Posted on 05/25/2011 9:44:57 PM PDT by Nachum
Doctors are prescribing drinking water for neglected elderly patients to stop them dying of thirst in hospital. The measure – to remind nurses of the most basic necessity – is revealed in a damning report on pensioner care in NHS wards. Some trusts are neglecting the elderly on such a fundamental level their wards could face closure orders. The snapshot study, triggered by a Mail campaign, found staff routinely ignored patients’ calls for help and forgot to check that they had had enough to eat and drink.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Earlier cultures dealt with the problem more mercifully IMO. When the time came it was part of the social contract in many societies to leave old folks alone in the wilderness to die with dignity of exposure, starvation and thirst -- a much kinder and quicker fate than being left to the not-so-tender mercies of minimum-wage airheads who entertain themselves by placing bets on which of their charges will wet or soil themselves first.
I'm reaching that time of life. Thank God I haven't given all my guns away!
Does anyone record the amount of water they drink? Is anyone home up there to think and recall that they need a drink. These are the issues for you and what this article is about.
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So nurses in the UK are nothing but butchers who "forget" (yeah, "forget") to give the helpless eldery patients depending on them, water??? Insane. So these "forgetful" executioners - I mean, nurses - need to have prescriptions of the medicine - I mean "water" so the helpless elderly do not die of thirst. What depths of cruelty!
Plenty of earlier cultures revered the elderly and took care of them with kindness and respect!
Not joking here - my husbands grandmother passed away in a “better’ nursing home - the Dr. put her cause of death down as
DEHYDRATION.
Yes. Thing is she paid her own way there for the first four years, then MOST of her funds were gone. Medi-caid/care had to pick up about 50% after that, but we still paid her private medical insurance.
And she died of DEHYDRATION. The nurses didn’t do SQUAT - even about informing us there was a problem.
I couldn't help but give my take on the above remark. It illustrates thinking that I am sure that certain individuals in the nursing staff are doing. It illustrates a morality that is willing to trade one bad behavior for another. It is a God complex and it is the result of the the self-esteem movement which began in 1969.
In the case of certain individuals in a nursing staff, they may feel they are over worked and under paid or feel some form of injustice. So, to express their displeasure in the situation, they trade their poor treatment for a behavior that exacts a punishment for that treatment. Sometimes that punishment manifests itself in an outrageous action. Such a morality in the nurse's case, acts out their assault on their self-esteem by trading their displeasure for the displeasure of the patient. This behavior is just like your comment, which I know is in a figurative way, takes pleasure in a drastic action; like tossing nurses out of windows. This type of thinking manifests itself in the same type of street justice that causes a patient to suffer a slow, painful death by dehydration.
It reminds me of the story of a restaurant worker who took out his feelings of injustice by peeing in the coffee. It reminds me of the student who takes a gun to class and kills teachers and classmates.
It gives that nurse a sense of justice where the patient by proxy, is the one who pays for their displeasure.
how about requiring families to take in their elderly and care for them themselves, instead of expecting the govt to provide?.......not there’s an idea....
Cruel witches. Horrible. How can people be so disgustingly heartless.
A woman I know cares for her elderly grandmother at home, along with homeschooling her two or three children. I don’t think her grandma is bedridden but does need someone at home with her all the time.
That’s what families are for, and used to be like. Of course some elderly have such medical conditions they can’t be cared for at home, but even in some cases, a health home care visit a few times a week would make the home care practicable, and of course much cheaper than a nursing home staffed with butchers and murderers.
Sorry to hear about your husband’s grandmother. Cruelty to the helpless and the elderly makes me enraged.
In the case of Terri Schiavo they called it a “peaceful death”.
We had a relative die this way in a nursing home. Once “they” determine that you are already on your way out, they can decide that water is unnecessarily prolonging your life.
taking care of elderly adults is more labor intensive than taking care of an infant...
an infant is small, easily handled...if he has a soiled diaper, its a quick job to clean up...if he needs food or drink, just grab a bottle....they are soothed by rocking or swaddling..
elderly...the sick elderly...are frail...they could still be large, heavy, difficult to turn...they don't swallow properly.....they take a long time to eat....they choke on pills...you can't put them in a safe crib so they don't fall out...."patient rights" etc....but when they do climb out on their own, there is hell to pay....
people in a hospital are not prisoners...if they don't want to eat or drink, then they can't be forced too....
if they don't want to stay in bed, and you can't restrain them or use those "drugs" to help them relax, then you better be prepared for broken hips and skull fractures....
its a no win situation...
so be prepared to keep your elders in your home....because no country can afford one on one care for the millions and millions that will need care....its impossible....
did you want her to have one nurse....and its not nurses..its nurses aids....for all HER needs?....or were the other patients to be ignored....
did she have diabetes?...heart failure?...renal failure?...was she an aspirator?....not able to eat or drink enough....???
did you want her on tube feedings?
