Over the weekend I flew to Michigan, U.S.A, to visit my mum in hospital.

The first thing which struck me as I drove up to the entrance was the valet parking.

As I pulled under the canopy in front of the main reception, a pleasant young man in smart chinos and bomber jacket opened the door for me, welcomed me to "Beaumont" and whisked the car away.

A small gesture, maybe, but after a hastily-arranged eight-hour transatlantic flight and the anxious prospect of visiting someone you love in intensive care it came as a huge kindness, for which I was more than happy to hand over four dollars.

Now, I know what many of you are thinking. This was obviously a cripplingly-expensive, exclusive private hospital, open only to a privileged few.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The hospital boasts: "Beaumont treats all patients regardless of ability to pay." Check it out on the web if you don't believe me.

Last year the William Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, to give it its full title, provided more than $90 million dollars' worth of treatment not covered by Medicare, the US government's "safety net" service for those without private medical insurance.

Patients with earnings of less than twice the official poverty line - currently defined as a family of four on under $41,300 a year (about £21,000 at the current exchange rate) - are treated free.

Above that level, there's a sliding scale of discounts. Beaumont also provides another $27 million worth of care in the community, absolutely gratis.

The hospital is funded by medical insurance, donations from generous benefactors and research grants and endowments.

The reason I'm telling you this is that the usual suspects are all getting terribly excited about the latest piece of anti-American propaganda being peddled round the world's film festivals by Michael Moore, of Fahrenheit 9/11 fame.

His new movie, Sicko, contrasts the evil American medical system with the glorious run-by-the-people, forthepeople "free" health services in Britain and Canada.

He'd have you believe that in the U.S.A. the only people who qualify for medical treatment are the super-rich, while millions more without insurance are turned away by heartless, profitdriven hospitals and condemned to agonising deaths.

It's a grotesque caricature, which has gormless Left-wing audiences cheering from California to Camden Town.

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The truth is that while the wealthy can expect better-appointed private rooms and fancier menus and will automatically receive state-of-the-art attention, for which they'll pay through the nose, no one in need is ever refused treatment.

According to Moore, the only answer to the gross disparity between rich and poor Stateside is to nationalise healthcare along the lines of our marvellous NHS.

I've only read the reviews, but Moore's film doesn't mention MRSA or C. difficile or the fact that this year 70,000 British citizens flew abroad to places such as Hungary and India to have surgery because they think the Black Hole of Calcutta is safer than your average NHS hospital.

In Britain you stand a far greater chance of dying from a superbug you caught after you were admitted to hospital than you do from the original ailment.

Yesterday, the Government was announcing proudly that MRSA cases fell last year to 'only' 6,381 and C. diff to "only" 13,360.

So that's all right, then. Everyone's got their own superbug horror story.

Here's two of mine. A few weeks ago, a friend's 76-year-old father had a minor procedure at a hospital in Goodmayes, Essex.

While there, he contracted a virulent strain of MRSA and had to be readmitted for two weeks while they pumped him full of antibiotics.

It's not just the elderly who are vulnerable to the slovenly standards of NHS cleanliness. Recently, another friend's PA, in her 20s, had a small, routine operation at a hospital in West London.

She, too, picked up a superbug and it was touch and go whether she made it through the night.

I'm happy to report that both are now on the mend.

But thousands more have been killed by NHS negligence and those to blame have not only escaped punishment, some - like that woman in Maidstone who allowed patients to wallow in their own excrement - have walked away with fat pay-offs running into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

If she'd been responsible for the same scandalous, cold-blooded corporate manslaughter in America, she'd be doing time in a federal penitentiary.

The other thing they understand in the US is the concept of patient dignity.

You don't get mixed sex wards or the chronically sick left lying around in corridors for hours on end.

I'm pretty confident that no one has ever died of MRSA in the Beaumont hospital, Michigan.

The place was spotless, even the public toilets - unlike the Whittington, in Highgate, the last NHS hospital in London I visited.

Although tens of millions had been spent on new buildings, the toilets were disgusting, a banquet for bacteria.

Look, I know that no system is perfect.

Healthcare in the US is expensive, but then so are foreign holidays and plasma screen televisions, which we don't seem to mind paying for in abundance.

And don't be taken in by the NHS "free at the point of use" garbage.

