In US hospitals,competition for patients means you can collect a perfume gift bag after giving birth. In Britain, youd be lucky to collect a cup of teaI visited a friend in hospital this week, or one of the enormous New York medical centres that takes up an entire city block. At first glance it looks no different to an NHS hospital in Britain,with squeaky floors, harried doctors, and gift shops selling flowers in the lobby. As you collect absent from the atrium,however, you start to see differences.
There are no open wards; recovery rooms contain two beds at most. This is a private hospital, or which is to say that it isn’t run by the city of New York; but the distinction between public and private healthcare is convoluted in the US,where doctors are “providers who can pick and choose who they treat, according to their insurance plan. (The New York Times reported final year that half of all doctors registered as available to low-income patients with state insurance wouldn’t actually give them an appointment.)Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com