Queen's Hospital

A national treasure, tarnished: Can Britain fix its health service?

Fifteen hours after she was taken out of an ambulance at Queen's Hospital with chest pains and pneumonia, Marian Patten was still in the emergency room, waiting for a bed in a ward. Patten, 78, was luckier than others who arrived at this teeming hospital, east of London: She had not yet been wheeled into a hallway.