The National Ill-Health Service

From time to time the media and politicians like to brag about how Britain's NHS is superior to other countries but they ignore the fact that leading doctors have raised fears that high numbers of patients are dying  while waiting for heart surgery in Wales.  'The Royal College of Surgeons wrote to healthcare inspectors last year warning   of "grave concerns" that too many people were dying in the south of the   country because of long waits for heart surgery.  The letter, seen by The Daily Telegraph, calls for swift action to tackle "unacceptably high mortality" levels and highlights more than 150 cases in which patients died waiting for life-saving treatment.' (Daily Telegraph, 20 February) Needless to say all those 150 deaths were of workers. If you could afford it you would get the best of health treatment without recourse to the NHS. RD