Soldier died after being given smoker's lungs in transplant

[Guest SATCOM]

A British soldier serving in Iraq died after a hospital transplant gave him a pair of lungs donated by a heavy smoker, a coroner has heard.

Corporal Matthew Millington, 31, of the Queen's Royal Lancers, was stationed in Iraq in 2005 when he was diagnosed with an incurable condition which left him unable to breathe; he was told that he would die unless he had a lung transplant.

He had double transplant surgery in April 2007 at Papworth hospital, in Cambridge, but less than a year later doctors found a tumour in the new lungs and, despite radiotherapy, Millington died in February 2008. Analysis revealed he had been given the lungs of a donor who smoked 30 to 50 roll-up cigarettes a day.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2009/oct/11/soldier-lung-transplant-cancer-papworth-smoking

[HoHum]

It's refreshing to see that his family has their wits about them and are not blaming everybody in sight. A set of smoker's lungs is better than none at all.

[Steve Davies]

Gotta' love that British healthcare... blah blah

And you are qualified to make that remark how exactly?

[PapaJu]

It's refreshing to see that his family has their wits about them and are not blaming everybody in sight. A set of smoker's lungs is better than none at all.

Though, there could have been some legit malpractice here. Apparently there was a tumor there when they gave him the lungs that they failed to spot.

[uhhello]

And you are qualified to make that remark how exactly?

Ditto

It's not like hundreds of people don't die every day waiting for some type of organ in the States. He was damned if he didn't but stood a fighting chance if he did it.

[Guest SATCOM]

And you are qualified to make that remark how exactly?

I am half-British and have actually had relatives receive shitty British health care. They in-turn have actually come to the states and stayed at my Mom's house in order to get quality care (at their own expense). Does that make me qualified?

[FlyingBull]

No it doesn't. Thats called anecdotal evidence. The type of evidence thats not.

[Mark1]

I am half-British and have actually had relatives receive shitty British health care. They in-turn have actually come to the states and stayed at my Mom's house in order to get quality care (at their own expense). Does that make me qualified?

So by your logic if I can provide at least two examples of poor healtcare or malpractice in the U.S. system then we can conclude it's worse than the British system and write it off completely?

It's so easy to find horror stories ten times worse than this in the U.S. healthcare system that I'm not even going to put in the effort to hotlink one. It doesn't prove anything.

[Steve Davies]

I am half-British and have actually had relatives receive shitty British health care. They in-turn have actually come to the states and stayed at my Mom's house in order to get quality care (at their own expense). Does that make me qualified?

Are you qualified simply because you are 'half British', whatever that means? No, you are not.

Are you qualified because you heard some anecdotes that the NHS, which treats more than 3.5 million in-patients annually, doesn't keep everyone happy all the time? No, you are not.

I have had NHS treatment that was fucked up in a well and truly life-altering way, and yet I still think that it is a very good system and I am glad to know it is there. Maybe when you have some first hand experience, and when you actually take the time to look at the bigger picture, your opinion will carry some weight.

Edited October 13, 2009 by Steve Davies

[Guest IncompletePete]

gearpig - if you were traveling on a one-way ticket with a view to permanent residence, you'd be covered by the NHS. BUT if you didn't have an automatic right to take up permanent residence, you'd have to apply to enter/remain on a settled basis and would be charged for any hospital treatment up to the point the application was granted or until you'd accrued 12 months lawful residence in the UK.

There's a tonne of conditions though, for example if you're working for a British based company and need NHS treatment, you'd be covered, irrespective of residency status.

However, all emergency treatment is free for anyone and everyone until the point they leave the ER and actually become admitted to hospital, thereby becoming an in-patient, although that does include emergency surgery.

Can you guess I did some of this for my law degree...?!

Edited October 13, 2009 by IncompletePete

[slacker]

And you are qualified to make that remark how exactly?

What the hell? Do you mean we have to be qualified to make remarks here now? Crap, that's going to severely limit some board members' contributions.

It's a good thing I'm an internets know-it-all, so no issue here, I can still spout off.

edit- clarity in humor.

