22 YO Man Dies Of Dehydration After 3 Days In UK Hospital

I have spent far too much time as a patient in NHS Hospitals over my short life and have experienced both the amazing care and professionalism. i wouldnt be here without the NHS,

I have also witnessed some very rude and lazy nurses. Luckily my parents and brother have always been with me and i sometimes got embarressed when my dad would "kick off" at nurses and doctors if he wasn't happy with how i was being treated. Unfortunately those who shout the loudest and complain the most (my dad) get seen quicker and looked after more in the NHS.

I feel sorry for those who dont have the suppport of a family. You need someone to kick people up the arse once in a while. especially with the NHS.

Originally posted by shai hulud
Not surprising. Government healthcare is the first step in bringing in a socialist order. Any nimrod that thinks healthcare is "free" in any part of the world needs to take economics 101. For all the people in the US that just want a small taste of what government run medicine is like, go to your nearest military hospital and compare it with the private sector. No thanks, I'll forego the LCD tv and keep my private healthcare. My healthcare is not a concern of the taxpayer.

Wrong. Public roads are the first step. Oh no! Next thing you know, the government will be running the parks too. Pretty soon, we'll have government run education, police & fire! Then what?

If you want to compare hospitals, the US is number 37 in the world right now for quality of care. Guess how many of the 36 nations above us have socialized medicine?
W.H.O.

Edit to add: If you wind up in the ER without insurance, your healthcare is CERTAINLY the concern of the taxpayer.


[edit on 8-3-2010 by suicydking]

reply to post by suicydking


Wow the UK is 18th, i mean it's way better than the states but i'm still ashamed of being 18th, and beaten by the French! Ahh well they had to win something sometime i guess I have seen the figures before but i had forgotten, thanks for that.

reply to post by Merriman Weir

What an insightful statement M/W, Glad to see you up and running again, Please stick around a bit longer, You brought alot of wisdom to the thread and i for one are glad you revisited and posted.. Kudos to you Mucker

Is this what we here in the U.S. have to look forward to with government provided health care?

What are you talking about? People have died from FAR worse in this country alone, thats why we have malpractice lawsuits.

Government paid-for health care isn't going to change anything.

I call shenanigans on you and your carnival tricks.

Originally posted by foxhoundone
reply to post by Merriman Weir

 

What an insightful statement M/W, Glad to see you up and running again, Please stick around a bit longer, You brought alot of wisdom to the thread and i for one are glad you revisited and posted.. Kudos to you Mucker

Thanks. I'm already regretting posting it now though. I mean what's the point? This time next week, there'll be another'socialismistic medishun will kill us all' thread' with examples from hospitals in England to 'prove' the point'.

reply to post by Merriman Weir

More than likely M/W, But that's the reason we need Seniors members like your self to keep things in perspective, And to point people like me in the true direction "To deny ignorance", So hang in there there's more than me

reply to post by Merriman Weir


Good to see you back MW! I have a couple of questions about these Trust Hospitals.

1) Are these Trust Hospitals under the NHS or are they private insurance hospitals?

2) If they are under the NHS, does the NHS inspect these hospitals to keep them up to NHS standards?

3) If these Trust Hospitals are so bad, why are they kept open? Just so people can blame them instead of the NHS?

4) One more. If these Trust Hospitals are so horrible, do the patrons of the NHS have an option not to go to them under the NHS system if they'd rather go to an NHS native hospital?

[edit on 3/8/10 by Ferris.Bueller.II]

Originally posted by Ferris.Bueller.II
reply to post by Merriman Weir

 

Good to see you back MW! I have a couple of questions about these Trust Hospitals.

1) Are these Trust Hospitals under the NHS or are they private insurance hospitals?

2) If they are under the NHS, does the NHS inspect these hospitals to keep them up to NHS standards?

3) If these Trust Hospitals are so bad, why are they kept open? Just so people can blame them instead of the NHS?

4) One more. If these Trust Hospitals are so horrible, do the patrons of the NHS have an option not to go to them under the NHS system if they'd rather go to an NHS native hospital?

