LIVERPOOL—Call this a cautionary tale for Yanks in favor of government-run health care. Blood pressure has risen in Britain after it was revealed that the Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust, which is apparently a fancy name for a fertility center, built a high-tech room for the issuance of what the Register so delicately referred to as “man oysters.”
A watchdog group, the Taxpayers’ Alliance, called the expenditure “astonishing,” and another Brit rag, the Sun, lambasted the clinic, saying other clinics “provide a similar service by spending less than £100 a year on magazines to stimulate patients.”
The offending room contains “computer equipment worth £4,625, flat screen TVs costing £2,225—plus £500 of blue movies,” the cost for which it shared with another facility.
The rub seems to be that other clinics providing similar services throughout the island country spend far less than the Trust. Some get by on donated magazines, while others spend from £5 a year up to £100. All in all, £7,500 seems exceptional, but in the end that might depend on the quality of the donors.