Edited October 14, 2009 by slacker

[Vertigo]

...I'm an internets know-it-all

I vouch for this statement. Pic taken of Slacker just last week:

[Smokin]

So now anecdotal evidence is to be totally disregarded an an argument? I would say SATCOMs experience about relatives coming to the US for medical help on their own dime when it was available for free in the UK as a valid point. If he is not qualified to participate in an argument with that point, who is qualified? How are you qualified to tell him he is not qualified?

[nsplayr]

So now anecdotal evidence is to be totally disregarded an an argument? I would say SATCOMs experience about relatives coming to the US for medical help on their own dime when it was available for free in the UK as a valid point. If he is not qualified to participate in an argument with that point, who is qualified? How are you qualified to tell him he is not qualified?

I think I did a CBT to get qualed on that...

[Steve Davies]

If he is not qualified to participate in an argument with that point, who is qualified? How are you qualified to tell him he is not qualified?

Did you read post #9?

Edited October 15, 2009 by Steve Davies

[HoHum]

[Smokin]

I did. You said he was not qualified to participate in a debate with anecdotal evidence, then you used your own anecdotal evidence as your only argument. I do not see a difference.

[Guest SATCOM]

Been on the road TDY and have to admit that I am not/have not conducted a thesis on the Brit NHS. That being said, my Brit relatives came to the US to get treatment for various things because the NHS was making them wait months for MRI's etc. Now if the standard on commenting on ANY subject here at Baseops is that the commenter have conducted a double-blind study or provide government/industry sponsored research..... then I guess we need to let everyone know that. Who would want to comment on a cornucopia of subjects, when we simply do not have time to look into the original subject? ALL, I repeat all of my English relatives (living in London, Manchester and Liverpool) have had problems with the NHS. That's a 100% unsat rate out of 32 British citizens. Now when I did my thesis and conducted historical research, I gathered as much relevant information about the problem/topic as possible. I admittedly formed a hypothesis on the English NHS based on anecdotal evidence that was collected and verified by myself. The authenticity and veracity of the Brit NHS information came from my relatives as sources. Drawing the conclusion that I did (based on my relatives) provided the narrative.

* So in the future, lets all end every post with the following:

This post is solely my opinion or experience. I have not personally conducted any scientific research that would lend qualitative/quantitative data to this forum topic. The collection, examination, summarization, manipulation, and interpretation of data to discover its underlying causes, patterns, relationships, and trends was not done prior to adding my comments.

[Vertigo]

ALL, I repeat all of my English relatives (living in London, Manchester and Liverpool) have had problems with the NHS. That's a 100% unsat rate out of 32 British citizens.

I don't think it would be hard to find 32 relatives in the U.S. that have had problems with the U.S. health system either. You claim 100% unsat; so I assume they have never had a good experience with the NHS then? Or all of 32 of them have had a bad experience at one time or another... those are two different things; and as I said earlier I'm pretty sure you could also find 32 relatives in the U.S. that have had a problem with their health care system. It doesn't mean it's a bad system, it just means it has it's faults... as does all things that aren't perfect.

[Steve Davies]

I did. You said he was not qualified to participate in a debate with anecdotal evidence, then you used your own anecdotal evidence as your only argument. I do not see a difference.

I said that calling the HHS shitty on the basis of knowing a few relatives who had had bad experiences did not qualify him to make that statement. I then explained that the NHS treats about 4.5m in-patients every year (so you can probably triple that for out-patients), the implication being that branding an entire institution "shitty" on the basis of a couple of bad stories is simply silly. Then I said that I had 35 years' worth of *first-hand* experience of the NHS (read: not anecdotal), and that I thought it was a good system overall. Let me know if you still don't understand.

[Steve Davies]

Been on the road TDY and have to admit that I am not/have not conducted a thesis on the Brit NHS. That being said, my Brit relatives came to the US to get treatment for various things because the NHS was making them wait months for MRI's etc.

