Posted on 03/17/2009 11:23:58 AM PDT by smokingfrog
Patients were allegedly left screaming in pain and drinking from flower vases on a nightmare hospital ward.
Between 400 and 1,200 more people died than would have been expected at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust over three years, a damning Healthcare Commission report said.
The watchdog's investigation found inadequately trained staff who were too few in number, junior doctors left alone in charge at night and patients left without food, drink or medication as their operations were repeatedly cancelled.
Patients were left in pain or forced to sit in soiled bedding for hours at a time and were not given their regular medication, the Commission heard.
Receptionists with no medical training were expected to assess patients coming in to A&E, some of whom needed urgent care.
Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of the NHS, said there had been a "gross and terrible breach" of patients' trust and a "complete failure of leadership".
The Healthcare Commission's chairman Sir Ian Kennedy said the investigation followed concerns about a higher than normal death rate at the Trust, which senior managers could not explain.
He said: "The resulting report is a shocking story. Our report tells a story of appalling standards of care and chaotic systems for looking after patients. These are words I have not previously used in any report.
"There were inadequacies in almost every stage of caring for patients. There was no doubt that patients will have suffered and some of them will have died as a result."
Julie Bailey, 47, was so concerned about the care being given to her 86-year-old mother Bella at Stafford Hospital that she and her relatives slept in a chair at her bedside for eight weeks.
She said: "We saw patients drinking out of...
(Excerpt) Read more at itn.co.uk ...
Obamacare coming to a town near you.
But ... but ... everyone has health care. Such as it is.
Folks in Socialist Countries pray that we don't get it, because they come here when they can't get care.
As usual.
coming soon to a hospital near you! can this happen here? Can we be stupid enough to do this to ourselves? (repeat after me)
Yes, we can!
Daschle says we should just learn to accept it.
It really isn’t fair to expect much care after our prime working/childbearing years.
Complete Mainstream Media News blackout (coordinated by online meeting space JournoList) of this and all other factual reporting of socialist medical “care.”
ping
And what is our Republican leadership doing? Making sure that every one knows that Russ Limbaugh in NOT in charge, stuffing earmarking into spending plan, complaining that it is not fair the way that they are being treated by . . . everyone.
Londonistan in all its glory - the idol of the liberal American left.
Lawyers here would never allow that to go unchallenged in court. The hospitals would be afraid of multi-million lawsuits.
We did the same thing here in the USA when my 93 year old Grandfather was failing.
Either my mother, my brother, my sister, my aunt, or me was with him 24X7 for three months.
We told the nurses and staff that we were going to be there, that we would not be unreasonable but that if we asked one of them to do something for our grandfather it would be something that NEEDED to be done, that we couldn't do ourselves, and we expected it to be done in a timely manner.
In the hospital this worked well. The nurses and doctors were polite and professional.
You could tell that they appreciated not having to be called every time he got thirsty, or needed help to the bathroom, or needed the bed adjusted, etc.
In the nursing home I had to threaten to make their work life a living hell.
They did call the police on me one time in the nursing home.
My Grandfather was writhing in pain about thirty minutes before his scheduled pain medication.
I went to the desk and asked that they give him SOMETHING for the pain.
The doctor had him on minimum meds and had left standing orders that he be given pain meds "as needed".
They told me that they would give him meds on his schedule and to leave them alone to chat.
I BELLOWED that if they didn't get down there right now I would make their lives a living hell.
They did go at that moment and give my grandfather pain meds - then called the police.
This is the change we can look forward to, wallowing in our own filth and writhing in pain as a government worker anxiously waits for us to shut up and die.
FUBO.
If they were government hospitals, your rights to sue them would be extremely limited.
Its already here, even for paying patients.
I had to intimidate the nurses to get morphine for my burnt daughter; she was literally going crazy with itching from her grafts and, apparently, the nurses were too busy to do basic pain management. And they wouldn’t respond to my wife or the nurse call button.
My wife had to stay with her in the hospital constantly for months to make sure she got proper care. She had to do the diaper changes herself, or the nurses would have left in filth for hours; and we had to buy our own diapers. She had to develop her own care routines to supplement the hospital care (Invest in manuka honey - that stuff is miraculous!). They left staples in my daughter’s head after they sent her home - we had to go back to have them removed.
There were parts of that hospital that were well run, and others that really sucked. I don’t know how different floors in the same hospital can be so different.
I really shudder to think what would have happened if the government had been running that hospital...
I can't address the rest of your experience, but I can tell you that a good possibility for why your daughter had to go through pain and not get morphine is that so many health care professionals are afraid to properly treat pain due to the War On Drugs. Everyone's afraid if they give someone as much pain medication as they actually need that the DEA will put them in jail. It's a crime, but there's nothing for it.
FWIW - I'm no long haired dope smoking libertarian. It's just that I've seen this before with friends of mine, and I think it's criminal that they can't get the relief they need.
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