UK health care horror: 1,200 die needlessly in filthy, blood-splattered hospital

posted at 8:49 pm on February 26, 2010 by Cassy Fiano
[ Healthcare ]    printer-friendly

Imagine if we put the DMV in charge of your health care. Just imagine what the quality of your health care would be like. Our system isn’t perfect, but it’s the best health care system in the world at present. That won’t stop Democrats, though, as they try to re-engineer American health care.

If you’re trying to get an idea of what our new health care system will be like, it’s easy. Just look to the formerly great Britain, where socialism reigns supreme. An NHS hospital let 1,200 patients die for no reason in the filthy, blood-splattered hospital where patients were routinely neglected and left in disgusting conditions. The best part? Not a single official has been fired.

Not a single official has been disciplined over the worst-ever NHS hospital scandal, it emerged last night.

Up to 1,200 people lost their lives needlessly because Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust put government targets and cost-cutting ahead of patient care.

But none of the doctors, nurses and managers who failed them has suffered any formal sanction.

Indeed, some have either retired on lucrative pensions or have swiftly found new jobs.

Former chief executive Martin Yeates, who has since left with a £1million pension pot, six months’ salary and a reported £400,000 payoff, did not even give evidence to the inquiry which detailed the scale of the scandal yesterday.

… The independent inquiry headed by Robert Francis QC found the safety of sick and dying patients was ‘routinely neglected’. Others were subjected to ‘ inhumane treatment’, ‘bullying’, ‘abuse’ and ‘rudeness’.

… Bosses at the Trust – officially an ‘elite’ NHS institution – were condemned for their fixation with cutting waiting times to hit Labour targets and leaving neglected patients to die.

But after a probe that was controversially held in secret, not a single individual has been publicly blamed.

The inquiry found that:

• Patients were left unwashed in their own filth for up to a month as nurses ignored their requests to use the toilet or change their sheets;

• Four members of one family. including a new-born baby girl. died within 18 months after of blunders at the hospital;

• Medics discharged patients hastily out of fear they risked being sacked for delaying;

• Wards were left filthy with blood, discarded needles and used dressings while bullying managers made whistleblowers too frightened to come forward.

… The Francis report said staff numbers were allowed to fall ‘dangerously low’, causing nurses to neglect the most basic care. It said: ‘Requests for assistance to use a bedpan or to get to and from the toilet were not responded to.

‘Some families were left to take soiled sheets home to wash or to change beds when this should have been undertaken by the hospital and its staff.’ Food and drink were left out of reach, forcing patients to drink water from flower vases.

While many staff did their best, Mr Francis said, others showed a disturbing lack of compassion to patients.

One family in particular lost four members.

Kelsey Lintern was at the centre of one of the worst tragedies in the hospital’s appalling catalogue of failure.

She lost four members of her family within 18 months, her grandmother, uncle, sister and six-day-old baby.

Mrs Lintern, 36, almost became the fifth victim when a nurse tried to give her pethidine while she was in labour, despite her medical notes and a wristband clearly stating she was allergic to the drug.

The horrific story began in January 2007 when her baby daughter Nyah had to be delivered by her own grandmother because a distracted midwife was not looking.

The baby was not breathing but she was resuscitated, then discharged by a junior paediatrician just two days later, despite the family’s fears she was seriously ill.

She was not feeding properly and still appeared blue. She died four days later. A post-mortem examination revealed four holes in her heart. Mrs Lintern accepts that Nyah may have died in any case, but said the hospital should at least have ‘realised there was a problem’.

It was when she was in labour with Nyah that a nurse arrived with a syringe of potentially-fatal pethidine, oblivious to the fact Mrs Lintern was allergic to it.

In April 2007, Mrs Lintern’s sister, Laurie Gethin, 37, died of lung, bone and lymph cancer, which had taken 18 months to be diagnosed, even though she was displaying tell-tale symptoms.

Her body, with her eyes still open, was left on her blood-splattered bed in full view of other patients. Tests revealed that Mrs Gethin had ‘markers’ in her blood which can indicated cancer.

But it was only when she was sent for a scan at another hospital that tumours were discovered. Mrs Lintern’s uncle, Tom Warriner, 48, died in January 2008 after his intestine was accidentally pierced in an operation for bowel cancer.

A coroner ruled the death was accidental. That summer, her grandmother Lilian Wood Latta, 80, died hungry and dehydrated after suffering a stroke. She was left in her own excrement during her final days and the family said the dehydration was caused by staff failing to give her adequate fluids.

Mrs Wood Latta had been referred to the hospital by her GP after suffering a series of mini-strokes at home. She was moved between wards three times, and it was left to relatives to change her incontinence pads.

This isn’t an isolated incident. Another NHS hospital faced a similar scandal when 70 patients died after suffering similar conditions. Another NHS hospital let a premature newborn die… because infants born before 22 weeks are not allowed treatment. NHS also gave free Viagra to a convicted child molestor who was set free. Britain’s socialized health care system is a mess and a danger to public health, yet Democrats for some unknown reason think it’ll work just great here… or they know it won’t work, and don’t care, because Congress gets to opt out.

It’s just like British or Canadian politicians who don’t have to suffer through this abysmal health care. They’re able to get private care, so why should they care when the little people have to suffer through such despicable conditions? As long as they keep getting reelected it makes no difference to them. The system’s not about to change, which is clear when you consider that not a single official from this disgusting hospital has had to face repercussions.

It’s not too late for Americans yet. We can still stop this monstrosity from coming here, but if we don’t… these NHS hospitals will be coming across the pond to us.

Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog. Stop by for more original commentary, or follow her on Twitter!

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