What is extremely false? This was said at British parliament. To quote Cameron: "people had to dring from flower vase, not to die of thirst". There are thousands of deaths because of basic neglect.
As for my personal experience. I only wanted rentgen to see if my hand is broken. I could not just 'walk in' and buy a service, I would had to go through GP referral than booking specialist appointment and finally week latter have xray.
The Emergency Room is used by everyone who needs prescription for flu, so I had to wait 6 hours in bloody line full of coughing people. I should have probably just walk in front of the hospital and call myself ambulance from parking lot.
The healtcare is not free, as visitor from other EU country, my insurance company has to pay. Also local cresidents pay higher taxes. Sure there is no lawyer overhead, but that will only impress someone from US.
As for waiting for non-essential operations, you probably meant non-life threating. Some procedures solve crippling pain, but are rated non-essential.
And on top of that you can not choose hospital where you will go. Some hospitals are better, some are really bad. Obviously the elite lives in areas with better hospitals.
The story about baby was in national Slovak news, and forced embassy to step in. I am too lazy to look for english translation, but there are other similar cases. The time line in this case is this:
1) Slovak couple comes with six months baby in hospital, it cries and has something with hand. They claim it had vaccination one day before at the same hand.
2) Doctor makes xray, finds hand is broken and fixate it.
3) Hospital calls SS and police. Couple is escorted by police to court straight from hospital with baby.
4) They get advocate assigned from court and the hearing starts at the same evening (5 hours after they come into hospital)
5) Their defendant is arrogant, tell them to shut up and does not explain anything. Plus he does not speak slovak and their english is not adequate for this stuff
6) Court postpones decision into other hearing. They are free to leave. At outside police is waiting to seize baby, officers do not believe court did not made decision.
7) At 11 PM they finally arrive home from hospital with baby.
8) At 4 AM they decide to leave country, at 6 AM they are on airplane to continental europe.
9) At 7:30 AM police came at their london door with order to seize baby
10) 2 days latter they contact slovak police, disclose their location and ask for help. They also contact media.
I am really not going into more of those shit. I know several people who fled UK because of fear for their baby. Embassy even recommends to avoid giving birth in UK, since you could say something stupid, which would be held against you.
This was 'majority white' slovak couple. Slovak gypsies have situation much much worse in London. I am sometimes called racist, but what SS is doing to gypsies, is miles behind the line.