How Socialized Medicine Almost Killed Me

[UltraBudgie]

Sorry to hear that @SurferSoul. Yeah I had a doctor warn me ("off the record") about the stuff 15 years ago luckily. He was right. Of course in American grain problem are also with the strains that have been bred for shelf-life rather than quality, chemical nutrition with water-feeding rather than living soil, massive amounts of folic acid added to "make up" for lack of nutritional value, treatment with potassium bromide because yeast doesn't really work with the garbage to make bread without it, as well as saturation with glyphosate. Whew.

It's almost like there's one industry profiting off of making the food cause cancer and illness, and another profiting on attempting to treat it. Mo' money! A flaw of profit-driven medicine, perhaps. Or late-stage capitalism. Although as OP points out, other systems may have their flaws too.

[ArMaP]

Conventional allopathic medicine which uses pharmaceutical industry drugs is the way things are done everywhere generally and that is not conducive to health this is what I'm saying, so good luck when you don't have a clue what's wrong with you and you are dependent on drug pushers, very expensive ones or free.

Many years ago, it was noticed that the left side of my face, under my chin, was bigger than the right side, and when feeling it we could feel a small, hard, lump, so I was taken to the doctor. After some exams, they reached the conclusion that the problem was a blocked salivary gland, so they put me on the surgery list to remove it.

Meanwhile, my mother was informed about a nearby homeopathic doctor, so we tried it.
The doctor look at me, looked into my eyes with a magnifying glass, and prescribed a medication that had to be made in France, specifically for me. He also told my mother to get some clay from a nearby cliff and apply it to the affected place every day. I also had to follow a strict diet for a month, starting with three days eating only vegetables.

It worked. The hard lump started getting smaller until it disappeared and my salivary gland started working again, so I'm all for "alternative medicine".
But, as it was not recognised as "official" medicine, it was not paid by the Social Security of by the health system.

Today, things are better, as there are seven "alternative" practices officially recognised:
- Acupuncture;
- Phytotherapy;
- Homeopathy;
- Traditional Chinese Medicine;
- Naturopathy;
- Osteopathy;
- Chiropractic.

[ArMaP]

Anyway the NHS saved my life and there is no way I would have been able to afford the hugely expensive immunotherapy drugs if it was private.

Although my father ended up dying from prostate cancer, one pill he took once a month was around half a minimum wage each pill, but cancer medicines and treatments are free in Portugal.

The father of a work colleague has been getting treatment for a lung cancer on a private hospital, and even partially paid by the state (he was in the Navy), he has spent several thousands of Euros and even had to make a complaint because, when he was in the hospital after the first surgery, they were not doing the things as the doctors told him they were going to be done, they were applying to him another person's treatment.

PS: this hospital is considered one of the best in Europe, specialized in cancer research.

[Kwaka]

- Homeopathy;

It is strange how waked out the vaccination crowed has become with such disdain for homeopathy. Homeopathy principles include treating kind with kind, but at more moderate levels. The same core principle vaccinations use to be about.

As for the topic in Australia, got a socialists health system here. Helped with all  my busted bones and bruisers growing up. Sad to hear how some people lose their homes and lives due to a temporary injury. I would of been dead long ago without it.

Emergency does great with things they can see. Otherwise, avoiding doctors appears good for my health. Learn about the immune system and treat your own wounds when you can. The history of hospitals was a place to die. Been some improvements and some ongoing problems from those days.

[sahgwa]

I suppose it depends on where we live. Where I live, Almada, we have to wait around 2 months for an X-Ray (unless we are in the emergency at the hospital), but it's not the national health system that does the X-Rays, they are private clinics that have an agreement with the national health system.


That's partially true.
Yes, we have a lack of personnel, specially out of the big cities.
No, we have enough people working and paying into it, in the last two years, the payments all workers must do to the Social Security were more than the Social Security expenses. But, on the other hand, the annual taxes paid by the people got a small reduction, although the number of people having enough income to have to file the tax return increased. The taxes paid by the companies had an increase, so I suppose the government is investing in the wrong areas, as usual...


The increase of payments to the Social Security was a result of the increase in immigrants working legally.
And no, immigrants do not have more rights than Portuguese citizens or preferential treatment, unless those are personal choices of those that are following whatever processes the immigrants are applying to.

PS: I work in a software company, but it has a sister company, an accounting company, and they have around 50 immigrants clients working for Uber Eats or Glovo, so I have some knowledge of their situation. Besides those 50, they also have around 10 that have their own companies, so those have slightly different problems and possible solutions.

