March 19, 2009 8:31AM # Third-World Accommodations By [Michael F. Cannon](https://www.cato.org/people/michael-f-cannon) --- SHARE In the 2003 film [*The Barbarian Invasions*](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=2756), a patient’s wealthy son offers a handsome bribe to the administrator of a decrepit, chaotic, state-run hospital in Montreal that is (mis)treating his dying father. “This is silly,” the startled administrator exclaims. “We’re not in the Third World.” Britain’s health-care system is perhaps slightly less state-dominated than Canada’s. Yet today comes the following [report](http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.09affc88c9815310300a92378aed0564.2f1&show_article=1): > The British government apologised Wednesday after a damning official report into a hospital likened by one patient’s relative to “a Third World” health centre… > > > Between 400 and 1,200 more people died than would have been expected in a three-year period at the National Health Service (NHS) hospital, according to an investigation by the Healthcare Commission watchdog. > > > Receptionists with no medical training were left to to assess patients arriving at the hospital’s accident and emergency department, the report found. > > > Julie Bailey, whose 86-year-old mother Bella died in the hospital in November 2007, said she and other family members slept in a chair at her bedside for eight weeks because they were so concerned about poor care. > > > “What we saw in those eight weeks will haunt us for the rest of our lives,” said the 47-year-old. “We saw patients drinking out of flower vases they were so thirsty. > > > “There were patients wandering around the hospital and patients fighting. It was continuous through the night. Patients were screaming out in pain because you just could not get pain relief. > > > “It was like a Third World country hospital. It was an absolute disgrace.” The politicians quoted in the story promised, again, that, you know, they would improve things. ##### Related Tags [General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).