We pay a fortune in taxes for the health service, but the only way you can be sure of not being stuck in an interminable queue, sharing a ward with an incontinent member of the opposite sex or even coming out of hospital alive is by paying twice - buying private medical insurance.

At least in America you get the impression that the hospitals are run for the convenience of the patients, not the people who work there.

Even visitors are treated as guests, hence the valet parking.

In Britain, we don't have valet parking, we have clamping vans patrolling hospital car parks hoping to nobble anyone who exceeds their exorbitantlyexpensive waiting time by a few minutes and hit them with a huge fine and release fee and a trip to the pound on the other side of town.

That'll teach the bastards to linger too long at the bedsides of their sick relatives.

If my mum were still living in Essex, she'd probably have been admitted to the same hospital where my friend's dad contracted MRSA. That doesn't bear thinking about.

Valet parking or no valet parking, I'm bloody glad she's where she is.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/columnists.html?in_article_id=491192&in_page_id=1772&in_author_id=322&in_check=N

His new movie, Sicko, contrasts the evil American medical system with the glorious run-by-the-people, forthepeople "free" health services in Britain and Canada.

What can I say? Michael Moore reports do not accurately reflect the truth. I have no personnel experience of the US system, but I do know the Canadian and UK systems. Unfortunately what you post is only too true. I know too many that have had similar experiences.

I know the US and the UK systems well. My wife is a nurse here in the US and I've experienced a few family members die in hospitals in the UK, and also I have a relative at the moment in the hospital in the UK who contracted MSRA while in the hospital.

Sicko is a very valid & very to the point film about how fucked up the health care system is in the US. Health care just like education should not be 'for profit', but it alsp shouldn't be handled by a bloated civil service like in the UK. Keep competition, just create health insurance "companies" that are not for profit. It's not rocket science, it's just politically impossible. If all health insurance companies profits were pumped back into the system - everybody would be covered who needed to be and those of us paying premiums would pay reasonable rates. I'm self employed & I pay for a family $600 a month with my wife & I having $5000 dedictables. Thats fucked.

Sure, the service (and standards) is way better in the US than the UK (my wife after visiting a UK hospital was horrified at how shitty & unclean it was) - assuming you have health insurance or are lucky enough to get into the type of place mentioned above. That place sound great, but that exists despite the US medical system, not because of it.

My sister in law was rushed to hospital a few monthe ago,with stomach pains.

Turned out she had gall stones,and as a NHS patient was told it would be about 6 months before she could be brought in to have them removed.

That nite my brother remembered that in work he pays into a BUPA fund,and checked out to see if it covered his family members,it did.

The next day he rang BUPA and explained the situation regarding his wife,and they said theyd be in touch.

Around 2 hours later they foned hin back,they had made an appointment for his wife to go into hospital the following day to have the stones removed.

As it turned out,it was the same surgeon who would have performed the operation 6 months later.

Im all for NHS treatment,but,this story seems to fly in the face of everything good about it.

In Belfast,the Royal Victoria Hospital,which is Irelands biggest,has been virtually rebuilt.

From a Victorian complex of buildings,which first took casualties from the Boer War,its now state of art,among hospitals,hundreds of millions of pounds of British taxpayers money poured into it,yet,the number of patients it can omit,hasnt really changed,I ask myself,wouldnt it be better to spend the money on patient care rather than hospitals that look like hotels.

I have personally been in four hospitals in the U.S. for operations and/or procedures on at least severn occassions and have had family members or close friends in at least another half dozen and have never found a hospital that was anything but spotlessly clean with caring and competent staff.

My wife was in the hospital in Auistria about fifteen years ago when she broke her ankle while we were vacationing and that hospital was also clean and efficiently run.

Thankfully I and no one I know has ever been in a British of Canadian hospital or needed treatment while in the UK or Canada.

I can agree with that.

Dont know about other places,but hospitals here have a major MRSA problem.which is killing people.

It was about the waitress who wasn't tipped by the Clinton campaign people recently. She had this to say.

• Health care insurance: As one of the 43 million or so Americans without health insurance, Esterday owes $10,000 for surgery performed on her a few years ago. "I don't go to the doctor," she said, "unless I can pay for it out of my pocket."


In Canada, many seniors travel south to avoid the winters here, but the cost of health insurance to go there is increasing all the time, and going there without insurance can wipe out peoples savings if they fall ill.