WHAT BRILLIANT PROOF THAT HEALTH CARE SHOULD NOT BE BUREAUCRATIZED

With 1.4 million employees in a nation of 60 million the British NHS still cannot provide good health care -- some people wait years for treatment

It's official: the National Health Service is the fifth largest organisation in the world. The fact has emerged in an email from the Department of Health, disputing a Telegraph report that it is the third largest after the Chinese Army and the Indian Railways. Jon Hibbs, the NHS head of news, said: "Still peddling that old chestnut about the NHS being the third largest organisation in the world? You may be interested to know that our best intelligence suggests our world ranking is as follows: Chinese People's Liberation Army, 2.3m; US Dept of Defence, 2m; Indian Railways, 1.5m; Walmart, 1.5m. "So that makes the NHS, despite continual growth to more than 1.3m, at least fifth largest in the world - if you don't count McDonald's, where estimates are as many as 12m, although most of their operations are franchised."......

Yesterday, the Department of Health also released its annual workforce census which showed that less than half the new employees it hired last year were frontline health professionals. Of the 44,200 whole time equivalent new employees, 7,200 are doctors, 10,500 are nurses and 2,600 allied health professionals. The balance of 23,900 are back office staff, administrators, receptionists, lab technicians and cleaners.

However, alternative figures compiled by the Office for National Statistics two weeks ago included some other support staff. These show the NHS hired 69,000 people last year, taking the total to over 1.4m. On that basis less than a third of new NHS employees are engaged in frontline health care.. John Reid, Health Secretary, said: "We now have more doctors, nurses, scientists and therapists than ever before. The NHS is the world's biggest army for good."

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GOVERNMENT DRUG MANIACS TARGET DOCTORS INSTEAD OF CRIMINALS

Doctors are SO much easier to find

"A website dedicated to tracking this issue lists EIGHTY-SEVEN physicians currently under indictment and/or conviction for 'drug trafficking' -- in most cases, without a single charge having been brought by ANY private citizen or legitimate pain patient. As the site declares, the Department of Justice (and specifically the DEA) consider all of these physicians 'drug dealers' and is prosecuting or has already prosecuted them for 'running pill mills.' ...

In virtually every instance, these physicians have been entrapped by undercover agents posing as patients 'needing pain relief' or making similarly nebulous declarations; in some cases, the doctors were hauled in on 'conspiracy to traffick' charges, simply because one or more patients they prescribed for subsequently went out and sold their Oxycontin, Percoset or other prescribed medication on the street."

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation.

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