Chicago Doc Fixed British System's Disabling Error

In February 2002, my family traveled from Chicago to visit our daughter in London. We were hurrying to the theater when our son, then 10, was hit by a motorcycle.

His leg was badly broken, he went into shock, and we were taken by ambulance to St. Thomas' Hospital, a short walk from the Houses of Parliament. St. Thomas' is not some community hospital, but a major National Health Service teaching center.

Our son's leg was set in a cast that extended just above his knee, and he was transported to a children's ward -- a bleak room with rows of beds. There he remained for a week, with me sleeping on the dusty floor at his bedside. He was in such excruciating pain that he screamed at the movement of air from anyone approaching.

He was vomiting, and clean linens were in short supply. One night, a nurse's aide and I turned the bottom sheet so that the vomit was away from his face.

The public restrooms were frequently out of toilet paper, towels and soap. Meals were served from a wheeled cart that stopped at the ward's door. Relatives would ladle up what appeared to be soups and stews.

When his pain persisted, we were sent to the cast department, where a technician looked at the cast and the X-rays and instantly stopped the pain by adding a section. It was the first time since the accident that I saw my son smile, as the tech engaged him in talk of the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan.

Still, the tech's skills would not have saved our son from being permanently disabled. As soon as he could travel, we got him back to Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital.

A talented pediatric orthopedist there studied the X-rays from London, took his own, and told us the leg would not heal normally. Two days later, it was re-broken and re-casted. We took our son home late that night and his uneventful recovery commenced.

By the time school was out, the cast was off and, with excellent physical therapy, he regained his normal gait.

American friends who have an apartment in London asked us why we didn't do what people of means do there: seek medical care from a private hospital and private physicians, many of whom have offices along the same Central London street.

St. Thomas' is famous for its association with Florence Nightingale, who founded the first nursing school there in 1860. She would have been proud of the dedicated nurses who work under dreadful conditions. Still, the doctor who set the leg did not do a competent job, and a 10-year-old would have had to live with that poor technique for the rest of his life.

I do not mean to argue that health-care reform is not needed here, but rather that the British model, in most respects, is not one to emulate.

That same first-rate Chicago children's hospital, to which we rushed so often with the routine injuries of childhood, was always crowded with uninsured parents and their ailing children. Those exhausted-looking working people cradled children who seemed more likely to have a routine malady -- ear infection, strep throat -- than a ligament torn playing soccer.

As we left St. Thomas', we were handed a bill for $3,000, which covered everything. We gave over our credit card. Our private insurer eventually reimbursed us. That price would seem like a bargain, but, obviously, it would have been no bargain for our son.