Britain’s National Health Service Engulfed in Crisis
According to patients, doctors and analysts, Britain's National Health Service, the NHS, is buckling and close to collapse, with emergency departments over-burdened, hospital wards full and all nonessential operations suspended because of a winter surge in demand.
Patients are being left on gurneys for hours in drafty corridors waiting for beds to become free, and hospitals in the northeast are reporting an outbreak among patients of the gastroenteritis norovirus, dubbed the vomiting bug.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has apologized for the suspension of non-urgent operations and for some emergency departments having to turn away all but the most grave cases, but she insists there isn’t a crisis and the government is on top of things.
Asked during a BBC interview Sunday if she could remember a worse winter crisis, May said, “The NHS has actually been better prepared for this winter pressures than it has been before."
More than 90 lawmakers have signed a letter calling for a cross-party convention to discuss how the NHS can be funded to cope with a graying population that lives longer. The Center for Policy Studies warned Sunday that money from general taxation won’t be enough to fund the growing pressures of an aging population and increasing demand. “Alternative, additional sources of revenue for the NHS” need to be identified, it argued.
Britain has the most overweight young adults in Europe, with 29 percent of women under 25 classified as obese. Obesity, depression and dementia are all on the rise.
The service’s annual budget is $170 billion, about 10 percent of the country’s GDP. But chronic care costs now account for more than 80 percent of the NHS budget. Some analysts are forecasting that treating patients suffering Type 2 diabetes alone will account for 25 percent of the NHS budget by 2025.
