Health care, "thank you" gifts and corruption

[Richard Hakluyt]

Most (many?) surgeons in the UK run a private practice as well as their NHS work. If the NHS queue is intolerable one can jump it by becoming a private patient. More interestingly one can move in and out of private/public practice for a particular case. This is all perfectly legal but enables people with sufficient nous to get a first class service on the cheap while the masses make do with a second rate service.

[Josquius]

a friend of mine is a nurse in the UK. just the other day she was telling me about a absolute bitch Filipina nurse she has to work with. given hints the bitch has dropped my friend heavily suspects a lack of bribes and tips from the patients in the UK is a key source of her bitch powers.

Makes perfect sense if you read it aloud.

or just read it normally.

[Malthus]

Most (many?) surgeons in the UK run a private practice as well as their NHS work. If the NHS queue is intolerable one can jump it by becoming a private patient. More interestingly one can move in and out of private/public practice for a particular case. This is all perfectly legal but enables people with sufficient nous to get a first class service on the cheap while the masses make do with a second rate service.

Here, except in certain specialized circumstances, two-tier isn't allowed.

The problem in a fully socialized system, I have found, is that influence simply replaces money as the source of getting an edge on. You are buddies with the head of oncology at Big Hospital? Have a word with him and your granny gets to the head of the line.

Oddly enough, having influence and having money tend to be highly co-related. 

[The Brain]

My buddies are lazy bums.

[Admiral Yi]

a friend of mine is a nurse in the UK. just the other day she was telling me about a absolute bitch Filipina nurse she has to work with. given hints the bitch has dropped my friend heavily suspects a lack of bribes and tips from the patients in the UK is a key source of her bitch powers.

Makes perfect sense if you read it aloud.

or just read it normally.

I think clarity is increased slightly if you put a definite article between given and hints.  I didn't register it the first time I read it.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Most (many?) surgeons in the UK run a private practice as well as their NHS work. If the NHS queue is intolerable one can jump it by becoming a private patient. More interestingly one can move in and out of private/public practice for a particular case. This is all perfectly legal but enables people with sufficient nous to get a first class service on the cheap while the masses make do with a second rate service.

Here, except in certain specialized circumstances, two-tier isn't allowed.

The problem in a fully socialized system, I have found, is that influence simply replaces money as the source of getting an edge on. You are buddies with the head of oncology at Big Hospital? Have a word with him and your granny gets to the head of the line.

Oddly enough, having influence and having money tend to be highly co-related. 

Yes, there has been great disappointment here that "free" medical care has done nothing to narrow health differences between different social classes. I don't find it surprising (though 50 years of hindsight probably helps with that  ), in a modern wealthy economy "poverty" is about so much more than simple want.

[Sheilbh]

I can't think of circumstances when you'd give money to a doctor or nurse in the UK. That would always look weird and probably get rejected by the recipient.

I tried to think of circumstances where you'd give a gift though and I could imagine it happening to midwives especially, or to retiring GPs. You might also give a gift to nurses if you'd been looked after well while staying in hospital or, possibly, something to a surgeon.

[Ed Anger]

I gave a gift to the surgeon who fixed my leg. I know my wife was giving the rehab floor nurses stuff.