'We'll do cancer scan on Monday...if she's still alive': Agony of family of dying grandmother

UK Daily Mail ^ | 8/21/10 | Emily Andrews

[wagglebee]

As a hospital cleaner, Margaret Cummins dedicated years of her life to the Health Service.

She would keep the buildings spick and span - and go out of her way to help the sick and reassure those in distress.

But if she expected a little respect in return when she became a cancer patient, she was very wrong.

Instead, the 74-year-old's family were told that she could not have a vital scan because that particular unit was closed at weekends.

The locum doctor said: 'We'll do it on Monday - if she's still here.'

That crass remark was among 36 criticisms levelled at Northampton General Hospital, where Mrs Cummins spent 24 days.

The grandmother died in a hospice just two months after being diagnosed with a lung cancer that had been deemed treatable.

And Mrs Cummins's family claim that her appalling treatment in hospital contributed to her death.

Her daughter Julie Fordham said: 'Mum dedicated much of her life to working for the NHS. She wasn't high-profile, simply back-room, going about a menial but important job with spirit and a sense of pride. She loved the patients.

'She always believed the NHS was marvellous, but in this case its standards fell sadly short. We feel she was left to die.' The family's claims prompted the chief executive to apologise for 11 failures in her care.

Those included her walking frame being moved out of reach so she fell out of bed, being unable to ring a bedside alarm for help because it was out of reach and being left on the floor for 15 minutes.

[wagglebee]

Her medical notes were also removed from her bed, a Do Not Resuscitate order was posted before it had been discussed with her family, and she was kept waiting for 12 hours for an ambulance dressed only in a nightie and no underwear when she was transferred between hospitals.

Zero and his "czars" think we should be excited to have such a system.

[wagglebee]

Special thanks to mewzilla for the tip!

[wagglebee]

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[Nateman]

Oh we'll like it once we get to know.

[wagglebee]

Ping

[Tax-chick]

Those included her walking frame being moved out of reach so she fell out of bed, being unable to ring a bedside alarm for help because it was out of reach and being left on the floor for 15 minutes.

This type of thing, to me, really expresses the spirit of government "health care." Sometimes cancer patients are just going to die, no matter what is done, but the lack of consideration for patients is a symptom of very serious problems with the system.

[darkwing104]

Soon to come to a hospital near you...

[Clintonfatigued]

That country should change its name to Not So Great Britain. What’s worse is that such a thing could happen over here.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

One small thing in semi defense of the NHS is that a cancer scan is not an emergency in the sense that two days wait is not likely to be a determiner of outcome. The rest of this stuff is pretty bad, and the delay is hardly a testament to the overall quality of British Health care.

[Salvation]

Not excited here. And I don’t think this family is too excited either. Prayers for all of them.

[usconservative]

but the lack of consideration for patients is a symptom of very serious problems with the system.

Agree in part, but the entire problem isn't just "the system." The people working in it don't really seem to care much for the human condition and frankly don't have any respect for the sanctity and dignity of human life (as long as it's not their own anyway.)

In any case, expect to read this kinda crap in our media not long after ObamaCare starts up.....The same rationing going on in the U.K. is coming here soon enough.

[Tax-chick]

You’re absolutely right. It is the individual employees who make the difference in patient care. People either give the care they would want to receive, or they don’t.

Maybe a medical system where people don’t provide the care they would want is a symptom of a whole society of people who are unable to empathize with others. Sociopaths.

[mckenzie7]

That picture is too good!

[cricket]

Zero and his "czars" think we should be excited to have such a system.

Think the contrary. . .they KNOW exactly what is in store; and those smiles, when they speak of 'good health care' are smirks. For those they do excite; they see a fool. But for Obama, Inc., they are just necessary fools. . .

I still cannot fathom how it is; Repubs did present a much bigger challenge - that if Congress believed this soooooo good; then every voting Congressman had to sign on.

[Jim Scott]

This is the kind of 'health care' the liberal elites probably think the taxpayers deserve. The leftist contempt for the middle class is sometimes palpable, not to mention their belief that, collectively, the voters are stupid, which, sometimes, is a half-truth. We elected Obama, didn't we?

I can't wait until the first Tuesday in November to see them proved massively wrong!

[markomalley]

Well, what's the problem? Surely you don't want to have to pay those poor, overworked technicians weekend differential rates, do you? That would be hard on the budget...

</sarc>

[Gay State Conservative]

We know that this will *never* happen to Hussein & Friends.And they know it too.They've known it from the very start.

It's folks like us,,,,"the "great unwashed"...that should be worrying.

[Silentgypsy]

Assess a society by the way they treat their elderly and their animals.

[lowbridge]

bump