Posted on 07/31/2010 1:13:53 PM PDT by wagglebee
WASHINGTON (BP)--Government-run hospitals in Scotland are guilty of a "form of euthanasia" by malnutrition, a patients' organization leader has charged.
Jean Turner, executive director of the Scotland Patients Association (SPA), said hundreds of patients, especially the elderly, are undernourished in National Health Service (NHS) hospitals because of a lack of assistance from staff members, according to The Herald of Glasgow, Scotland.
About 50,000 patients die in a state of malnutrition each year at NHS facilities, according to one recent report.
"The SPA would call this a form of euthanasia to allow dehydration and malnutrition to develop due to lack of awareness, lack of staffing or carelessness," Turner said, according to The Herald's July 4 story.
The patients' organization has urged the Scottish government to urgently tackle the problem of malnutrition of the elderly in the nation's hospitals. Turner indicated the problem stems from staff who do not help patients who cannot feed themselves.
One woman died of kidney failure, The Herald said, after 14 weeks in a hospital, and her family believes poor standards of care, particularly in nutrition, contributed to her death.
"Staff would tell me, 'It takes an hour to feed your mother and we don't have an hour,'" one family member told the newspaper, adding, "We believe that the care she received in that hospital is the reason she is not here today."
Turner said the case is one of many.
"If patients do not manage to swallow food, nutritious or otherwise, and drink then they will not heal, their general health will deteriorate and death may be an outcome, sooner or later," Turner said.
"... Whatever happened to measuring input and output and keeping charts to prevent this? We are in no doubt many wards short-staffed and staff do not have the time that they know is needed to provide the best care, but SPA would say it is down to all staff to be accountable and raise their issues of concern."
When the hospital staff is aware that a patient has difficulty eating, the patients' organization said it expects them to help the patient eat, The Herald reported.
Compiled by Baptist Press Washington bureau chief Tom Strode and staff writer Erin Roach.
50,000 a year in a small place like Scotland? OMG. That is sick.
Put me on the Baptist ping list. God bless you.
I'm sure tutstar will be happy to put you on the Baptist ping list (I'm Catholic).
I think the 50,000 number is for the NHS for the entire UK. But, when you consider that the UK population is around 62 million, that is an incredible amount of avoidable deaths.
LOL, I meant UK, not just Scotland, but the point remains, with the population at 62 million, that's a lot of avoidable deaths!
To put it in perspective, that would be the equivalent of 250,000 deaths from malnutrition in American hospitals.
Imagine - starving to death in a ‘care’ setting. It seems unbelievable, like a story out of a nation beset by famine, not under the healthcare system of an industrialized nation. There would by an outcry if it involved animals in a shelter. As in one near me raided recently, the owner had a big heart and simply took in many more than she could feed. Outcry, action, resolution - for pets.
No doubt, but what is the staff to do? If this woman eats three times a day, that's three hours for just one patient. With the number of patients they have, how could they possible feed them all?
I can't imagine a situation like that, but I just don't know that it's intentional. There's just not enough information given. What the patients rights group claims and what reality is may just be two different things.
Just curious, why is she in a hospital instead of nursing home or rehab center or something? Where's the family in all this?
Feh! A pox on every single one of the stinking democrats who voted for this universally shitty healthcare.
What will likely happen this winter to the elderly and those who make just enough to not be able to qualify for utility assistance if ‘cap and trade’ passes? All energy costs will increase drastically, and people already looking at ‘tender vittles’ for dinner will freeze or starve.
When humans were nothing more than savage beasts, they “took care” of their older tribal members by taking away their food. These unfortunate souls, robbed of their food, soon died from malnutrition.
In the year 2010, when humans drive God and moral absolutes from the social fabric, that human beast is sitting at our doorstep ready to starve those that moral relativism deems as unnecessary to the collective. The question is, how can we reverse this leap into the culture of savagery? The answer is that those who hold onto their faith in God will be a light to bring those in the bondage of darkness back from their savagery.
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