Posted by
Andrews on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 4:49:24 PM
I wrote in "
Who Will Decide" that when we deal with a scarce resource there will always be those who receive goods and those who don't. I also argued, in "
Envy And Analogy", that under the free market the price mechanisms make us dedicate resources to most needed and highly demanded services, while not only will the government not know where to commit resources, but bureaucratic management ("
Bureaucratic Management" , "
The Bureaucratic Mind") will tend to encourage government employees to conceal shortages and deny any lack of services, making it impossible to correct shortfalls until they become critical.
I mention all of this because what I describe apparently
has come to pass in Britain:
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.
I know that in some parts of the US there is a problem finding obstetricians because of liability cases and exorbitant malpractice insurance (thank you John Edwards!), but for this to become a nationwide phenomenon speaks volumes about the perverse incentives built into government run medical care.
POSTSCRIPT
I have written a lot on this topic, but would recommend reading "
Confirmation, Yet Again", "
Can Anyone Make Sense of This?", "
Who Will Decide", "
Shameless Self-Promotion", "
Organ Donation", "
Envy Kills", "
Government Efficiency", "
High Cost of Medical Care", "
Clarification of My Argument for a Free Market in Medicine" and "
Envy And Analogy". I also would recommend reading "
You Don't Drown in a Glass of Water - Vouchers Revisited", "
Why Vouchers are not the Answer" and "
Never Ascribe To Evil, A Discussion of Education" which discuss the similar problems caused by bureaucracy in the school system. Finally, in contrast I would recommend "
Planning For Imperfection", "
Greed Versus Evil", "
The Importance of Error" and "
Fairness and the Free Market" for a few arguments in favor of the free market.
POSTSCRIPT II
I have to give credit to
Best of the Web for bringing this article to my attention.