National Health

Over in England where the health care system has been nationalized for some time, the system suffers from too many patients and too little of everything else. Going to a hospital over there is widely recognized as a high-risk adventure and best undertaken with regular support from your own friends and family who can bring you such luxuries as fresh food and clean sheets.

Someone, probably one of the staff at one hospital has discovered a really effective cost-cutting measure, and is implementing it on his or her own initiative. The Telegraph reports:

A 44-year-old woman, named as Tracey Elizabeth Arden, a 71-year-old man and a 84-year-old man have died following the deliberate contamination of saline solution at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport, Greater Manchester.

Insulin was found in a batch of 36 saline ampoules in a hospital storeroom close to Ward A1 after a nurse reported a higher than normal number of patients on her ward with unexplained low blood sugar levels.

Not to worry. It's only at one hospital, and it would never happen here.