memes

Depends what you mean by fucked up. Long waits for some NHS treatments, but if I get any kind of serious injury like cuts or broken bones, it'll be seen in A&E (Accident & Emergency) at the hospital, they obviously treat the more serious injuries first, but I've never waited longer than 4 hours - and that was on a Saturday night about ten years ago, with a minor cut than only needed 5 stitches or so...

As a kid, my broken arm and the few times I needed stitches, it was sorted pretty much straight away or with an hour or two wait. That's probably doubled or tripled nowadays.

Mental health turnaround is not great, as that's through my doctor (the NHS). Although I got treatment for depression a couple of years back, meds (Sertaline) and referral to therapy, after a week or so waiting for an appointment and answering a few waves of questionnaires. A couple of months later, after a lengthy conversation with a medical health triage nurse (which was just a random follow up call - that lasted an hour!), I went on an 18 month waiting list for the ADHD test, and about the same for ASD(Autism Spectrum Disorder) as well.

Not great, but they're understandably swamped with the spike of mental illness, or people becoming aware of it anyway, after covid and the lockdowns.

Still waiting on the NHS for the ASD diagnosis, but I actually ended up going private for my ADHD, that was ~£800, was seen in a week, and the meds for that was £100 a month for Elvanse(Vyvanse in the US). I was able to transfer back to my GP after a few months though, so it's just the standard prescription price of £9.65 / month, which is much better.

Other than that last paragraph, everything else was entirely free... so, nah, I don't reckon our health care system is as fucked as yours and we certainly don't have it "even worse"!

Edit: typo's and explaining a few acronyms!