Welsh Rugby player Luigi Segadelli had to wait three hours lying face-down on a soggy pitch for an ambulance after breaking his leg during a match. He waited so long, paramedics told him he was in danger of losing his foot, which began to turn blue. From Mr. Segadelli in http://www.independent.co.uk, “NHS in critical conditions as A&E waiting times are worst in a decade”:
I was cold and shaking. When the paramedics saw how long it was taking to get colour back into my foot they said I had been in the cold so long there was a risk of losing my foot. That’s when I started panicking.
Mr Segadelli broke his tibia and fibula. His teammates covered him with blankets as they waited for the ambulance.
When we finally got to the hospital, I was pretty out of it but I did notice how incredibly busy A&E [Accident & Emergency} was. To be fair, the paramedics and all the hospital staff were brilliant and treated me really well once the ambulance arrived. It was just the wait that was so annoying.
This is the fabled socialized health care model the US is supposed to follow. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (with apologies to Heisenberg) of government provision of goods or services is that a government can control the quantity or the price of a good or service, but not both. If government mandates lower prices for medical care to control the costs it and recipients have to pay, it inevitably leads to rationing of care by other means. As is so often the case, Mr. Segadelli’s care was rationed by wait time, and it almost cost him a foot. There is no such thing as free medical care.