Edited to add that a work colleague has an insurance plan, so she goes to a private clinic/hospital for all her and her family's problems, but in the last occasions she had to go there she noticed that the public health system problems are now beginning to appear on the private sector, with too man people waiting for an appointment, resulting in long waits, so it looks like the private sector has been free of problems because of a smaller user base.

Heres another sad one about failure of socialised medicine in Portugal; for the sake of discussion:

https://www.publico.pt/2025/08/12/socied...4?sfnsn=mo

A young pregnant woman who was an at risk pregnancy due to lacking a kidney; her usual or assigned maternity ward was too full to accept her. 
They called the SNS24 Line but were told there were no ambulances for her, to take a car.  Then they called 112  but the emergency services were too busy to answer. She had to drive herself and she had to give birth on the street , literally, in front of a bakery.

[SurferSoul]

Heres another sad one about failure of socialised medicine in Portugal; for the sake of discussion:

https://www.publico.pt/2025/08/12/socied...4?sfnsn=mo

A young pregnant woman who was an at risk pregnancy due to lacking a kidney; her usual or assigned maternity ward was too full to accept her. 
They called the SNS24 Line but were told there were no ambulances for her, to take a car.  Then they called 112  but the emergency services were too busy to answer. She had to drive herself and she had to give birth on the street , literally, in front of a bakery.

That’s not a failure of socialised medicine per se,  that’s a failure of ambulances being in high demand a short supply and the wards being to busy. There is the same problem in the UK, not enough staff, cuts made all over the place etc.. If everyone was forced to go private then the privatised health sector would also face the same issues. 
The problem in the UK is the population has increased dramatically, housing is going up all over the place, but there is no comparative investment in new schools, hospitals and infrastructure in general. So demand outstrips supply.

[SurferSoul]

Sorry to hear that @SurferSoul. Yeah I had a doctor warn me ("off the record") about the stuff 15 years ago luckily. He was right. Of course in American grain problem are also with the strains that have been bred for shelf-life rather than quality, chemical nutrition with water-feeding rather than living soil, massive amounts of folic acid added to "make up" for lack of nutritional value, treatment with potassium bromide because yeast doesn't really work with the garbage to make bread without it, as well as saturation with glyphosate. Whew.

It's almost like there's one industry profiting off of making the food cause cancer and illness, and another profiting on attempting to treat it. Mo' money! A flaw of profit-driven medicine, perhaps. Or late-stage capitalism. Although as OP points out, other systems may have their flaws too.

I only buy sourdough bread these days, the other breads are total crap, just reading the ingredients is a turn off the next is the taste. There are many “European” stores opened where there are lots of east Europeans are, this is because our food is mostly junk. I went to a Middle East type store in the nearest city and they had fresh veg that wasn’t labelled “organic” though it was obviously fresh from somewhere, no plastic or silly packaging, carrots that weren’t straight and still had the green leaves on and a little soil still on the roots. It was quite cheap too. You would be paying top dollar for that stuff anywhere else. 


It certainly does seem to be a case of one industry cutting corners to increase profits at the expense of our health and another industry not quite treating our dis-ease and perpetuating it for more profit. Kind of like the subscription model being pushed on everything these days. (Keep paying for something and never own it outright) 

It’s not a fault of capitalism, socialism or any political ideology. It’s a problem of corruption and wanton greed. No country on earth has ever experienced a fair system for any length of time that wasn’t corrupted and abused. The various systems do have flaws though which is partly why I’m an anarchist or at the very least would favour a modernised version of a demarchy.

[ArMaP]

Heres another sad one about failure of socialised medicine in Portugal; for the sake of discussion:

https://www.publico.pt/2025/08/12/socied...4?sfnsn=mo

A young pregnant woman who was an at risk pregnancy due to lacking a kidney; her usual or assigned maternity ward was too full to accept her. 
They called the SNS24 Line but were told there were no ambulances for her, to take a car.  Then they called 112  but the emergency services were too busy to answer. She had to drive herself and she had to give birth on the street , literally, in front of a bakery.

It's not a problem of socialized medicine or not.

Apparently, and according to the preliminary report about the situation, the operator that answered the call to the SNS24 (it's a private company that does that work) made an error while applying the algorithm they use to manage patients and resources.

[sahgwa]

It's not a problem of socialized medicine or not.

Apparently, and according to the preliminary report about the situation, the operator that answered the call to the SNS24 (it's a private company that does that work) made an error while applying the algorithm they use to manage patients and resources.

Death/Mishap by algorithm. Even better!
Prepping for the NWO

[ArMaP]

Death/Mishap by algorithm. Even better!
Prepping for the NWO

You know what an algorithm is, right?