The Queen has fallen ill, gastroenteritis to be specific. She has been taken to King Edward VII hospital in London. This hospital bills itself as the leading private hospital in London.
Why is she not staying at an NHS hospital? Gastroenteritis is not particularly complicated or unusual and should be well within the capabilities of any decent hospital facility of the most rudimentary type.
The Queen of England’s main role is to provide an example, a symbol. She is doing so today with the choice of her hospital. But is anybody paying attention?
The queen is doing as royalty does. Over here, politicians act like royalty.
I’ll bet if one asked Queen Elizabeth about liberals policies in her country, she go Red Queen in a second.
The Queen is too old to get care from the NHS. If they provided care for her at her age, they would have to explain why they let everyone else her age die.
The last time I checked about 25% of the residents of greater London had private insurance and do not go to NHS hospitals. Greater London is also the only part of Britain with a positive GDP.
THe rest of Britain is welfare heaven; sort of like Quebec.
Unlike in the US the Queen IS royalty. I doubt anyone in England expects her to go to anyone other than her private doctor. There is no expectation of support of the NHS by her private action.
For you to use this as a pick just shows your common origin, lack of understanding, and colonial mentality. ;)
NHS Hospitals are filthy, badly managed, & GI tract infections are rampant — especially hard-to-treat organisms like c. difficile. HM would not only put herself at risk if she were to go an NHS hospital, she would also put other patients at risk. The chances are high that the NHS staff would infect other patients with whatever HM has.
NHS is a scam. Only the poor & lower middle class use it. People who can afford it buy insurance & are treated in a parallel system. that’s true even for NHS physicians themselves.
There is an irony that is lost on most people, and it is worth at least noting. Contrast this to Bush 41 thinking he could announce publicly that he didn’t have to eat broccoli because he was president, dammit – yet it turned out that he then had to eat it after all.
Democrats are far better than Republicans at the political skill of paying lip service to egalitarian principles – even outraged lip service – and then acting like royalty. Minority voters seem to be particularly impressed with this, for some reason. Reagan really did like riding horses and Bush 43 liked cutting brush. Contrast this with Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and the expectation of being treated as special.
Bill Clinton, though, gets full credit here. He did like him his cheeseburgers, his backslapping, his saxophone and his regular-folks friends. I disliked much about the man, but I’ll give him that.
With respect to Kerry, I may have told this story before here but I beg pardon. My daughter in law is cute and her friend Kim is also very cute. During the 2004 election campaign, Shelley was visiting Kim in Boston, on Beacon Hill. One night they were in their PJs chatting when they heard a commotion. Kerry’s motorcade was bringing him home to Louisburg Square.
The two girls threw on robes and slippers and ran down Beacon Hill to see the excitement. They arrived as Kerry was going in and they talked to the cops and Secret Service. Here were two cute girls in bathrobes and PJs. Of course, they attracted a group. The local cops told them how many times they were called to the residence for drunken rages by Teresa and John. It is apparently no secret in Boston that Teresa and John do not get along well. No doubt she is happy to see him in Egypt, if she is sober enough.
Grey Eagle – The don’t treat norovirus in 86 year olds at the NHS? Barbaric.
PenGun – You are selling Queen Elizabeth short. I think she has never forgotten her 21st birthday public declaration “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.” Symbolic actions comprise the vast majority of what she can do as a monarch under the current system. It’s astonishing to me that such a symbolic public figure would not have their every action scrutinized for the symbolism of it all. And of course under normal circumstances she is. But not this one. I wonder if she is pleased or annoyed by the exception.
SgtDad – Since she supposedly has the highly contagious and miserable norovirus, you’ve actually hit on a humane reason for her to stay out of the NHS. But what an indictment that they are incapable of isolating.
Why should people pay attention to it there? Here people seem to ignore that Congress exempted themselves from ObamaCare.
Bill Brandt, not only do they exempt themselves from Obamacare, but they can get their medical treatment in DC’s military hospitals–Army’s Walter Reed amd Navy’s Bethesda Medical [right outside DC in Bethesda, Marlyand, a DC susburb].
Routine security for the Queen can be better provided in a private hospital, and with less disruption to the hospital’s care of its other patients.
Something else to mention. In the Brit papers [yes, I read Brit and other papers; mostly for the American political coverage that our captive media will not report. I realize that it will shock Leftists that Conservatives read other views as opposed to themselves.] it is noted that for the Queen to return to King Edward VII hospital is a signal mark of favor, trust, and forgiveness for the privacy breach during Kate’s hospitalization.
As far as NHS is concerned, I have recounted previously my daughter’s student stay at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in Kensington. She saw two people deliberately killed by staff. Now, it seems, that the Brits are admitting that such is the norm.
Subotai Bahadur
So it seems that the general consensus is that the NHS is not fit for the Queen. What other people is it not fit for?
Typical concern trolling. Among other matters, the Queen is the Head of State, not the Head of Government. It is not her responsibility to make people use government-provided services. Second, she is the patron of this hospital, which was first established as a royal hospital for Boer War veterans by her grandfather (the eponymous Edward VII). Third, the hospital provides for charity cases particularly among veterans of the armed forces, probably not inconsequentially due to the Queen’s financial support (that’s what “patron” means). Finally, the NHS is not something that was established by the Crown for the people, but something that the people established and fund themselves, and by the way, unlike in the US, most citizens are quite happy to use it already. This entire dynamic you posit does not exist. Of course, the Tories have cut NHS financial support, so maybe the official policy (i.e. of the Cameron government) would be exactly the opposite that you suggest, in short, “don’t use the NHS so much”.
So transparent. So silly.
Dan Hartung – most citizens would apparently not include workers at a number of NHS hospitals overall 40% would not recommend care to friends and family with sub par institutions going as high as 65% of their workers saying steer clear. This is a fairly ominous vote of no confidence in a metric the Prime Minister says is important.