Early Risers.

[DDolfelin]

Would someone kindly let me know for what a Hudl might be used?

We don't play 'games' and prefer paper books.

I have several cameras.

We also have a TV.

Does it make 'phone calls or surf ERs?

Can one print off it?

 

Sorry about my tablet ignorance but I've tried Google and all sites seem to start with a presumption that the reader knows what it does.

Edited November 5, 2014 by DDolfelin

[iL Dottore]

....Nowadays, the hospital seems to want you out and at home ASAP - a neighbour here had a double bypass and was sent home three days after surgery.  This approach seems to be a lot like bean counting.....

Not necessarily, prolonged bedrest is sometimes neither needed nor beneficial. Early ambulation is often desirable in many post-op care programmes. There is, of course, a darker side to early discharge. I am not speaking about "saving" money (although it may be a factor) but rather because post-op patients who are discharged have a lower risk of picking up an infection, especially one of the nosocomial infections with one of the MDR or XDR (multidrug-resistant, extensively-drug resistant) pathogens. Hospital cleanliness is only part of the equation, incorrect antibiotic use by both physicians and patients are a major part of the "resistant bug" problem.

 

Anyway, the important thing is that you are on the way to full recovery. Good Luck That Man!

[Debs.]

Just when we thought it couldn't get any more bizarre.

 

Found that in one of our gent's loos that there's a guy practising the violin.

 

He's good, though.

 

At least he was only fiddling with himself!

[jamie92208]

At least he was only fiddling with himself!

We desperately need that 'Groan' button.

 

Jamie

[Tony_S]

Would someone kindly let me know for what a Hudl might be used?

We don't play 'games' and prefer paper books.

I have several cameras.

We also have a TV.

Does it make 'phone calls or surf ERs?

Can one print off it?

 

Sorry about my tablet ignorance but I've tried Google and all sites seem to start with a presumption that the reader knows what it does.

I have one. I wouldn't recommend it as a camera replacement. Tablets are basically PCs without a keyboard. Storage is limited to installed memory or sometimes a SD memory card. The Hudl is fine for surfing ERs and other well known websites. I haven't watched any cinematic productions on it but youtube is fine. I didn't need one, I just wanted to see what all this Android tablet stuff was about. It has become my main link to the internet and for reading my Kindle library. The Hudl is just a good value tablet.

Yes you can print. It doesn't make phone calls. It needs WiFi and can receive / send emails and post to all your favourite social media sites. If I hadn't had £65 worth of Tesco vouchers I may have resisted the urge to own one. Not at all displeased though. They seem to be manufactured by Pegatron who also make things for some company called Apple.

Edited November 5, 2014 by Tony_S

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

...Quite frankly, if GPs and A&Es were allowed to levy a small fine (say 10 quid) on anyone that turns up without a valid medical reason (as determined by the doctor after examination), then perhaps the system will be less abused. Who knows...

Too small to have an effect. The NHS is grossly mismanaged in terms of any understanding of economics. This leads to a classic 'tragedy of the commons' where a freely shared resource is perceived as 'free' and uncontrolled use damages, and even risks wrecking, the whole thing.

 

How to control it? Economically. Everybody gets an 'allocation account' credited annually with their share of the national pot funding the NHS (same for everybody), and every invalid visit, every missed appointment, every unnecessary call, is debited against it. Run through your credit and start on an 'overdraft' and you will be charged full price for all and any time wasting thereafter for life. That'll fix it. Legitimate use remains completely free at point of need as it should be. The wasters get hit where they will feel it.

[Tony_S]

One of the assumptions is that the doctor one sees is competent. To carry out these fines they would need their contract stating how much they were going to earn to do so. Then there would be an appeals procedure. Not turning up to a gp or hospital appointment is very naughty but I used get discharge letters from the local hospital for missed appointments that had never been made. Excuse "the computer". This was the same hospital that told me I was wasting their time. Fortunately my GP didn't agree and sent me elsewhere.

[trisonic]

When I go to my GP over here I pay $15.00

I also get a copy of the bill that goes to the Ins. Co. itemizing his time, what tests I’ve had, examinations etc., this makes it possible to understand how the costs are made up. A typical visit costs about $175.00 in total - I can’t imagine that the real costs of visiting a Doctor in the UK is that much different.

 

If I get sent to a Specialist the same thing happens.

