LOL, what a massive, massive bell-end.
http://metaltalk.net/news2015sg/2015110.php
Though I'm not sure whether I should feel sorry for him being married to this...
http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/mike-portnoy-slams-u-k-hospital-for-not-seeing-him/
FWIW, the UK health service (NHS) is paid for by everyone (via National Insurance) here and is free to anyone. Accident and Emergency is exactly that, so you get everything from minor injuries to life threatening conditions. The latter are seen immediately, the former are prioritised in terms of seriousness by triage nurses. EVERYONE sees a triage nurse on arrival. Wait can be up to 4 hours if you are deemed to have a non-life threatening, not serious problem. That's the way the system works.
The system is overworked, underfunded and understaffed. But it works and I still have a father who's around because of it. Which is also why I don't complain if I'm in A&E and I have to wait with hurty arms or whatever.
The bollocks his wife is spouting is exactly that. No way an ambulance ran out of fuel, that does not happen. He also wasn't waiting hours. It looks like short of 2 hrs from initial report to spouting off on the internet. Also calling an ambulance out for a fever!? Come on. If that's true he deserves a kicking, it's not a fucking taxi service.
Anyhow. I'd like to defend our health service, because it's one of those things that despite government after governments ill-thought out interference, still works and is mostly staffed by people who get a lot of shit and not a lot of thanks.
Wow. He always did come off as a douche bag but this takes it to another level.
Portnoy's always been kind of a knob, like when he quit DT to go join Adrenaline Mob (I think, though it might have been AV7), only to have the gig go sideways and waltz back up to DT and go "I'm back." And DT was "You've been replaced"
That being said, waiting in line at the hospital can be a little unnerving. I took a crowbar shot to the head last week (all my fault, dumb mistake, but I took it like a champ I might add), and I was standing in line at admitting in the ER covered in blood, waiting behind someone with a cough. A cough. One person working the admitting desk. Eventually (ok, it was probably two minutes, but I was on the verge of passing out, so it felt a lot longer) I said "I'm bleeding from the f*king head here" in order to get the attention of a security guard, who brought me a handful of gauze and a wheelchair. It all worked out in the end, but you need a pretty solid sense of humour to get through it sometimes.
The British have queuing inbuilt in our psyche... Annoying at times, but we're grand masters at it.
You can insult our country.... you can even insult our Queen..... but damn you sir if you insult our beloved National Health Service ;D!
In all seriousness though, the NHS is something we are incredibly proud of, and no wonder it rubbs people up the wrong way when some pompous-prog-douche-lord throws a hissy fit because he isn't instantly pushed to the front of the queue at A+E.
The NHS gets slagged off no end in our national press, but when you look at the real core of the operation (the nurses, the doctors, the paramedics etc.) they all work their arse's off in my experience.
He should only imagine the reverse situation - being a Brit in need of emergency service in America. He might not wait but it'll cost him a few thousand dollars for triage and 3 minutes with a doctor.
Or, maybe they DID know who he was and were hoping he might just croak waiting (evil, I know it).
I read this without looking at the links at first and thought "Gee what kind of a person is this?", having then clicked on the link and seeing mike portnoy i wasn't that surprised.
I lived in England for 12 years before returning to America in 2008. I would trade the NHS for what I have right now in a heartbeat. Obamacare has jacked up our insurance rates so high that we can no longer afford it. My wife had to have a colonoscopy a year ago and we we're hit with a personal bill of $2000.00 after paying over $1200.00 dollars a month for our health insurance. Since then our insurance has been raised another $300.00 dollars a month. I REALLY miss the NHS, the extra taxes I paid putting petrol in my car, plus the VAT etc. was a LOT cheaper than this. The middle class is systematically being wiped out here.
Rant over! Assume your soldering.
This Facebook post is hilarious ;D:
'I think the funniest thing about this status is if they had cleared the queue to treat Mike Portnoy- what if an EVEN BIGGER rockstar (imagine that!) came into the hospital with EVEN MORE fans waiting to see them? I'm picturing some kind of 'Rock Star triage' where Kanye West's fractured penis vies for medical attention with Francis Rossi from Status Quo's fucked up septum'.
