more: "I was very down at the time but luckily I was here in Britain, in what was then a foreign country to me, where the doctors, nurses and surgeons cared for me like I was their own child."

The widow, who attended President Obama's inauguration in January, turned to the NHS again five years ago when she needed two hip replacement operations.

"If I'd been asked to pay for my new hips, well, I wouldn't have been able to afford them," she said. "I would have without a doubt ended up confined to a wheelchair."

i seriously can't understand why the yanks keep slamming the NHS...if it hadn't been for NHS, my husband wouldn't be here today...