 

I suppose my point really is that to see these onward billings it’s possible to understand the true cost - which is what you don’t see with a Doctor’s visit in the UK.

 

Btw unless you’ve been in a road accident most people do not realize that you will get a bill from the Ambulance service in the UK - doesn’t matter who’s fault it is you will get a bill for service. Over here we would not get a bill from our own township ambulance service but they will bill out of towners.

 

Best, Pete.

[Shedman5]

 

Btw unless you’ve been in a road accident most people do not realize that you will get a bill from the Ambulance service in the UK - doesn’t matter who’s fault it is you will get a bill for service. Over here we would not get a bill from our own township ambulance service but they will bill out of towners.

 

Best, Pete.

 

My experiences with my late mother and father in law and my general understanding is that you can be charged  if involved in a rta, but the cost is usually paid for by the insurance company.

 

I have lost count of how many times ambulances were called usually in the early hours of the morning for both of them over the last 4 years and we have never seen a bill.

 

Maybe someone  on here is in the know?

[45156]

I suppose my point really is that to see these onward billings it’s possible to understand the true cost

Agreed, Pete.  I went private once and the hospital sent the bill to me instead of to the insurance company.  It was itemised down to the last three inches of micropore, and included every item that had been used in the procedure.

[Ian Abel]

HUMP day is upon us (well, you lot got it hours ago!)...

 

Various items;

i) Our friend is now scheduled for a triple-bypass on Friday. He is in intensive care at the hospital right now, stable and his heart has no damage from the attack thankfully. I know it's a very routine op now, my dad had one more than 40 years ago which went fine and we know quite a few others that have had them all very successful. Things are much improved since then and certainly more routine even though major surgery is always a serious affair. Mrs will spend the day with her best friend at the hospital as she waits through the operation - fingers crossed.

We DID tell him it was a hell of a way to avoid the retro-60s cocktail party we were giving on Friday evening - he was unsure he could come up with the "10 trivia questions from the '60's - '70's" we'd charged attendees to bring with them

 

ii) Metformin - baaahhhhh. More than a year ago my doc. "suggested" I take it as an easier approach to control that the diet/exercise we were/are doing. I'm marginal and she felt it would be a simple way to control the level. Well, given the original dose gave me raging headaches, the gamut of intenstinal functions/or not, and sleepless nights, we "tried" halving the does - no change in side-effects. I dropped that like the proverbial hot-potato! She suggested this year we try it again (no REAL reason, as I'm still the same level and marginal/no concerns) but I'm sorry, I don't need to feel like complete crap so I can feel seem better??? It's rather a contradiction isn't it? Then again I'm no doctor!

 

iii) Heath Care/Insurance is a hot topic in the US, especially after the passage of the Affordable Care Act.

Folks are all over the place with opinions - the famous "opinions are like a**rs*e**ho**le*s, everyone has one!". All I know is that my coverage (through work) is pretty good, BUT, the health care/pharmaceutical industry is out of control cost-wise.

NO-ONE can convince me it costs more than $2000 US to spend 15 minutes shoving a small camera on a bendy pipe up my bum, one doctor, one nurse, a local anasthetic, a clever big-screen TV and a small room! Even with almost all of it covered by insurance (meaning I'm paying for it ANYWAY with my monthly premiums), the basic COST is nuts - sorry if I'm missing anything here, but I still don't buy all the arguments about research/ammortising equipment costs, blah, blah. Most of the clients I work with ARE health care providers (large hospital consortiums) and they piss money away like crazy, so all they're doing is recouping those expenses via inflated care/services prices to the patients. IMHO.

 

That's that lot out of the way <phew> 

 

Weather here is turning distinctly "Minnesotan", 2 on the drive in this morning, headed for maybe 6-7, cloudy and raining for now. -3 overnight with slush/snow across a broad area of northern/central Minnesota, maybe several inches, possibly some snow/slush here on grassy areas by morning.

Edited November 5, 2014 by Ian Abel

[DDolfelin]

I have one. I wouldn't recommend it as a camera replacement. Tablets are basically PCs without a keyboard. Storage is limited to installed memory or sometimes a SD memory card. The Hudl is fine for surfing ERs and other well known websites. I haven't watched any cinematic productions on it but youtube is fine. I didn't need one, I just wanted to see what all this Android tablet stuff was about. It has become my main link to the internet and for reading my Kindle library. The Hudl is just a good value tablet.