As a typical American with ZERO experience with any other healthcare system and absolutely no knowledge of even the most fundamental theories of economics, let me set you straight right now: your commie NHS is what's wrong with the world. Freeloaders!!!!1!!
I keed. ;D
Health insurance doesn't make sense unless it is single payer. Imo
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I have a hard time getting over the term "Free Health Care"
How can Tax money pay for something that is free?
He was just thinking of all his adoring fans! You nasty bad people!
TBH, I can't fault the NHS. I had a knee operation last summer, and they were amazing (apart from the one grumpy nurse). I had an MRI scan within a month, the specialist agreed that I could delay my operation until it was really needed, with an appointment every 3 months, then 6 months. When I couldn't delay the operation any longer, I was told it would be a 6-12 month wait, a month later I had a phone call to ask what date suited me, I asked for summer (summer in my job is diabolically crap), so they gave me a date in mid June, I went in at lunchtime, I was leaving at 7pm.
I know people have issues with the service, but after a couple of spells in A+E, knowing full well either myself or the other person I was with wouldn't be a priority case, you expect to have to wait to be seen. Yes, it does have its floors, but I wouldn't want to be without it.
October 2011 had emergency brain surgery, knocked out for surgery at 8am, they finished at around 8PM. Released six days later, back in after being home for a week for a spinal tap because of leaking brain fluid. Sent me home after three days because two days later i was scheduled for a second surgery to perform a nerve graft to reassign one from my tongue to replace one severed in the initial surgery, day surgery. Semi-private rooms most of the time, my bill at the end of it all was $40 for the initial very, very bumpy ambulance ride... Canada eh!
dave
Yeah, I know I do pay for it in my taxes, and I've also paid additional premiums depending in the province I've been in... but my wife had to get a helivac from Vancouver Island over to Vancouver when she was 27 weeks pregnant with our son. She then spent a week in hospital, and then was admitted again at 31 weeks where she stayed until he was born at 35 weeks. Then we were in for another week until he cleared the NIC-Unit.
Long and short, that bill in the states could have been 500k or more. We know people who have had 1 million dollar bills (fortunately much of it forgiven or paid with some fundraising), but it's still pretty crazy to see some of the differences Americans in particular have in their health care system.
As for Mikey P... I would think to give him the benefit of the doubt. He's venting over frustration from a bad day. Should he be doing it? No, obviously, but it's understandable. I see a dozen people do it every day on my feed. It doesn't sound to me like he's screaming "do you know who I am," but rather - that's not okay to do to me. That's more understandable, and even forgivable for a guy who's feeling ill and needs some help.
Being stranded in an Ambulance that's run out of gas makes me think that he actually needed a doctor, and if he waited even a portion of the day after having to find an alternative route... That's a pretty bad day. Anyone should be allowed some grace after that.
Jacob
Quote from: jkokura on March 10, 2015, 04:59:12 AM
Being stranded in an Ambulance that's run out of gas makes me think that he actually needed a doctor, and if he waited even a portion of the day after having to find an alternative route... That's a pretty bad day. Anyone should be allowed some grace after that.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if that wasn't complete fabrication on the wife's part. That sort of shit just doesn't happen. Made more plausible by the hours and hours he was waiting which was actually something like 1:40 between initial tweet and rant. As I said above though, if he called an ambulance for a fever and because he arms hurt, whilst totally able to tweet and indeed perform a gig was taking the piss. Again, if the ambulance existed at all and wasn't just embellishment on the wife's part (wasn't mentioned at all in his original rant, just that he'd had to wait and had a gig to go to).
Maybe he expected them to wave a magic wand over him pre-gig and make it all better?
But the fact that he expected to be able to play the gig means he himself didn't think he was on deaths door now did he. I wonder if he was just after some pain killers...? Well there are Pharmacy's for those and generally speaking you don't have to wait.
