Kagen, Vinehout, and Erpenbach's Dream Envisioned

Of course in Cuba, they'd probably just end your suffering with a bullet to the brain.

(Oh wait, that's just the AIDS patients.)

Behold, socialized medicine.

A 108-year-old woman has been told she must wait at least 18 months before she receives a new hearing aid.

Olive Beal, who has failing eyesight and uses a wheelchair, finds it difficult to hear with her five-year-old analogue aid and needs a digital version that cuts out background noise and makes conversation easier.

Mrs Beal, a former piano teacher who was involved in the suffragette movement, would be 110 by the time she gets her new hearing aid. "I could be dead by then," she said yesterday.

Mrs. Beal is actually one of the lucky ones. According to Britain's Royal Institute for the Deaf, the average time on the waiting list is two years.