International Health Policy
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Total resources going into health care in Britain are proportionally lower than in most comparable countries. The resources available are more efficiently used, and probably more equitably between different social groups. But the standards inevitably suffer from decades of under-resourcing. There are however aspects of the NHS which are greatly superior to services to the rest of Europe. We rightly take it for granted that if we are seriously injured the ambulance service will take us to hospital. Even where the ambulance services cannot reach, such as high mountains in poor visibility voluntary mountain rescue services will rescue people without asking for payment up front. People having skiing accidents on the continent are rescued by competing small firms but only if the injured person has means of payment. I became aware of this in March 2005 when my son broke his arm skiing in France.While I do not have direct experience of the continental ambulance services, from the ambulances I have seen there appear to be a large number of private ambulances providing a service that is probably paid for in the same way as a taxi service. See International recruitment for articles on the recruitment of staff, in particular from under-resourced countries. |
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Sheila
Porter-Williams |