[edit on 3/8/10 by Ferris.Bueller.II]

The answers to these, and I say this given that you obviously started the thread with some preconceived ideas! - won't be as clear cut as you'd possibly like. This is not because I'm trying to confuse the issue or hide aspects of this but rather because it's all a bit messed-up in that some of it barely makes sense. Also, as I said previously, you won't find any socialist agenda here - evil or otherwise.

Firstly, they all still come under the heading NHS: these hospitals are known as NHS Trusts and often, rather than having a simple title such as 'Mytown NHS Hospital', they might now be known as 'Mytown Hospital NHS Foundation Trust'. However, as I went to great pains to explain before, do not mistake these for the NHS models of old which, if you had to, could be described a little more accurately as 'socialist'.

As for inspections, this is a serious and worrying issue as there's two types of inspections. In the earlier post I tried to explain how, once the government have handed over a budget, the management are left pretty much to their own devices to run the place as they see fit. Now extend that to some of the inspections and rating schemes. For some awards hospitals basically mark themselves and submit applications based on their own findings and ratings. This practice is not that unusual though and is mirrored to an extent elsewhere such as in schools and colleges where marking can be done internally and only a sample is then inspected externally. However, as commonplace as it might be, often it serves to give a false impression of hospitals and the potential flaws in this are fairly obvious to anyone.

Others hospital awards are rated completely externally though. The big motivation in any of these external or internal schemes is funding as awards usually come with 'prizes' and not just something boast about on hospital stationary on in a frame in someone's office. It's bad marks on these schemes that push hospitals on to the front pages of newspapers.

Now, when it comes to 'bad' hospitals, if these hospitals are closed down, where do communities then go for local healthcare? It's really only the middle-classes that can afford to go elsewhere either to a nearby NHS hospital or just go to a private one (also, why should anyone need to go to a private hospital, particularly after they've already paid for their treatment via taxes?).

This is also problematic in that often certain hospitals specialise in certain areas of treatment so, in a 12 mile radius there may be two hospitals in two different administrative areas and, for example, if you live in one area your local hospital might not be the treatment centre for certain things and you might have to go to the next nearest hospital for that treatment. That's not really that big an issue in itself for a lot of people, even for a country where travelling 15 miles can seem like a big deal; although if you or your family don't drive, or don't even have a family those 15 miles can be alienating and difficult.

However, it does limit the idea of choice because there's not much local choice if certain treatments are being split up across hospitals (even though there's some logic to this regarding budgets and so on). Choice within the NHS is a curious thing. It's one of those things the present government have talked a lot about over the last decade, and have placed choice at the front of health policies. However, it's a bit of a sham as not everyone actually wants to go elsewhere. Hospitals can be traumatic (no matter how good they are) and often people just want to be as close to home, family and friends as possible. Often the extra travelling in itself can be problematic for patients friends and families alike - a few years ago, I had to go to a non-local hospital that was less than 15 miles away for about a week due to it being a 'specialist centre of excellence' or some nonsense title. Neither myself nor my partner drive and that 15 miles translated into a 3 hour travelling time (each way!) for my partner as there was no direct bus route from her house (we don't live together) and a total of 6 separate buses for a complete return journey. If I'd have been treated in my local hospital, the trip would have been 4 buses for her and only an hour each way as opposed to 3 hours.

Also, I've yet to speak to anyone in my part of the world that's genuinely concerned about choice. Most people just want a good local hospital. A good local hospital actually defeats the need for choice. Unless you've got something genuinely life-threatening and somewhere offers cutting-edge treatments, why go anywhere else if your local hospital is a good one?

On the other hand, if your local hospital is a bad one, surely it makes more sense to sort out that hospital rather than just offer somewhere else for the patient to go? 'Choice' as a health policy, in a lot of this, is really a conjuror's distraction: you look at one hand whilst the other hand is really doing the work and what that work is doing is Private Finance Initiative and again, PFI is anything but socialist: it's greedy corporatism at its worst.

