A Mother’s Nightmare: My Personal Experiences with Nationalized Healthcare

My question to all Americans who think nationalized healthcare is a great idea is: What personal experience have you had with the nationalized universal health care?

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I, unfortunately, have had direct personal experience with nationalized healthcare. Therefore, I speak from my heart, with passion and authority AGAINST such "healthcare". Also, I'm in constant contact with citizens - my friends and relatives - in Europe. I listen to real people in those countries tell me about waiting months for planned surgeries, the results of botched surgeries, and lousy "care" they receive and are forced to live with. During my 18 months working as a fight attendant for Lufthansa, I was stationed in Frankfurt, Germany. It was customary there to wait several hours for each doctor’s appointment. During the 10 years I lived as a "Hausfrau" in Salzburg, Austria, I gave birth to 3 of my 4 children. On the regular state-provided plan, I shared a ward with 5 other mothers and all of their visitors. The rest and privacy required by a new, nursing mother was not part of the "plan"! Anytime I questioned my doctor's plans for my care or that of my baby, I was strongly reprimanded and told I didn't "know enough" to voice my opinion. You (the patient) are given a number and are told to sit down and "wait your turn". Once I had a sick infant with a raging fever. After 3 hours of waiting with an appointment, I asked if I could go ahead in case my baby was contagious. "Do you think you're better than anyone else here?", I was asked. We had to wait another hour for our "turn"! When the doctor has your voucher, you can't just leave and go to another doctor. More recently, my daughter was living in a world capitol, Dublin, Ireland. Healthy all her life, she came down sick. After several days, she went to an Irish GP. He poked her in her tummy, said she had some kind of infection and told her to "go home and wait it out". No tests. No medication. After she dehydrated the next day, she went to the ER of a hospital. It's "normal" for patients on the state provided plan to languish several days in the ER waiting for a bed to become free. She was there 3 days, then was moved to a room upstairs. During all this time I was frantically trying to talk to her doctors. None of my calls or messages were ever answered or returned. The head of the Gastro-Intestinal Dept. later told me it was because he didn't have a secretary! When I finally arrived, I was told my 24 year old daughter needed emergency surgery to save her life. Only 2 tests had been done on her. The results were inconclusive. To this day we have no diagnosis. After 2 weeks of inadequate care she developed life-threatening toxic megacolon. My daughter, the bravest woman I know, suffered immense pain and has endured 4 surgeries in the last 2 years. No mother should have to watch her child pay such a high price for "free health care"! Her pain-filled eyes will haunt me the rest of my life! Her life and mine, are forever changed - not for the better! It was a nightmare: 6 patients in each room - some with infectious illness; no mechanical beds, inappropriate food for her special dietary needs; (we had to smuggle in food, which was against the rules!), lack of hygiene.... I could go on and on. The three months total I spent by her bedside, combined with my ten years in Austria and one year in Germany make me an EXPERT on socialized medicine! Yes, there are problems here in America with health care. Insurance companies have become powerful and greedy through the years. Let's fix the problems with our system, which remains the best in the world and is not "broken and unsustainable" - a claim by universal healthcare proponents. I would bet that Obama, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton and all other s who seek to destroy our medical system have never been or known a real patient in another country. Inform yourselves! Horror stories such as mine are published in the newspapers in Great Britain, Ireland, Europe every day. These can be read on the Internet. Why are Canadians coming to the US for treatment? Because treatment takes too long to get or is denied them in their own country! Please oppose nationalizing our healthcare. Once you hand power over to the government, how do you get it back if they mismanage and ration our healthcare? Americans will have to line up, shut up and put up with inferior healthcare. Please don't let this happen! Mary K. Drew Orono, ME 04473

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