Yes you can print. It doesn't make phone calls. It needs WiFi and can receive / send emails and post to all your favourite social media sites. If I hadn't had £65 worth of Tesco vouchers I may have resisted the urge to own one. Not at all displeased though. They seem to be manufactured by Pegatron who also make things for some company called Apple.

 

Thank you for taking that trouble, Tony.

A problem we have is that even mobile phones don't get a signal here.

[bluebottle]

. . . . . . . . . .

Anyway as a break from tales of the NHS today we're off to the pictures (movies) to see the y released 'Mr Turner'.  The reviews are mixed but it does sound interesting, I quite like Mike Leigh's work and I find Tim Spall an interesting and quite well accomplished actor so I'll no doubt tolerate the 150 minutes of film; not so sure about Mrs Stationmaster.  But we're in the cinema club so it won't cost anything beyond what we paid to join and our allocation of free tickets is greater than the equivalent cost of wrinklies ticket for the same number of films.

. . . . . . . . . .

 

Let's know what you think of the film, Mike. JMW Turner, my most favoured artist since schooldays, was a fascinating character, and I'm sure that Mike Leigh and Timothy Spall will have accomplished a good representation of his life and work. I rarely go to the pictures these days, but this will be a must.

 

Edit: trimmed down quote to relevant part.

Edited November 5, 2014 by bluebottle

[trisonic]

 

 

NO-ONE can convince me it costs more than $2000 US to spend 15 minutes shoving a small camera on a bendy pipe up my bum, one doctor, one nurse, a local anasthetic, a clever big-screen TV and a small room! Even with almost all of it covered by insurance (meaning I'm paying for it ANYWAY with my monthly premiums), the basic COST is nuts - sorry if I'm missing anything here, but I still don't buy all the arguments about research/ammortising equipment costs, blah, blah. Most of the clients I work with ARE health care providers (large hospital consortiums) and they piss money away like crazy, so all they're doing is recouping those expenses via inflated care/services prices to the patients. IMHO.

 

I’ll try, Ian. Most colonoscopy endoscopes also now include a polyp laser zapper plus a device for taking tissue samples.

 

In my mind a colonoscopy is cheap compared to the alternative.......

 

Of course under the NHS you’d send a turd off in the mail - but if it’s positive it is often too late. Yes, I know that they perform colonoscopies over there too but for my brother Nick (RIP) in Wales it was far too late and the colon cancer (bowel cancer to the Brits) finally killed him.

 

Best, Pete.

[Tony_S]

Thank you for taking that trouble, Tony.

A problem we have is that even mobile phones don't get a signal here.

You would have to get your WiFi signal from your internet hub/router. Do you have something like a BThomehub? That is how my Hudl connects to the internet as it doesn't have a wired connector. My brother had a 3g dongle for his tablet (make unknown) but if you can't get a mobile phone signal that isn't much help. You will just have to move to Estonia, lots of free WiFi there!

[Killybegs]

Thanks for the advice John (and others) - I was told I can drive as soon as I can wear a seat belt without discomfort, as the strain if I did an emergency stop would be too much.  They indicated for this particular injury that a week should be OK.  Lifting is a no-no for at least six weeks and that is to include heavy domestic tasks. 

 

Nowadays, the hospital seems to want you out and at home ASAP - a neighbour here had a double bypass and was sent home three days after surgery.  This approach seems to be a lot like bean counting, as Jock said earlier, as it may take the strain off the hospital, but it places a lot more of the aftercare responsibility onto the GP network, which of course will be a different cost centre within the NHS, and therefore the hospital can effectively "save" but at the cost of the GP budget.  Talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul.....

 

I have to admit mine was done at a private hospital as my employer paid for PHI. I guess as long as someone is paying, they don't mind how long you stay!

 

John

[jamie92208]

My experiences with my late mother and father in law and my general understanding is that you can be charged  if involved in a rta, but the cost is usually paid for by the insurance company.

 

I have lost count of how many times ambulances were called usually in the early hours of the morning for both of them over the last 4 years and we have never seen a bill.

 

Maybe someone  on here is in the know?

It's a quirk of the Road Traffic Acts here in the UK.  You get charged after an rta but not in any other circumstances.   I believe that the fire service can charge for things other than fires such as getting cats down from trees.

 

Jamie

[PhilJ W]

The sun is now shining so I will venture out as soon as the postman calls (I'm expecting a package).