So, when American healthcare doom-mongers are crying about the ills of the 'European socialised medicine' to come, ironically what we're seeing now in England (at a time when the NHS is in the biggest mess it has ever been) is what might look more like some 'quasi-American capitalist medicine' where things are now being placed more and more into the hands of private profit-driven firms than 'the state'.

Now, I'm sure many Americans would be unhappy with my describing what I have in the last few posts as 'American', however these people need to understand that, similarly, what I've described in these posts is hardly 'socialist' either. Again, there's no socialism in this, only a (non-socialist) government in bed with private firms who are out to make money wherever they can.

Here's a point and another 'NHS horror story' that goes some way to explain what I'm talking about. Today, the Daily Mail are running a follow-up story about a hospital in Norwich which has been in the news a lot lately because of some awful practices where patients are kept in side rooms that are, to all intents and purposes, storage areas.

This actual practice can't really be defended but the way the story can be looked at can be scrutinised. This looks like a NHS nightmare story ripe for scaremongering about the ills of socialist medicine. However, once you get past the lazy journalism, there's more to this than meets the eye.

Understandably, the Daily Mail goes in for a 'Labour's failings' angle, with an undercurrent of NHS generally is in a shambles. The Tory and the Liberal spokesman are, naturally, quick to jump in and follow a similar line. However, nowhere in the actual writing itself and nowhere in the Tory and Liberal quotes is the true nature of the hospital mentioned or even it's true name. It's in fact a Trust Hospital and it's Trust Hospital status was actually created under the last Tory government; whilst New Labour have grabbed PFI with both hands, ostensibly it's a Tory policy as much as old Labour's was to nationalise everything.

Again, a real scandal (not that patient welfare isn't a scandal) is the way the firms involved in the running and building of these hospitals (the hospital in this story is actually several institutions kind of merging and breaking off but coming under the more or less the same Trust organisation) actually fleeced the government and continue to do so, whilst it's the government and the reputation of the NHS (and, by extension, some weird understanding of 'socialism') that gets it in the neck.

So, somehow a story about greedy private firms, unfathomable/corrupt centrist, right-wing politicians and management pre-occupied with self-interest and ticking boxes gets turned into a story about the evils of an allegedly left wing government and the flawed premise of the NHS.

You couldn't make it up. Oh, somebody did.

Originally posted by boaby_phet
reply to post by Ferris.Bueller.II

 

and being from the uk and having been a patron in a uk hospital or doctors surgery you know ALLLL about this dont ya !?!?

what you are spouting is pure conjecture! unless you have actualy had to use the system, when it comes to talking about a system your really know nothing about yout basicly farting , as what you are regurgitating is not facts, its just conjecture and it stinks.

Look at this! A foreigner all upset because someone in the U.S. has the audacity to point out some failure in their own country. At the same time many of these people love to point out all the failings in what the U.S. does. Their excuse, of course, is to say that what the U.S. does affects them. so they have a right to comment. Well, in this case the shoe is on the other foot, since everyone in the U.S. is looking at countries that already have socialized healthcare to see what it's like. And stories like this scare the hell out of anyone in the U.S. that doesn't believe in living off of government handouts.

Originally posted by centurion1211

Look at this! A foreigner all upset because someone in the U.S. has the audacity to point out some failure in their own country. At the same time many of these people love to point out all the failings in what the U.S. does. Their excuse, of course, is to say that what the U.S. does affects them. so they have a right to comment. Well, in this case the shoe is on the other foot, since everyone in the U.S. is looking at countries that already have socialized healthcare to see what it's like. And stories like this scare the hell out of anyone in the U.S. that doesn't believe in living off of government handouts.

Stories like this should really only scare people who don't read all the thread. As for handouts, if you've actually paid for something upfront via taxes, then it's hardly a handout is it?

Also, regarding the 'foreigner' thing, an English poster posting about an English story is hardly the foreigner in this context.

reply to post by centurion1211


A foreigner, indeed. Is that all non US contributors are, to you ? Hardly surprising then that "foreigners" seem to be a declining species on this forum, with an attitude like yours.

