NHS vs Middle East example...
... which completely ignores the very basic distinction that the UAE has a far higher per-capita income than the UK, and so can afford it.
Per capita GDP is about 1.5x the UK (although I suspect that is not the whole story).
I think you ignored me writing the hospital is PROFITABLE. Only the first 3 days of intensive care is subsidized/paid by the Government. All other hospital income is paid for by the users. So it has nothing to do with per capita income.
It seems unliely if they are charging only $3800 for a month's care. Post stroke care needs a fairly large team of specialist physios and occupational therapists - try costing aup a month's stay in an acute stroke unit in the US.
I would be interested to know the date of your father's first presentation - evidence for thrombolysis in acute
ischaemic stroke was coming in around 2007-2008, admittedly the NHS was a little slow off the ground but today, if you presented to a hospital with an acute stroke unit today you should be in the CT scanner within an hour, probably within 30 minutes as you are correct in that thrombolysis (clot dissolving) therapy should be given within three hours of symptoms developing.
As for haemorrhagic strokes - management is still "conservative" - there is no real role for surgery and initial therapy is supportive, perhaps managing raised ntracranial pressure helps. Certainly treatment in a specialist unit helps improve outcomes.
The NHS is not without its problems, certainly, it was dire in the 1970's worse in the 1980's and then got markedly better with increased resources. Unfortunately it has been going downhill again recently and it is clear that Cameron's plan is to get it off the government's balance sheet and sod the effect on care.
As for private care in the UK - well, I do have private insurance, but would not want anything major done in a private hospital. It certainly would not have helped you in the case of an acute stroke.
But the NHS is tangential to the current argument - except for Vote Leave blathering on (largely dishonestly) about how much more money we would have to spend on the Nash if we pull out of Europe - deliberately linking the current state of the NHS with our membership of the EU when it has pretty much bugger all to do with it.
I note that the Vote Leave campaign has promised all sorts of monies would be available if we pull out - amounting to rather more than even their inflated estimates of how much EU membership costs us.
Yes it is the EU's fault we've not being building schools and houses fast enough to keep up.
When immigration is controlled by the government, the government can reliably react to population growth because it's relatively stable and predictable. If more children are born, then their births will be registered so the government knows to more school places will be required in five years time and more houses need to be built over the next twenty years. Now anyone can just hop over the channel at any point, resulting in unpredictable population growth and chaos.
No, it is not - the shortfall in housing extends back 20-30 years due to massive reduction in local authority building programmes and the immigration that everyone is worrying about dates back over the last 8-10 years.
If you believe government will reliably react to anything then you have a lot more fath in politicians than I do.