Do you know who I am?

[juansolo]

LOL, what a massive, massive bell-end.

http://metaltalk.net/news2015sg/2015110.php

Though I'm not sure whether I should feel sorry for him being married to this...

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/mike-portnoy-slams-u-k-hospital-for-not-seeing-him/

FWIW, the UK health service (NHS) is paid for by everyone (via National Insurance) here and is free to anyone. Accident and Emergency is exactly that, so you get everything from minor injuries to life threatening conditions. The latter are seen immediately, the former are prioritised in terms of seriousness by triage nurses. EVERYONE sees a triage nurse on arrival. Wait can be up to 4 hours if you are deemed to have a non-life threatening, not serious problem. That's the way the system works.

The system is overworked, underfunded and understaffed. But it works and I still have a father who's around because of it. Which is also why I don't complain if I'm in A&E and I have to wait with hurty arms or whatever.

The bollocks his wife is spouting is exactly that. No way an ambulance ran out of fuel, that does not happen. He also wasn't waiting hours. It looks like short of 2 hrs from initial report to spouting off on the internet. Also calling an ambulance out for a fever!? Come on. If that's true he deserves a kicking, it's not a fucking taxi service.

Anyhow. I'd like to defend our health service, because it's one of those things that despite government after governments ill-thought out interference, still works and is mostly staffed by people who get a lot of shit and not a lot of thanks.

[Cortexturizer]

Wow. He always did come off as a douche bag but this takes it to another level.

[GermanCdn]

Portnoy's always been kind of a knob, like when he quit DT to go join Adrenaline Mob (I think, though it might have been AV7), only to have the gig go sideways and waltz back up to DT and go "I'm back." And DT was "You've been replaced"

That being said, waiting in line at the hospital can be a little unnerving.  I took a crowbar shot to the head last week (all my fault, dumb mistake, but I took it like a champ I might add), and I was standing in line at admitting in the ER covered in blood, waiting behind someone with a cough.  A cough.  One person working the admitting desk.  Eventually (ok, it was probably two minutes, but I was on the verge of passing out, so it felt a lot longer) I said "I'm bleeding from the f*king head here" in order to get the attention of a security guard, who brought me a handful of gauze and a wheelchair.  It all worked out in the end, but you need a pretty solid sense of humour to get through it sometimes.

[juansolo]

The British have queuing inbuilt in our psyche... Annoying at times, but we're grand masters at it.

[raulduke]

You can insult our country.... you can even insult our Queen..... but damn you sir if you insult our beloved National Health Service  !

In all seriousness though, the NHS is something we are incredibly proud of, and no wonder it rubbs people up the wrong way when some pompous-prog-douche-lord throws a hissy fit because he isn't instantly pushed to the front of the queue at A+E.

The NHS gets slagged off no end in our national press, but when you look at the real core of the operation (the nurses, the doctors, the paramedics etc.) they all work their arse's off in my experience.

[madbean]

He should only imagine the reverse situation - being a Brit in need of emergency service in America. He might not wait but it'll cost him a few thousand dollars for triage and 3 minutes with a doctor.

Or, maybe they DID know who he was and were hoping he might just croak waiting (evil, I know it).

[Lubdar]

I read this without looking at the links at first and thought "Gee what kind of a person is this?", having then clicked on the link and seeing mike portnoy i wasn't that surprised.

[billstein]

I lived in England for 12 years before returning to America in 2008. I would trade the NHS for what I have right now in a heartbeat. Obamacare has jacked up our insurance rates so high that we can no longer afford it. My wife had to have a colonoscopy a year ago and we we're hit with a personal bill of $2000.00 after paying over $1200.00 dollars a month for our health insurance. Since then our insurance has been raised another $300.00 dollars a month. I REALLY miss the NHS, the extra taxes I paid putting petrol in my car, plus the VAT etc. was a LOT cheaper than this. The middle class is systematically being wiped out here.
Rant over! Assume your soldering.

[raulduke]

This Facebook post is hilarious  :

'I think the funniest thing about this status is if they had cleared the queue to treat Mike Portnoy- what if an EVEN BIGGER rockstar (imagine that!) came into the hospital with EVEN MORE fans waiting to see them? I'm picturing some kind of 'Rock Star triage' where Kanye West's fractured penis vies for medical attention with Francis Rossi from Status Quo's fucked up septum'.

[culturejam]

As a typical American with ZERO experience with any other healthcare system and absolutely no knowledge of even the most fundamental theories of economics, let me set you straight right now: your commie NHS is what's wrong with the world. Freeloaders!!!!1!!


I keed. 

[playpunk]

Health insurance doesn't make sense unless it is single payer. Imo


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[blearyeyes]

I have a hard time getting over the term "Free Health Care"
How can Tax money pay for something that is free?

He was just thinking of all his adoring fans! You nasty bad people!

[stevie1556]

TBH, I can't fault the NHS. I had a knee operation last summer, and they were amazing (apart from the one grumpy nurse). I had an MRI scan within a month, the specialist agreed that I could delay my operation until it was really needed, with an appointment every 3 months, then 6 months. When I couldn't delay the operation any longer, I was told it would be a 6-12 month wait, a month later I had a phone call to ask what date suited me, I asked for summer (summer in my job is diabolically crap), so they gave me a date in mid June, I went in at lunchtime, I was leaving at 7pm.

I know people have issues with the service, but after a couple of spells in A+E, knowing full well either myself or the other person I was with wouldn't be a priority case, you expect to have to wait to be seen. Yes, it does have its floors, but I wouldn't want to be without it.

[davent]

October 2011 had emergency brain surgery, knocked out for surgery at 8am, they finished at around 8PM.  Released six days later, back in after being home for a week  for a spinal tap because of leaking brain fluid. Sent me home after three days because two days later i was scheduled for a second surgery to perform a nerve graft to reassign one from my tongue to replace one severed in the initial surgery, day surgery. Semi-private rooms most of the time,  my bill at the end of it all was $40 for the initial very, very bumpy ambulance ride... Canada eh!
dave

[jkokura]

Yeah, I know I do pay for it in my taxes, and I've also paid additional premiums depending in the province I've been in... but my wife had to get a helivac from Vancouver Island over to Vancouver when she was 27 weeks pregnant with our son. She then spent a week in hospital, and then was admitted again at 31 weeks where she stayed until he was born at 35 weeks. Then we were in for another week until he cleared the NIC-Unit.

Long and short, that bill in the states could have been 500k or more. We know people who have had 1 million dollar bills (fortunately much of it forgiven or paid with some fundraising), but it's still pretty crazy to see some of the differences Americans in particular have in their health care system.

As for Mikey P... I would think to give him the benefit of the doubt. He's venting over frustration from a bad day. Should he be doing it? No, obviously, but it's understandable. I see a dozen people do it every day on my feed. It doesn't sound to me like he's screaming "do you know who I am," but rather - that's not okay to do to me. That's more understandable, and even forgivable for a guy who's feeling ill and needs some help.

Being stranded in an Ambulance that's run out of gas makes me think that he actually needed a doctor, and if he waited even a portion of the day after having to find an alternative route... That's a pretty bad day. Anyone should be allowed some grace after that.

Jacob