It sounds like he didn't need to be in A&E and he was prioritised low in the queue because he was not indeed an accident or emergency. Rather he was ill, like many other people. Other people who have jobs and commitments. Other people who also had to wait while more serious injuries and conditions were dealt with first.
He was venting his spleen. Sure. But it was in a dickish manner. He obviously stands by that dickish manner in that he hasn't appologised for being a dick. The Dr on there explained to him how the system worked, and a simple 'I'm sorry, I'm a stranger in these lands, I didn't understand'. Would have sufficed. To be honest I found it nice to see the system working in a completely unbiased and rational manner, as it should.
+1 on Juan
If I recall the sickest days in my 32 years on earth...the last thing I would be thinking about is playing a gig, because it would be physically near impossible. Nothing life-threatening thankfully, but a really high fever (I hit 41 centigrade once, you become pretty delirious by that point) or serious food poisoning can knock you off your feet for days. He must be lucky, never to have felt that sick before.
I've taken my brother into A&E two times.
First time, a side of beef landed square on him, and his back screamed fucking murder every time so much as the cat blinked at him. Took him in (the spine is nothing to fuck around with), took fucking four hours, turned out kinda okay. I didn't mind losing four hours playing driver. Firstly, my brother's health takes priority for me. Secondly, other people whose lives may be in danger take priority over a non-permanent pain, and I trust the professionals to be able to make the decision.
Second time, he fell in the bath and screamed fucking murder. My sister refused to go in (it was the bath), I took him in again.
Broken jaw. Wound up being a drive to another town (a mate did that part, I did the three hour total late night fucking drive into the hospital). Did I mind? Again, it's my brother. I didn't know if it was a skull fracture or if he bruised his tongue. Did I mind the three hour wait? It was bloody ten PM, doctors have lives too (they had to call the X-ray dude back in after hours), fair enough.
NZ is probably fairly close to Britain's NHS. (If you want it to happen fast and you're not going to die from it, go private.) It's not perfect, but it's better than other countries, where if you can't pay them then fuck off and die.
Huge fan of free public health care, unfortunately it's strained and stretched in my country (Oz). IMHO because there is a parallel private system that allows the wealthy to pay their way out of having to improve the lot of everyone else. I'd bet public would get a lot more funding if everyone was using it.
Ironically, thanks to the principles of free enterprise, you'll likely get better care, better conditions and much better staff to patient ratios in the public system here too.
Clearly the dude's a douche, and doesn't grasp the triage concept. Sad really, and I'm guessing he's American. It both astounds and saddens me as to how hostile even the more moderate US citizens I know are to the concept of public health care. At best, they feel a guilt for contemplating about it. Denying it seems to be indoctrinated.
I guess it's fuzzy history, I believe the idea of judging a civilisation by how well it cares for it's poor and weak goes back to the Ancient Greeks- and they pretty much invented both democracy and modern medicine. Surely everyone deserves equal access to health care for a society to be deemed civilised?
Quote from: alanp on March 10, 2015, 09:13:15 AM
NZ is probably fairly close to Britain's NHS. (If you want it to happen fast and you're not going to die from it, go private.) It's not perfect, but it's better than other countries, where if you can't pay them then fuck off and die.
And there is the crux of it. If you want priority service Mike Portnoy then go to a private hospital. Maybe put some of that money from your meet and greet sessions towards the fee eh?
Otherwise... stop your fucking moaning and wait in line with everyone else. If your situation is critical you will get seen. If it's not then you will have to wait, along with all of us 'normal' folk.
Slagging off the NHS as a self-entitled foreign rockstar over on these shores is a sure fire way of pissing most of us off. I would hazard a guess that it is one of the few things in this country that we are all collectively proud and protective of.
It's whole foundation is based upon free healthcare for all residents of the UK not depending on race, wealth, or social status.
So yeah he pretty much hit the jackpot of douche-ness with that one. Bingo! Top marks!
Bang on.
