Although Beloved Princess Was ‘a Goner, ‘ Experts Find Guidance in French System
abc NEWS Politics
By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES
Aug. 31, 2009The Mercedes 600 carrying Princess Diana and her companion Dodi Fayed was traveling more than 85 miles per hour when it hit a concrete pillar head-on in the Place D’Alma underpass, crumbling like an accordion.
Both were killed, as well as the driver, Henri Paul — later proven to have been under the influence of alcohol.
The Paris accident — just before 12:30 a.m. local time 12 years ago today — ended the life of one of Britain’s most celebrated royals, unleashing a torrent of emotion in that historically stoic culture and catapulting Diana to near sainthood status. …
… But the most baffling question was whether doctors could have done more to prevent Diana, 36, from dying.
The horrific accident illustrated the difference between the French and U.S. approaches to emergency care — a relatively small piece of the French medical system, but deemed by some people to be the best in the world and often cited as a model for U.S. health care overhaul. …
… Diana’s last hour — in cardiac arrest and bleeding to death — was spent in a mobile medical unit parked a few hundred yards from Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, where an emergency team followed French protocol and administered treatment at the scene of the accident and en route to the hospital.
At the time, many people surmised that had a U.S. ambulance responded, Diana would have been rushed to the nearest emergency room, where a full set of professionals and diagnostic equipment might have revived her. …
The world felt the pain of Diana’s tragic death. And many thought that whoever was responsible for her death was going to pay – dearly. I believe there were facts revealed – concerning her death but the “health care system” of France did not come in for extensive criticism.
The author said:
Diana’s last hour — in cardiac arrest and bleeding to death — was spent in a mobile medical unit parked a few hundred yards from Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, where an emergency team followed French protocol and administered treatment at the scene of the accident and en route to the hospital.
At the time, many people surmised that had a U.S. ambulance responded, Diana would have been rushed to the nearest emergency room, where a full set of professionals and diagnostic equipment might have revived her.
The author could very well be within reason for making statements like the above. Nobody knows how an American scenario would have played out. Nobody knows how, even the same accident – at a different time-of-day(TOD) in France would have played out. The TOD of the accident was very early morning – a time when hospitals are not generally fully staffed:
At around 12:20 a.m. on 31 August 1997, the Princess and Dodi Fayed left the Ritz to return to the apartment in rue Arsène Houssaye. They were the rear passengers in a Mercedes-Benz S280 W140, registration number “688LTV75″, driven by Paul. Trevor Rees-Jones, a member of the Fayed family’s personal protection team, was in the front passenger seat. They left from the rear of the hotel, the Rue Cambon exit. After crossing the Place de la Concorde they drove along Cours la Reine and Cours Albert 1er (the embankment road running parallel to the River Seine) into the Place de l’Alma underpass. At around 12:23 a.m. at the entrance to the tunnel, their driver lost control; the car swerved to the left of the two-lane carriageway before colliding head-on with the thirteenth pillar supporting the roof at an estimated speed of 105 km/h (65 mph).[7] It then spun and hit the stone wall of the tunnel backwards, finally coming to a stop. The impact of the crash reduced the car to a pile of wreckage. There was no guard rail between the pillars to prevent this. …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Diana,_Princess_of_Wales#Circumstances
Does France have universal health care? Since the current neocon – American people issue is universal health care, I decided to search the Internet. Currently,except for my ISP, that can be done free of charge. Here is what I found:
“Single-payer health insurance” is used to describe the primary systems of health care funding used in Canada and the United Kingdom. Multi-payer systems are used in France and Germany, but like Canada and the United Kingdom, health care in both of these countries is primarily financed by publicly controlled insurers.
Health care systems vary according to the extent of government involvement in providing care, ranging from nationalized health care systems (such as the U.K. and Sweden) to decentralized private or non-profit institutions (as in Germany and France). Universal health care is implemented in all industrialized countries, with the exception of the United States.
Is Diana’s death really a lesson for health care debate?
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