youbet
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Ok folks, I did some research and here is more information:
A July 14, 2011 article from Yahoo News about how the world's first synthetically grown organ was sucessfully transplanted in Sweden.
http://voices.yahoo.com/synthetic-organ-transplants-possible-first-time-done-8767819.html
A July 13, 2011 article from the London, UK Telegraph about a team of doctors in Gothenberg, Sweden who will perform only the second womb transplant in the world on a UK businesswoman donating her womb to her daughter.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/8571487/Worlds-first-womb-transplant-planned.html
An August 3, 2011 article from a newspaper in Vermont about a Burlington, VT woman who will get lifesaving surgery at Karolinska in Stockholm.
http://www.7dvt.com/2011fletcher-allen-has-candidate-groundbreaking-windpipe-transplant
A November 30, 2011 article from the website www.transplantcafe.com about a Maryland man going to Sweden for a lifesaving transplant.
http://transplantcafe.com/profiles/blogs/helphopelive-patient-spotlight-groundbreaking-use-of-stem-cells
Who paid for these procedures or how this affected Sweden's free for all medical care I could not tell you. There is plenty more, but it is time for me to have a beer and go to sleep. Happy reading!!
Thanks for the effort James7, but you may have misunderstood my question. I'm well aware that the Swedish medical system has plenty of advanced medical technology. The articles you posted are further examples of this. But I'm struggling to understand how outside "private pay" patients fit into socialized systems, such as Sweden's. The answer seems to be, as others have mentioned above, the socialized systems have a private component to them operating in parallel with the socialized component.
EDIT:
In looking through the articles james7 kindly provided, there was a mention of how an "outsider" is given access to care in the Swedish socialized system. The article was about a Vermont woman who required a windpipe transplant and the Italian doctor (in Switzerland) who provided it. From that article:
While in Burlington last week, Macchiarini, 53, explained why he agreed to treat Phillips — free of charge. “She’s a young and beautiful girl who had a beautiful past,” he explains, in a thick Italian accent. “She deserves to live.”
That makes it clear why the Swedish system is so appealing to young, beautiful girls who have had a beautiful past.
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