Well the postman called but still no package, I've e-mailed the vendor and awaiting a reply. I bought the Hudl so that I can keep in touch with RMweb etc. when I'm out and about, but another week to go before the hub is available. Be back later, model railway club night tonight. 

[Tony_S]

I bought the Hudl so that I can keep in touch with RMweb etc. when I'm out and about, but another week to go before the hub is available.

 

Do be careful waving your Hudl about looking for free WiFi in Basildon. You could be on the front page of the Evening Echo.

[Ohmisterporter]

Evening all. Some interesting points being raised regarding health care provision. I am all in favour of patients being charged for ambulance trips, I know from personal experience that there seems to be a belief that the ambulance is some form of taxi service. I hear people complain about having to wait two hours for an ambulance to take them home, why didn't they get a taxi? I've known students cut their finger whilst cooking and call for an ambulance to take them to hospital. Let's hope they get a hefty bill for that. There should be a call out charge for unwarranted calls. In patient meals is a topic that comes up in the national media, usually moaning about how poor they are. I had a chance to eat in the staff canteen in my local hospital and thought the food was very reasonable both in quality and price. The difference is that the staff have to pay for the meals whilst the patients don't. If the patients were at home they would be buying their own food so why expect the hospital to provide it at no charge? And then complain about the standard of it. Anyone else heard someone moan about the quality of the food and add that the portions were too small as well?

 

In the UK the NHS is virtually sacrosanct even though it has become a political football and every change to the NHS culture is fought over and opposed. No politician who is not intending to retire will propose scrapping it and nor would I, it has saved my life more than once, admittedly it put me at death's door with wrongly prescribed medication at one time but no hard feelings, it brought me back. As for the cost to the individual, does anyone know how much each individual in the UK contributes to the  overall cost? And how much private health care could be bought with that sum.

[New Haven Neil]

No more NHS tales from me - I gave 18 years of my life to it from the inside, and it was there for me 2 years ago when I really needed it as a patient.

 

I was looking at a Hornby P2 at work today - it's rather splendid, and almost got me back into modelling the LNER after 30 years of other things!  If only they had more stock for us to sell.....hell of a way to run a company.

[The Stationmaster]

Stewart, when I had my hernia op I was off driving and any lifting for three weeks. Because I was living on my own at the time, I wasn't allowed out of the hospital until I could walk up and down stairs without grimacing. Oh and my bowels had to be moving easily!

 

SO TAKE IT EASY!

 

John

I wasn't allowed to drive for  nearly 15 years after my (second ) hernia op  (but then I was only 2 when I had that op).

[iL Dottore]

Evening All,

Cold and very wet here today. Despite the weather, the "wolf pack" and I completed the usual morning stroll, but by lunchtime it was so bad we cut the walk short (just 20 minutes). I swear Lucy has a sense of entitlement and privilege that is growing exponentially... This evening, I opened the door to the garden so that she could perform her before bed ablutions and it was still raining. She gave me a look as if to say, "you want me to go out in THAT?!" Needless to say I reminded her of the old BB King song: Paying The Cost To Be The Boss. She went out.

Busy few days in the kitchen ahead, Mrs iD has volunteered me to provide patisserie to the local dog club - I'll be baking a French Apple Cake and An English Cherry Cake.

Have a splendid evening

iD

Edited November 5, 2014 by iL Dottore

[New Haven Neil]

I'm wondering if iL Dottore should be taking commissions for food rather than buildings......

 

Not many fireworks here tonight at all, surprising.  There is a big display in Ramsey 5 miles away, maybe everyone from our village went there .

[travelintrev]

Evening all, 

 

Take back all I said (based on other peoples stories) about Bristol buses!  Plane landed  around 9:40,  10:12  I was on the bus (airport flyer)  having bought a through  ticket for  nine pounds  which allowed me single  journey from airport  to  most of the  City of Bristol,  into the central bus station, (via Temple Meads Station) , five minutes later  on a local bus which dropped me at the end of daughters road. .Certainly more "integrated"  than the  National Express Service from LHR!  Rest of day spent playing with  Grand kids Biro railway...!  

 

Ex now has acquired a short haired Collie puppy -- a complete nut case on first sight..... photo ( if it ever stays still enough! ) tomorrow.  Eye test in the morning . 

 

Bed time for me now, 

Nite - night!