The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| South Koreans, Argentines most satisfied with healthcare, poll finds Posted: 11 Jun 2013 04:38 AM PDT NEW YORK, June 11 — Healthcare has improved in many countries in the last five years, but patients in South Korea, Argentina and Japan are the most satisfied with their medical care, according to an Ipsos poll released today. In a survey of 15 countries, people in those countries gave top grades for improvements in their national healthcare system since 2008, along with residents of Belgium and Australia, which rounded out the top five nations.
"On average things are moving forward in terms of healthcare access and experience around the world based on what we saw. This is very clear," said John Wright, senior vice president and managing director of Global Advisor Ipsos Public Affairs, which conducted the survey. "But the elements within the healthcare system in certain countries are very specific in terms of what they are concerned about," he added in an interview. The United States, which came in sixth overall, was followed by Poland, Germany, Canada and Britain. It's worth noting the survey only included the 15 countries and was based on perceptions of users. So one country's system could be superior to another's, but if its users didn't rate it as highly, it would rank lower on the list. "Everybody is getting a report card by their individual patient populations," Wright explained, likening it to "a customer satisfaction survey." Ipsos polled a total of 12,001 adults online in 15 countries in Europe, Asia and North America about whether healthcare in their countries was better now than in recent years. It also asked residents to rate access to doctors, specialists, a hospital, diagnostic tests, drugs and their experiences in treatment options, quality, coordination, speed and level of care. MEETING EXPECTATIONS? The poll could help healthcare officials see where they are failing to meet patient expectations, Wright added. While the results show how patients rate their country's healthcare system, he added, they do not reflect how one nation's system compares against another. South Korea scored the highest marks in all categories. Residents of Spain, which ranked at the bottom of the list, gave poor scores on access to diagnostic tests, hospitals, drugs and specialists and patient experiences in all categories. Those in France also gave low grades for most healthcare services, except for diagnostic tests and for the speed with which they could access medical care. Poland's scores suggested worsening healthcare in the areas of hospital and specialist access, while Hungarian patients were most dissatisfied with availability of specialists and a hospital, and speed of services. Sweden, which has universal healthcare coverage and among the world's longest life expectancies, was No. 11 overall and received low marks for access to specialists, diagnostic tests and hospital, and coordinated services. Ipsos surveyed about 1,000 adults in each country, except for Argentina, Belgium, Hungary, Poland and South Korea which each had a sample of 500-plus participants. The online survey conducted Jan. 4-18 had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 per centage points for a poll of 1,000, and plus or minus 5.0 per centage points for a poll of 500 people. — Reuters |
| US finds long-lost diary of top Nazi leader, Hitler aide Posted: 11 Jun 2013 04:26 AM PDT WASHINGTON, June 11 — The US government has recovered 400 pages from the long-lost diary of Alfred Rosenberg, a confidant of Adolf Hitler who played a central role in the extermination of millions of Jews and others during World War Two. A preliminary US government assessment reviewed by Reuters asserts the diary could offer new insight into meetings Rosenberg had with Hitler and other top Nazi leaders, including Heinrich Himmler and Herman Goering. It also includes details about the German occupation of the Soviet Union, including plans for mass killings of Jews and other Eastern Europeans.
How the writings of Rosenberg, a Nazi Reich minister who was convicted at Nuremberg and hanged in 1946, might contradict what historians believe to be true is unclear. Further details about the diary's contents could not be learned, and a US government official stressed that the museum's analysis remains preliminary.But the diary does include details about tensions within the German high-command — in particular, the crisis caused by the flight of Rudolf Hess to Britain in 1941, and the looting of art throughout Europe, according to the preliminary analysis. The recovery is expected to be announced this week at a news conference in Delaware held jointly by officials from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Justice and Holocaust museum. The diary offers a loose collection of Rosenberg's recollections from spring 1936 to winter 1944, according to the museum's analysis. Most entries are written in Rosenberg's looping cursive, some on paper torn from a ledger book and others on the back of official Nazi stationery, the analysis said. Rosenberg was an early and powerful Nazi ideologue, particularly on racial issues. He directed the Nazi party's foreign affairs department and edited the Nazi newspaper. Several of his memos to Hitler were cited as evidence during the post-war Nuremberg trials. Rosenberg also directed the systematic Nazi looting of Jewish art, cultural and religious property throughout Europe. The Nazi unit created to seize such artifacts was called Task Force Reichsleiter Rosenberg. He was convicted of crimes against humanity and was one of a dozen senior Nazi officials executed in October 1946. His diary, once held by Nuremberg prosecutors as evidence, vanished after the trial. A Nuremberg prosecutor, Robert Kempner, was long suspected by US officials of smuggling the diary back to the United States. Born in Germany, Kempner had fled to America in the 1930s to escape the Nazis, only to return for post-war trials. He is credited with helping reveal the existence of the Wannsee Protocol, the 1942 conference during which Nazi officials met to coordinate the genocide against the Jews, which they termed "The Final Solution." Kempner cited a few Rosenberg diary excerpts in his memoir, and in 1956 a German historian published entries from 1939 and 1940. But the bulk of the diary never surfaced. When Kempner died in 1993 at age 93, legal disputes about his papers raged for nearly a decade between his children, his former secretary, a local debris removal contractor and the Holocaust museum. The children agreed to give their father's papers to the Holocaust museum, but when officials arrived to retrieve them from his home in 1999, they discovered that many thousands of pages were missing. After the 1999 incident, the FBI opened a criminal investigation into the missing documents. No charges were filed in the case. But the Holocaust museum has gone on to recover more than 150,000 documents, including a trove held by Kempner's former secretary, who by then had moved into the New York state home of an academic named Herbert Richardson. The Rosenberg diary, however, remained missing. Early this year, the Holocaust museum and an agent from Homeland Security Investigations tried to locate the missing diary pages. They tracked the diary to Richardson, who was living near Buffalo. Richardson declined to comment. A government official said more details will be announced at the news conference. — Reuters |
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