You have successfully identified that the NHS is not perfect and that people who can afford to can, and do, opt for private treatment at home and abroad. I do it whenever I can afford to, but there are still lots of things that I rely on the NHS for - doctors appointments for general aliments and bouts of illness, prescription medications, asthma clinics, emergency treatment etc.

Can some waiting lists be quite long? Yes, they can. But in such instances, and where the illness is life threatening, the NHS pays for patients to go private, whether that be in domestic of foreign hospitals (and as the patient, you get to choose where you go). I think that is pretty damned commendable.

In summary, you still have not shown any evidence that the NHS health care system is "shitty".

Now if the standard on commenting on ANYsubject here at Baseops is that the commenter have conducted adouble-blind study or provide government/industry sponsoredresearch..... then I guess we need to let everyone know that.

I am glad to see that as a half-Brit, you have managed to master the art of sarcasm (once decried the lowest form of whit, but we do it all the time regardless). Well done.

However, to be serious for a moment: the standard of commenting on Baseops is really that you look at the bigger picture and don't make sweeping generalisations that fail to take all of the available facts into account. The facts are out there, but you have to be arsed to actually find them. But since you're too busy defending your position, let me help you out:

An independent 2009 NHS satisfaction survey found (Source: National Centre for Social Research)

76% of Britons were happy with the service provided by their community NHS doctors

60% said they were happy with their out-patient experiences at NHS hospitals

(I would need to dig deeper to find the responses from in-patients, but I think the above makes a pretty strong point and I have a vague recollection of the overall figure being in the mid-50s)

You can see then that the majority of people who actually use the NHS (versus having some relatives in a distant land telling them they didn't have a good experience) say that they are happy with it. *Clearly*, it is not a perfect system. But is it "shitty"? Far from it.

ALL, I repeat allof my English relatives (living in London, Manchester and Liverpool)have had problems with the NHS. That's a 100% unsat rate out of 32British citizens. Now when I did my thesis and conducted historicalresearch, I gathered as much relevant information about theproblem/topic as possible.

You gathered as much as possible? 32 people out of the tens of millions of patients each year? And then you passed judgement on the NHS as being "shitty"?

The authenticity and veracity of the Brit NHS informationcame from my relatives as sources. Drawing the conclusion that I did(based on my relatives) provided the narrative.

So, you sat down with them and asked them to tell you about all the good experiences, all the bad ones, and all the things they liked and disliked? Your dissertation should have contained an appendix with your research in it; can you post it?

* So in the future, lets all end every post with the following:

Thispost is solely my opinion or experience. I have not personallyconducted any scientific research that would lendqualitative/quantitative data to this forum topic. The collection,examination, summarization, manipulation, and interpretation of data todiscover its underlying causes, patterns, relationships, and trends wasnot done prior to adding my comments.

Based on a lackadaisical attempt to defend your weak hypothesis, I agree that you do need to caveat future posts with something.

[Guest SATCOM]

Are you related to this guy?

[Smokin]

I understand what you mean, but I was merely pointing out that your "35 years' worth of *first-hand* experience" is still anecdotal evidence (being 'Based on casual observations or indications rather than rigorous or scientific analysis' - www.thefreedictionary.com) which is exactly what you were attacking the previous posts for. Your latest post solved that to a degree. I was not taking sides as I do not pretend to know very much about the British health care system, I was merely pointing out the irony of your argument.

[Steve Davies]

I understand what you mean, but I was merely pointing out that your "35 years' worth of *first-hand* experience" is still anecdotal evidence (being 'Based on casual observations or indications rather than rigorous or scientific analysis' - www.thefreedictionary.com) which is exactly what you were attacking the previous posts for. Your latest post solved that to a degree. I was not taking sides as I do not pretend to know very much about the British health care system, I was merely pointing out the irony of your argument.

Having read it again, I agree that you have a point. I also concede your point about the irony behind my original statement, and I am glad that I have gone some way towards addressing the matter.

It's good to hear that you are open minded about the NHS.

[Cell Dweller]

Wow, this thread has broken down fast.

Advice for Steve and SATCOM: Don't get butt-hurt because someone expressed their opinion on the internet.