Three more grim “this is your future” stories out of Britain

1.  A major bed and midwife shortage has thousands of women giving birth in offices, hallways and even toilets. It sounds like a scene out of a bad war movie or a history of the Soviet Union, but it’s modern Britain under an imploding socialized medicine system:

Thousands of women are having to give birth outside maternity wards because of a lack of midwives and hospital beds.

The lives of mothers and babies are being put at risk as births in locations ranging from lifts to toilets – even a caravan – went up 15 per cent last year to almost 4,000.

Health chiefs admit a lack of maternity beds is partly to blame for the crisis, with hundreds of women in labour being turned away from hospitals because they are full.

Latest figures show that over the past two years there were at least:

* 63 births in ambulances and 608 in transit to hospitals;
* 117 births in A&E departments, four in minor injury units and two in medical assessment areas;
* 115 births on other hospital wards and 36 in other unspecified areas including corridors;
* 399 in parts of maternity units other than labour beds, including postnatal and antenatal wards and reception areas.

Additionally, overstretched maternity units shut their doors to any more women in labour on 553 occasions last year.

Babies were born in offices, lifts, toilets and a caravan, according to the Freedom of Information data for 2007 and 2008 from 117 out of 147 trusts which provide maternity services.

You can read the rest of this very painful story here.  Childbirth is a stressful enough situation without being shunted from pillar to post.  Those British women have my utmost sympathy.

2.  A man almost died from a ruptured appendix three weeks after British surgeons purportedly removed it.  Ordinarily, I’d classify this simply as an “it could happen anywhere” malpractice story, but it seems to be part and parcel of a failing medical system, rather than an ordinary human error aberration.

3.  In Britain, the burqa has become almost de riguer, as thousands of Islamic women wander the streets like animated black tents.  It’s no surprise that enterprising thieves are taking advantage of its useful anonymity:

Police are searching for a burqa-clad man who helped steal designer watches worth £150,000 in an armed robbery yesterday.

Staff at the shop told police the offenders, including the one wearing the burkha, were all male.

The other two were wearing dark clothing and had their faces covered. All are thought to be Asian.  [Translation:  Pakistani.]

[snip]

Last month, a man dressed in a black burqa entered First Choice Travel in Broadwalk, Dunstable, and threatened two female workers with a knife before stealing cash and escaping through the back door.

In a similar robbery this month, a man, again dressed in a black burqa entered Thomson travel shop in George Street, Luton, and threatened female staff with a knife and taking a large amount of cash.

Read more here.