My dad was bent over in utter agony, unable to move. An ambulance was called, I got in touch with my brother. Everyone arrived, they got him into the ambulance and me and my brother followed (mum in the ambulance). We could barely keep up...
Arrive at hospital, no triage, no nothing, straight through. Diagnosed with acute pancreatitis and dealt with. What that causes is all the organs in your body to inflame and apply pressure to the diaphragm, essentially making breathing difficult. He was put into intensive care on a respirator while the inflammation died down. We were told his chances of survival were 50/50. Over the next week we were called in twice when he took a turn for the worse. As he recovered he was moved out of ICU, he was finally given a morphine epidural for which he offered to marry the male nurse who gave it to him. Seeing your father tripping away merrily is a weird experience...
Anyhow. I owe my dad still being around to Pinderfields A&E. Simple as that. The system has a lot wrong with it, but it works and the people in it are fucking heroes as far as I'm concerned. When some entitled twat comes along and gives them shit because he had a fever and his arms hurt, but he's got a gig to go to, so they should see him now, it annoys me. When one of the Dr's from that unit explains how it works to him and he ignores his very polite and almost apologetic post, it annoys me more. When his wife bangs on about all the things that went wrong and how shit he was treated when it's very likely all fabrication, I start to get properly angry.
We do a lot wrong in the UK. But the NHS is something we're rightly proud of. It's not perfect, but it's genuinely a good thing. I've worked in it, I've seen the sort of legislative shit they have to put up with. Yet they soldier on being paid feck all money in the scheme of things doing what I consider to be one of the most righteous professions on the planet, simply because they care.
So I take it a little personally when some 'rock star' gives it some shit.
That's my rant over ;)
Quote from: juansolo on March 10, 2015, 10:11:55 AM
Bang on.
My dad was bent over in utter agony, unable to move. An ambulance was called, I got in touch with my brother. Everyone arrived, they got him into the ambulance and me and my brother followed (mum in the ambulance). We could barely keep up...
Arrive at hospital, no triage, no nothing, straight through. Diagnosed with acute pancreatitis and dealt with. What that causes is all the organs in your body to inflame and apply pressure to the diaphragm, essentially making breathing difficult. He was put into intensive care on a respirator while the inflammation died down. We were told his chances of survival were 50/50. Over the next week we were called in twice when he took a turn for the worse. As he recovered he was moved out of ICU, he was finally given a morphine epidural for which he offered to marry the male nurse who gave it to him. Seeing your father tripping away merrily is a weird experience...
Anyhow. I owe my dad still being around to Pinderfields A&E. Simple as that. The system has a lot wrong with it, but it works and the people in it are fucking heroes as far as I'm concerned. When some entitled twat comes along and gives them shit because he had a fever and his arms hurt, but he's got a gig to go to, so they should see him now, it annoys me. When one of the Dr's from that unit explains how it works to him and he ignores his very polite and almost apologetic post, it annoys me more. When his wife bangs on about all the things that went wrong and how shit he was treated when it's very likely all fabrication, I start to get properly angry.
We do a lot wrong in the UK. But the NHS is something we're rightly proud of. It's not perfect, but it's genuinely a good thing. I've worked in it, I've seen the sort of legislative shit they have to put up with. Yet they soldier on being paid feck all money in the scheme of things doing what I consider to be one of the most righteous professions on the planet, simply because they care.
So I take it a little personally when some 'rock star' gives it some shit.
That's my rant over ;)
That really sums it up perfectly.
My partner works in the Nelson hospital lab, doing blood tests and all that stufff that's necessary for operations and A+E etc, she works nightshifts and all the lot.
Tough stuff making the right decisions behind the scenes at 3 am in the morning to keep A+E going where lives depend on it.
I couldn't do it. She's amazing too.
Quote from: cooder on March 10, 2015, 06:36:41 PM
Quote from: juansolo on March 10, 2015, 10:11:55 AM
Bang on.
My dad was bent over in utter agony, unable to move. An ambulance was called, I got in touch with my brother. Everyone arrived, they got him into the ambulance and me and my brother followed (mum in the ambulance). We could barely keep up...
