Well what I'm going to say here is not going to be popular especially with our USA members.
I can understand their anger at the "Picture Perfect" which is given about Stenum, which everybody here knows is one person's experience seen through rose coloured glasses. The members here know the dreadful happenings which have occurred at Stenum. The fact that this has been publicly aired I suppose must cause anger.
As a person who doesn't live in the USA, please be aware that the USA is not a place of perfect surgery. There are patients being taken in as day cases, (I'm sure this is to save the insurance company money), and the outcomes are absolutely tragic. People are coming out of hospital in the USA with ADR, bowel and bladder incontinence, not making a recovery at all, so please don't think that the only errors are across in Stenum.
The centres of excellence are in Europe (Zeegers and Bertagnoli), the USA has been at this with FDA approval for less than 12 months, and Europe has been doing this since 1989, so loads more experience, and expertise.
One thing which should jump to the fore with all patients is that people who are discharged in less than three days, have probably still got problems with their bowel in trauma -- -- -- because it has been handled, the time needed for patients to recover properly from the surgery is quite often not observed by USA hospitals, so please don't think that you are perfection across their.
American medicine being based upon insurance, is basically based on money. It is only by conversations on this board by patients who have been to the conscientious and good doctors in the USA who are getting the really good surgeries. There's a whole host of people who are getting very second-class treatment.
I think that this free surgery which was given to this patient was for publicity purposes and to re-establish Stenum in the minds of American people who do not know the full truth. There are thousands and thousands of people out there who don't belong to this board -- -- -- yet blindly go and have ADR with the first doctor who offers it to them irrespective of their experience.
Best,
Alastair
