WITH all of the grumbling I’ve heard about the NHS on telly and read about in the newspapers, I’d like to explain what it’s like without a national health service.

While I saw waiting for my dad to have a pacemaker inserted under the thin skin covering his 86-year-old heart, I observed the extremely professional staff in the CCU of Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital, working together like a well-oiled machine – from the kind-hearted, competent nurses to the highly-skilled doctors and surgeons.

Dad’s case was exceptional, in my opinion.

He was sitting up in a chair less than three hours after the op, and left the ward within five hours, with the peace of mind that we didn’t have to make sure his claims for payment were filed before he left the hospital.

Dad had told me: “Before the NHS, people suffered and died, but it took a strong leader, Prime Minister Attlee and his strong government, to push through the NHS. Even people from opposing parties supported the NHS.”

President Obama is suffering the wrath of the right for pushing through a health care bill, giving some protection from a for-profit health-care system which is unaffordable to many people.

Consequently, only the well-off, or those with good jobs with health-insurance provided free or subsidised by employers, can afford health care in America.

Ordinary workers without employer-provided health insurance, and the self-employed, quite often can’t afford private health care, so go without until they end up in A&E (Emergency Room).

By law, people have to be treated in America’s Emergency Rooms, but they could still be billed hundreds of thousands of dollars for a serious illness or accident.

Only those who qualify for poverty (annual income below $10,500 (about £6,600) are treated with tax-paid Medicaid.

Furthermore, America’s infant mortality rates for 2010 were worse than Cuba’s.

Poor women can wait months to see a Medicaid doctor and so often get little or no pre-natal care and so deliver premature babies in the ER.

I have spoken to such women, as a volunteer trying to help them, because at six and seven months in their pregnancies, many women are still waiting to see a Medicaid doctor.

At 65, people have Medicare, which all employees and employers contribute to, but they still have to pay a premium and need another supplemental policy to pay the 20 per cent of health care costs not covered by Medicare. They also need a third policy for medicines (Medicare Part D) or else pay the full, outrageously expensive cost.

Although the NHS isn’t perfect, privatisation of any of it could cause it to end up like NHS dentists.

L Taylor, USA