The United Kingdom’s cradle-to-grave “free” National Healthcare System (NHS) is in deep crisis, with not enough doctors and nurses, long waits for ambulances, patients sprawled on the floors at the ER, and emergency consultation appointments being booked a year out. And it is estimated that hundreds of people are dying each week because of delays in urgent care.
The president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, Dr. Adrian Boyle, shared that once figures showing the wait times for December are released, they will likely be the worst he has ever seen, as more than a dozen NHS trusts and ambulance services declared critical incidents during the holidays.