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I have been following with interest the accounts of various listmembers who seem to have 'droped in' to the hospital for a pallidotomy. Here in Australia, (Perth specifically) where the procedure is performed in govt funded hospitals with no direct billing to the patient (we do pay of course - indirectly via a 1.5% levy on every taxable $) the patient enters hospital nearly a week before the surgery. As most Australian centres performing the surgery are involved in research, I suspect this is to accomadate the battary of tests they want to do, rather than any advantage to the patient. Most are sent home for the week-end, reporting back on Sunday night to be available for more tests monday morning. Surgery is scheduled for Tuesday, and tuesday afternoon and wednesday morning are spent in the High Dependency Unit. More tests wednesday afternoon and thursday morning and home thursday pm or friday am. You wouldn't think it was the same operation. I am in awe of those superbeings (eg Barbara Mallut) who report being back at work the day after surgery - they must be made of sterner stuff than I am. Whilst I certainly felt better in PD terms from the next day, it took me weeks to really feel 'well'. Perhaps in my case two procedures in as many weeks gave me an atypical reaction. Asked to speak at the recent Australan Conference as the patients representative on the surgery forum, I said that pallidotomy had given me back my life, but that it was not something to be undertaken lightly. It is a procedure for patients with very specific criterior, amoungst which was that they had to have used up all their other options. This is not having a tooth pulled. This is having a hole drilled in your head and a bit of your brain zapped. Whilst I applaud those of you who have felt happy to leave hospital early I am troubled by a system which demands that so serious a matter be treated on an outpatient basis for fiscal reasons. Someone always bears the cost, and I fear that the savings of the Insurence companies is being underwritten by the patients risk. Dennis. ++++++++++++++++++++ Dennis Greene 47/10 [log in to unmask] http://members.networx.net.au/~dennisg/ ++++++++++++++++++++