the edge of the road, waiting for it to come.

While I was staring into the sewer gate waiting for the inevitable a police car drove by. The women in the car waved at me to get my attention, mouthing the words "Are you okay?" I shook my head and they waved me over. As the tears bubbled forth I explained what I was feeling and told them I had no idea what I was doing. They offered to take me to the hospital right up the road.


View Larger Map

I was right near Goodge Street Station on the map and they drove me over to University College Hospital. 

Adventures to Remember

Animal tracks are a good way to see where an animal has traveled and in which direction it is headed.

They are not permanent, they can be washed away with rain, covered by other tracks, or melted away if they are in snow. Even the wind can disrupt a sandy set of footprints. But how can you permanently track where something has been?

My adventures, tracked by paw prints from London.

The Globe Theatre

This was one of my most anticipated field trips yet. In high school and my freshmen year of college I took Shakespeare classes, so even though I am by no means a lit major I still have interest in arguably one of the world's greatest playwrights and poet.

On Monday, 1 February, was the day we were set to visit this historic site (not as historic as it could be since the actual Globe Theatre burned down, but was rebuilt by an American a few centuries ago). I was going to go to classes then meet my roommate at home since I didn't want to pay for food out. My morning classes dragged by, and I attempted to rush home, however my beloved public transport had other plans. Between 1230 and 1300 every day, (Many places do use military time here) the good ol' 24 bus to Hampstead Heath changes drivers. Sometimes, depending on the driver, this is a quick affair, mostly, however, it takes a while for one driver to get out and the other to get in while chatting briefly. Today was one of those days where neither driver was moving very quickly. After we got on the move again he bus seemed to hit every single red light or person crossing the road. 

Once home I ran upstairs to switch bags, and noticed my roommate was in the bathroom. I went back down to the kitchen made a quick lunch and waited. She didn't come down and we were supposed to meet at the theatre at 1345, and it was getting close to half past 1. I waited a bit longer before I checked upstairs again, her bedroom door was closed and so was the bathroom door. Uh oh... She was either still in bed or gone, but why hadn't she texted me? I checked my phone again and nothing. I took off down the street, trying to decide if I should take the bus down to Camden Town Station or walk to Belsize Park.
Here's a little something to help you out: 

I needed to get from about where Belsize Park (underlined in green) is on the Northern Line to Mansion House (boxed in blue)

I decided to take the bus down to Camden Town Station (underlined in red on the pic) since it's a short bus ride and I have this tendency to get lost trying to find Belsize Park. This ended with me taking the Northern line to Bank, walking this little underground pathway to Monument and hopping on the District line to Mansion House. By the time I had gotten to Camden Town Station it was already 1345. So you can imagine my distress at having to wait for a train that was going to the right end destination. When I finally got to Mansion House I had a vague map to go on but managed to go in the right direction.

Since I still wasn't sure where I was going exactly, and I hadn't yet heard from Desiree (My roommie) I decided I'd try calling her. Miraculously it worked, her phone was just out of prepaid minutes so she couldn't answer my texts or call me. She was able to help guide me towards the theatre.

Unfortunately as it is not just a random building anybody can walk into I had to ask around and get lost a bit more before I made it almost 40 minutes late.


Despite being very late our tour guide was amazing. After we saw he main theatre area, where he talked about how dirty Shakespeare's plays are and how brilliant of a man he was, we went into a practice room for actors in the main building. He had us playing games and reciting lines from Shakespeare. It definitely turned my bad morning around and made up for being very late.