Will Media Report British Babies Being Born In Hospital Corridors?

As Barack Obama and a Democrat-controlled Congress try to force radical healthcare reform down the throats of the American people, wouldn't it be nice if the news media disclosed the truth about what's happening in countries whose government's already provide such services?

Take for example Great Britain where the strains on the system are such that an increasing number of mothers are giving births in hospital corridors and elevators due to the lack of beds in maternity wards.

One would think press members interested in disseminating the truth would find what was reported by the Daily Mail Wednesday an essential part of the healthcare debate presently taking place on Capitol Hill and town hall meetings across the fruited plain:

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.

Here are the numbers for the past two years:

• 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.

One woman gave birth in a lift while being transferred to a labour ward from A&E while another gave birth in a corridor, said East Cheshire NHS Trust.

Others said women had to give birth on the wards - rather than in their own maternity room - because the delivery suites were full.

Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley, who obtained the figures, said Labour had cut maternity beds by 2,340, or 22 per cent, since 1997. At the same time birth rates have been rising sharply - up 20 per cent in some areas.

Doesn't sound good, does it?

Will America's media share this data with the electorate or continue to hide the truth about what's going on in nations that already have government-run healthcare? 

In case they surprise us and actually cover this, maybe they ought to also mention the English man that had to have his appendix removed TWICE: 

After weeks of excruciating pain, Mark Wattson was understandably relieved to have his appendix taken out.

Doctors told him the operation was a success and he was sent home.

But only a month later the 35-year-old collapsed in agony and had to be taken back to Great Western Hospital in Swindon by ambulance. [...]

To his shock, surgeons from the same team told him that not only was his appendix still inside him, but it had ruptured  -  a potentially fatal complication.

In a second operation it was finally removed, leaving Mr Wattson fearing another organ might have been taken out during the first procedure.

The blunder has left Mr Wattson jobless, as bosses at the shop where he worked did not believe his story and sacked him.

Compensation payments to NHS patients have risen by 20 per cent in the past year to a record high of £769million. At this rate more than £2million a day is being paid over claims against the Health Service.