A horror story out of the United Kingdom shows just how close the British healthcare system is to collapse.
On Tuesday, the UK Daily Mail printed a horrific story about a 93-year-old woman in Wales who broke her hip and was left lying on the ground for 25 hours while waiting for help.
According to the report, Elizabeth Davies fell and broke her hip, and lay on the floor screaming in pain for 25 hours while waiting for an ambulance to arrive.
Mike reacts emotionally to the story of 93-year-old Elizabeth Davies who was left lying in pain on the floor with a hip injury for 25 hours waiting for an ambulance.
“We’re supposed to have a health service that is the envy of the world – it’s a disgrace!”@iromg pic.twitter.com/7wZ63o3W43
— TalkTV (@TalkTV) December 21, 2022
The horrors only continued after the ambulance finally arrived and took Davies to a hospital in Bangor, Wales.
There, she had to endure another 12-hour wait before being admitted to a ward.
Her son Ian told the Daily Mail, “It was very upsetting to have to see her lying on the floor screaming in pain for over 24 hours.”
The Welsh ambulance service later apologized, blaming the delay on winter weather and increased demand.
This horror story comes amid the largest strike by employees of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) since the 1980’s.
The Daily Mail also reports that the UK Health Minister has urged citizens to not call an ambulance unless their lives are at risk and to not engage in “risky activity.”
Meanwhile, the BBC is reporting that amid the strikes, ambulance delays have hit a new high in England.
The Mail reports that soldiers are being prepared for major action. They are being trained to fill in for striking ambulance workers during the strike.
This is not the only problem currently confronting public services in the United Kingdom. The country has also been hit with strikes from railroad workers and the border force.
Essentially, the UK’s public services are on the verge of collapse. But while these other strikes are indeed crippling to the life of the nation, the NHS strike is the most disastrous as it is now putting people’s lives at risk.
These stories also serve as a dire warning to the United States, where, for years, progressive politicians have backed plans for a universal healthcare system based on the models of European countries.
One of the most outspoken proponents of this plan is Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who, during his 2020 presidential run, proposed the idea of Medicare for All, which would cost the nation $750 billion over ten years.
Meanwhile, progressive Democratic socialists continue to point to countries such as the Nordic states as examples of the success of socialism, despite the fact that these nations are not really socialist.
But stories like this one out of the United Kingdom show that these universal government services work well in theory, but in practice, they collapse under intense strain.
Do we really want to live in a system that is liable to collapse every time things get difficult, or do we want a free market system that has proven itself resilient under pressure?
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.