A British boy is cured after a decade of deafness when a cotton swab pops out of his ear.
Jerome Bartens was diagnosed as deaf in his right ear when he was just two-years-old.Over the next nine years, he struggled to live a normal life as a young boy — but everything changed when he felt a sudden pop in his right ear while playing a game of pool with friends.
He put his finger in his ear and pulled out a tip of a cotton wool bud that had been wedged in his ear since he was a toddler.
"It was just incredible — his hearing returned to normal in an instant," Barten's dad said.
"I had always suspected Jerome had stuck something in his ear when he was little and that was causing the problem. But the doctors and hearing specialists said it was wax and he would probably grow out of it."
"I am amazed they didn't spot something as obvious as a cotton wool bud."
Don't be amazed! Miracle cures are just another benefit of the UK's socialized health care.
Is there any mistake that the health service could make which you wouldn't blame on the way it is funded?
Is the American way better? (I imagine it would involve first paying more on private insurance than the NHS costs the average Brit, then suing somebody's ass whenever any mistakes are made).
Do you believe that the relative shortcomings of NHS aren't related to it's socialist nature?
1) The shortcomings of the NHS are real but are almost unrelated to what the papers tend to talk about
2) Many shortcomings are not cause by or related to the free at the point of use nature of the service - eg. in this case, isn't this just human error?
3) I think the benefits of universal, free health-care overwhelm the disadvantages, even in the flawed implementation which we currently have.
I just find it had to believe that NHS is immune to the effects of socialism that have been seen everywhere, all around the world, for decades. Every socialistic organization I can think of larger than a church suffers from the problems seen in NHS.
What effects specifically? I might have answers, but it would be a waste of time to tackle the wrong set of problems.
(I definitely agree that socialist principles become more effective as the group size gets smaller.)