Kim du Toit – Page 79 – Splendid Isolation

We Suck!

December 13, 2023 Kim du Toit Health, Numbers & Statistics

…at hospitals anyway, according to some organization:

Researchers at the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London examined data on 38 developed countries.

The experts focused on four key patient safety indicators for their rankings: maternal mortality, treatable mortality, adverse effects of medical treatment and neonatal disorders.

For those who are too lazy to follow the link, here’s the table:

Yeah, I know: our hospitals are ranked lower because we take on more hopeless cases than most other countries will accept. (Whenever you read about some Third-World mope who needs to have the extra toes growing out of his neck removed, it’s always off to the U.S. and not to Sweden, because they just won’t take the case.)

I also note with some skepticism the high rank of the Netherlands, which is the absolute last place where I’d go to hospital because of the Dutchies’ fondness for involuntary euthanasia.

Finally, not being of a medical bent myself, I have no idea whether the criteria of “maternal mortality, treatable mortality, adverse effects of medical treatment and neonatal disorders” are the best pointers towards judgement of hospital quality; I’ll leave that to my Sawbones Readers to comment on.

Peerless Hottie

December 13, 2023 Kim du Toit Gratuitous Chick Pics

Here’s a little Salma Trifecta for you, and they’re all pics taken recently:

That is all.

Quote Of The Day

December 13, 2023 Kim du Toit Eco-Crap, Watermelons

Via Insty:

Global warming-obsessed climatologists and media told us back in 2020 that snow and frost would be rare – a thing of the past!

Now with the heavy, record snowfall, global warming astrologists are looking a bit foolish and embarrassed. Their predictions are wrong. Already in November snow arrived and record amounts have already fallen.

You had me at “global warming astrologists”…

Read the whole thing.

Travel Tip

December 12, 2023 Kim du Toit Travels

Here’s a little something I picked up on my travels:

Some hotels have some curious ideas about “double beds” — in fact, they’re often just two single beds shoved together, each with a single-sized duvet. This is fine, unless you and your partner are of the “cuddling” kind. Also, the duvets are often “European” single-size (i.e. totally inadequate, especially for us fat-ass Murkins).

What I always do now, after my first such experience, is pack a queen-sized duvet cover and about eight safety pins. Then, if I find the sleeping arrangements as above, I simply pin the two duvets together to make a larger one, and stuff it into the queen duvet cover with the pin mechanism facing up. Problem solved.

Side note: Safety pins are an essential travel item anyway. Europeans do not know the concept of “safety pins” (at least, they didn’t in Vienna), and trying to explain what a safety pin is and how it works is in your fractured attempt at a furrin language will just lead to puzzled looks. Pack your own.

Top 3 For The Chop

December 12, 2023 Kim du Toit Bureaucracy, Gummint

Here’s the background to the question below:

Argentina just elected a new president, Javier Milei, and his first act upon being sworn in? He signed an executive order reducing their government departments from 21 down to NINE.

As Twitchy points out, we have only(!) fifteen FedGov departments (but innumerable sub-departments).

My question to my Readers:

You can eliminate three Cabinet-level federal government departments (to start off with) and all their sub-departments. Which three would you eliminate first?

Mine: Environment (an agency, not a department in the strictest sense of the word), Education (in toto) and Homeland Security (all their sub-departments to be reallocated to their original departments, e.g. Secret Service to Justice, Coast Guard to Defense, etc.).

I don’t know how it works in Argentina, but here in Murka, federal government departments exist at Cabinet level at the President’s pleasure — Richard Nixon, for instance, elevated the EPA’s chairman to Cabinet level by executive order — but departments can only truly be eliminated by Congress defunding them. Nevertheless, play the game.