Arrive at hospital, no triage, no nothing, straight through. Diagnosed with acute pancreatitis and dealt with. What that causes is all the organs in your body to inflame and apply pressure to the diaphragm, essentially making breathing difficult. He was put into intensive care on a respirator while the inflammation died down. We were told his chances of survival were 50/50. Over the next week we were called in twice when he took a turn for the worse. As he recovered he was moved out of ICU, he was finally given a morphine epidural for which he offered to marry the male nurse who gave it to him. Seeing your father tripping away merrily is a weird experience...
Anyhow. I owe my dad still being around to Pinderfields A&E. Simple as that. The system has a lot wrong with it, but it works and the people in it are fucking heroes as far as I'm concerned. When some entitled twat comes along and gives them shit because he had a fever and his arms hurt, but he's got a gig to go to, so they should see him now, it annoys me. When one of the Dr's from that unit explains how it works to him and he ignores his very polite and almost apologetic post, it annoys me more. When his wife bangs on about all the things that went wrong and how shit he was treated when it's very likely all fabrication, I start to get properly angry.
We do a lot wrong in the UK. But the NHS is something we're rightly proud of. It's not perfect, but it's genuinely a good thing. I've worked in it, I've seen the sort of legislative shit they have to put up with. Yet they soldier on being paid feck all money in the scheme of things doing what I consider to be one of the most righteous professions on the planet, simply because they care.
So I take it a little personally when some 'rock star' gives it some shit.
That's my rant over ;)
That really sums it up perfectly.
My partner works in the Nelson hospital lab, doing blood tests and all that stufff that's necessary for operations and A+E etc, she works nightshifts and all the lot.
Tough stuff making the right decisions behind the scenes at 3 am in the morning to keep A+E going where lives depend on it.
I couldn't do it. She's amazing too.
I always find it interesting how many people here in the States think the NHS is a joke, because all they've heard about is the waiting list. They're always surprised when I tell them how much I miss it and how I would trade what we have for that in a minute. Waiting list were a bit frustrating but not being able to afford medical care at all is life threatening.
Of course I also miss the weather in England, so my opinion might not count for much. Being a California boy the four seasons were so interesting to me. :)
Some things just should not be allowed to be handled by the private sector. For the business of business is making money, whereas the business of healthcare should be providing affordable healthcare. And you can say a lot of bad things about governments, at their core business they're not being run at the principle that they should be making a profit, which is why I trust them a whole lot more with running healthcare for everybody then the private sector.
I wish the Dutch NHS was still being run like the British NHS. Unfortunately our government has drunk the 'private business is better at everything' coolaid and handed us all over to the power and ministrations of the medical insurance companies.
I really hope we never end up with the bullshit of pure private healthcare. It's available here if you don't want to wait, but I like it being optional.
Quote from: juansolo on March 11, 2015, 04:25:57 PM
I really hope we never end up with the bullshit of pure private healthcare. It's available here if you don't want to wait, but I like it being optional.
I wish the US would do this. Healthcare should be available to everyone (and paid for by everyone via taxes, etc), but expensive healthcare should also be available to the rich.
Quote from: Muadzin on March 11, 2015, 10:20:26 AM
Some things just should not be allowed to be handled by the private sector. For the business of business is making money, whereas the business of healthcare should be providing affordable healthcare. And you can say a lot of bad things about governments, at their core business they're not being run at the principle that they should be making a profit, which is why I trust them a whole lot more with running healthcare for everybody then the private sector.
I wish the Dutch NHS was still being run like the British NHS. Unfortunately our government has drunk the 'private business is better at everything' coolaid and handed us all over to the power and ministrations of the medical insurance companies.
Unfortunately the reason Government is so inefficient at running things is exactly because there is no profit incentive. It's just not like a public company that has to show it's shareholders profit or the president loses their job. I wonder how good government run systems would become if our leaders jobs depended on them running efficiently with people centered healthcare, schooling and the lot.