"Our health service is truly abysmal."
I disagree. Your neighbours story is sad but it is not necessarily all as stated.
People in their 80's do fall - the hip break is, for many of them, the gateway to long term care or death. In the way that pneumonia once was. It is an unfortunate aspect of hospital care that a patient may get an infection.
I have nothing but praise for the health service and the levels of service and attention that I and my close family have experienced as public patients.
mf