WHY did NO family take her home?....complain all you want...but if family is not going to take responsibility, than there is no room to criticize....
Why did the family leave grandma in such a rotten place with such rotten caregivers?....
a lousy study by a paper that sensationalizes.....
I inquired from the doctor on duty if his current condition could be the result of a drug overdose. The doctor clearly though nothing was amiss. But right after this one of the nurses whispered to me: "You can get him out of here."
I had an ambulance called and he was transferred to a nearby hospital (which considering the closeness of the hospital was a ridiculously involved procedure in itself), At the hospital doctors quickly found that he was extremely dehydrated, that this was the reason for the apparent change in his condition, and told me that he would have died very soon if he had not been brought in. Soon he was revived and we were having a conversation.
He still had some serious problems but he lived for several years after this incident. Anyway this taught me that:
1. There probably are a lot of cases where the symptoms of extreme dehydration or other critical health problems are confused with dementia.
2. Once you appear to have dementia, or even if you are just among others with dementia, a lot of people (including doctors) are not going to inquire too closely about your well-being.
3. Sometimes nurses have a better idea what is going on than doctors, but they can be afraid to speak up.
Reading threads about this issue, I am often reminded of STNG ( Star trek next generation) episode with David Ogden Stiers.
In his characters culture when one reached 60 yrs of age they were expected to die, or commit suicide.
It was considered a stain on the family if they did not.
Since I saw that episode sometime in the 80’s I have often reflected what set of circumstances could lead the USA to implement. Since 0 care has come to be, I no longer wonder what set of circumstances, but when we will be forced to end our lives.
In my life I have met any people who are vibrant productive members of society well into their 7,8,9,10th decade of life.
When I was in trade school in early 80’s, I was in class with retired engineer, he was 74 yrs of age. He went back to school to learn a new trade because he was bored in retirement.
I do not think any govt entity should be able to decide when a citizen should die.
What I was only useful for generating taxes, but now that I am done paying taxes I should die.
As to resources, if we had responsible civic minded pols ( I am killing myself LOL) that were more concerned with fiscal responsibility this would not even be a discussion.
I could go on but I do not like rants, therefore I am done ranting for the night.
nursing homes nurses are horribly overwhelmed. This is a symptom of a bad system as much as it is a bad nurse. I have worked on a floor that what would be considered a nursing home. I had 11 patients and got an admission that made 12. The admission took about 2.5 hours to complete. That left me with 9.5 hours to take care of 12 patients. That leaves me with 47.5 minutes per patient. Charting on each patient takes approximately 17 minutes each. That leaves 30 minutes per patient. Each patient gets a physical assessment. A thorough physical assessment takes about 10 minutes. That leaves 7 minutes left per patient or 84 minutes total. So, you now have 1 hour and 24 minutes minutes to safely pass medications to 12 people. That may or may not be enough time depending on the meds and the patients. Notice I haven’t mentioned a lunch, a break, going to the bathroom, or doing any kind of dressing changes, or helping people go to the bathroom, or extenuating circumstances that require calling physicians and taking orders, drawing blood, starting IVs, cleaning up poop and pee, walking up and down the halls checking patients, turning patients every two hours, obtaining vital signs, writing/taping report for the oncoming shift, talking to the patients and/or their families, etc. I have worked on other floors where I had 5 patients that were so complicated that they took even more time to deal with incidentally. Nurses are being asked to do too much. This is the healthcare system you got. Firing more nurses won’t fix it, it will more likely collapse it. I think I should have been a plumber. I would be paid more, worked less, and held to a lesser standard. Plumbers don’t go to jail when they eff up your sink installation. Nursing sucks.
Well, mandatory spend-downs on IRAs are one factor. You reach the age where you can access your IRA, and are forced to drain the thing, as if you're supposed to drop dead once the $ runs out.
Why not draw down then pay into Roth or is that not allowed. I am uninformed on that aspect
...”The daily horror show on ObamaCare in the UK, totally covered up by the evil democrat party US media.
Not one in a hundred people in the US are aware of the truth.
Yeah, we see these on Free Republic, but that is about all”...
You are correct...Here we preach mostly to the choir..We need to post articles on FACEBOOK and any other social media we have privy to..We need to join every communication vehicle we can to get the word out to people about what Americans face with Obamacare..The evidence is right under our noses.
I believe part of the Kenyan Medical system that the Democrats have forced and the Republicans wil,do go along with is the unionization of the medical profession. When hosp9ital staffs are all unionized we will have this phenomenon in spades. Patients will no longer be the focus of nurses and hospital techs’ work. Union politics and union concerns will rule totally and they have nothing to do with things like patients’ welfare.
Sort of like United Airlines and passengers?
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