As to the United Kingdom healthcare system, I find it a mixed bag. The local doctor's surgeries are invariably swamped, by the time you manage to get an appointment to see someone you're either cured or in hospital. The hospitals, though, are quite impressive, although their cleanliness is quite frankly awful & the emergency units on a friday or saturday night are little better than a warzone, due to the Brits predisposition towards cheap alcohol.

So I was surprised to read about this man's death. That's awful in any hospital, publically funded or otherwise. But I've heard stories about lamentable care in British private hospitals too (yes, they do exist), with botched operations leaving their private patients in such poor health that they've been wheeled off to the nearest NHS hospital for remedial treatment.

The NHS is nowhere near as good as the Finnish, Norwegian or even French health systems & it's a shame that some Brits here can't learn from that, it's just an observation, not an attack on the Brits or Britishness.

I have been in British hospitals a few times now, no complaints from me, even the food was good and wholesome, doctors were okay, nurses were
great, the last hospital was huge, and getting bigger, have not been there recently, so not sure what its like now. In any case, being healthy and not going into hospitals is better for oneself anyway.

Just to add this as it's recent. My brothers wife gave birth a few days ago, i'm an uncle (yay) and the care she is being given is top notch. She's still in at the moment as there were some complications (she had a kidney infection the last 2 weeks of pregnancy). The baby was all fine but then he suddenly went blue and they had to drain his lungs as they were full of mucus. They are sure he'll be ok but they're being cautious, he's now in an incubator and under close observation.

Anyway she has a private room, with an en suite bathroom, she's being pumped full of antibiotics to sort her infection out, there are plenty of nurses around, the baby is being really well looked after and hopefully they'll be out soon.

Now seriously, could you ask for more from a system?

reply to post by Ferris.Bueller.II




I am a lazy nurse that just spent last night working a 16 hour shift with no break for a drink of water, a bite to eat or a chance to empty my bladder.

This lazy nurse was given 8 patients. 2 were admissions, which took over an hour to complete (who is taking care of the other patients while you are tied up for that hour?) 3 were post ops that required neuro checks every 2 hours and one had drain flushes every 4 hours. 4 had Accu-checks with insulin coverage. All had tons of medications and of course the regular requests for pain medications every 3 to 4 hours. Any request for assistance to and from the bathroom took over twenty minutes and I had no patient care assistant to help me.

Does this lazy nurse feel that she provided her patients with good nursing care? I answer this question with a resounding no, but institutions especially hospitals are not interested in good nursing care anymore. They are interested in a hefty bottom line and regardless to how much window dressing they do it is a pure lie. Nurses are over staffed to the point that it is impossible for them to provide adequate nursing care. Often we are not even given the basic supplies that we need to do our jobs and they are constantly trying to cover their behinds with stupid interventions like the signing of documentation stating that the nurse will treat all patients with compassion. That document should go a long way in correcting the problem.

Did anyone noticed that the doctor who was on scene with this case is not being called into question it is the lazy nurse and if this just about a glass of water then why didn’t the mother give her son the water?

The mother commented that the nurses were too lazy to check the charts to see that her son had been taking a crucial medication at home. It would be wonderful if the nurses could sit and read the history of all of here patients but we don’t have time and even if we did we don’t write prescriptions. This is information that should have been brought to the attention of the physician and even then if the doctor did not order the medication the nurse could not give it.

I am not placing blame anywhere with this case because it is obvious that there is not information to make that determination. I am just furious that everyone is ready to throw the nurses under the bus when they are the least to blame. We go around putting out fires and throwing on Band-Aids because that is all we can do and the sad thing is that it is going to get a lot worse because you are allowing yourselves to get hoodwinked.

I am ready to thrown in the towel. I thought I could better deal with the situation by cutting back my hours but the truth is that safe, quality nursing care is doomed if the people of the world don’t wake up and demand the care they deserve. Blaming the nurses is not just wrong it is killing the goose that laid the golden egg.