Thousands Die of Hunger and Thirst in Hospitals

Well, if American school lunches are equivalent to our hospitals food, then all I can say is that I tried to eat school lunch one time with my kids and after that they always took a lunch to school. I don't think my dog would have eaten what they were serving to the children. Really really really bad food. Watered down canned cheese natchos, with stale chips. Uncooked (runny dough) apple brown betty, and warm milk. I think there were canned peas too! Im sick just thinking about it.

Originally posted by misskat1
reply to post by FlyersFan

 

Could the two of you argue in private email. It gets old trying to read relevant replies while wading through BS.

The BS is quoting from an article with no context. Do you want context or would you rather read something with no context and happily form an opinion based on it? Your choice. Deny ignorance doesn't mean deny any kind of balance.

Originally posted by something wicked
The falsehoods thing I believe is referring to me,

Yep.

you do not agree with what is the closest to the NHS system you are likely to get in America - you have made that clear in other posts.

Sure. In other threads I have said that I don't want it. So what.
No where on this thread did I attack the NHS system. Not once.
I didn't say it was to blame for this. I didn't even bring it up.
Oh .. and you LIED when you posted these off topic comments ...

Flyersfan, I know you want to demonise the NHS

Your bias to anything other than the healthcare system you grew up with is blindingly clear -

1 - Anything wrong with the NHS is glaringly obvious and I don't have to 'demonize' anything.
2 - Since I never once blamed NHS, your rhetoric about me 'demonizing NHS' is without merit.
3 - I have bias in favor of the healthcare system that is in the USA? Really? Obviously NOT since I have spent a whole lotta time on threads discussing how bad the health care and doctors and big pharma in this country are ... so again, it's EPIC FAIL on your part and you are totally off topic. You should apologize.

So again, you say hunger and thirst are not problems in American hospitals - prove no cases of dehydration or malnutrition (

1 - You have it backwards. YOU have to prove that cases of dehydration and malnutrition exist in the USA. I don't have to prove a negative. that's silly.

2 - I didn't say that people in the USA aren't suffering in hospitals from dehydration and malnutrition. I have no idea if they are or not. I found no information on it. I clearly said that the really BIG problem in the USA is that doctors give bad diagnosis and bad drugs because they are in bed with Big Pharma. Thousands die every year from that.

3 - The ONLY PERSON displaying any kind of biased nationalism on this thread is you. I posted an article and said .. 'why is this happening'. And you went ape-crap off topic crazy. How about YOU drop the nationalism and just figure out why people, by the thousands, are suffering from hunger and dehydration in hospitals in England. THAT is the topic. NOT ME. (and yes .. THOUSANDS ... the article said 5,000+ discharged from hospitals suffered from dehydration and were hungry)

Hospital food is one of the worst foods you can eat next to prison food and children's school cafeteria food.

It is of very poor quality, loaded with sugar , and of very poor nutritional quality.

It is in the dead food category.

reply to post by ArtisticOne

Yep. Hospital food and school food. Both are supposed to be prep'd by nutritionists with degrees in their field. Well ... in an optimal situation they are. But in reality .. the food stinks.

3 1/2 years ago I was in the ER overnight for a concussion. In the morning the food trays came around. Everyone got theirs put in their cubical but me. The doctor had to go hunt down a tray for me. And the only reason I got one was because I was whaling my head off from the pain in my head, and in my stomach from going 24 hours without food or water and being on their meds.

People get forgotten or passed by now and then.
It's human error or forgetfulness or laziness on the part of the workers.
But the fact that THOUSANDS in this article had hunger/dehydration issues is a lot.

Here is my experience in the last 12 months.

My father in law suffered a heart attack in March 2012.
He was taken to one hospital then moved to another.
This other hospital had him for three weeks, during which time he suffered at least two strokes, not one stroke was picked up by medical staff. This was only confirmed once he returned to the original hospital.
All in all, he was in three hospitals, not one of them fed him nor gave him water when he wasn't on a drip, that was down to us. Often food was on the floor where he had tried to eat for himself and his lips would be cut because they were so dry, complaints were made, nothing ever changed. Likewise I witnessed not on nurse go to other patients who were in the beds around him, unless family/friends were at bed side.
The level of English is very poor, communication therefore is next to zero.
Communication between hospital and Social Services is zero.
Communication internally throughout the Social Services is zero.
Despite constantly reminding the nursing home to not keep him laying down, he was always laying down whenever we went to see him every day.
My father in law dies of pnumonia a week before Christmas 2012.

That is just in the past 12 months.

The NHS needs 8% increase every year just to stand still, any increase below this, is a cut. That is the black hole that is the NHS.
Very top heavy - managerial positions in the NHS and plenty and receive massive pay.
GPs thanks to Labour are on six figure salaries for doing half the work.
Financial consultants hired are on six figure salaries.
The NHS serves the entire planet with people coming from all over just to use the health service.
Money saving ideas include using agency nurses who cant speak English and often do not go through the same checks as directly employed staff.
Highly stat driven.

This is just a few things that contribute to the absolute mess that is the NHS, some areas might be ok, but they will generally be the rural ones. Here in the South East, GP waiting times are at minimum a week, A&E waiting times can often be between 4 hours and 18 hours. The level of patient care on all fronts is almost zero.

Like everything in this country, too many taking out and too little being put in.

Money rules the world and it seems every life on this planet has a monetary value to it, some in pounds, most in pence.

Originally posted by FlyersFan

Originally posted by something wicked
The falsehoods thing I believe is referring to me,

Yep.

you do not agree with what is the closest to the NHS system you are likely to get in America - you have made that clear in other posts.

Sure. In other threads I have said that I don't want it. So what.
No where on this thread did I attack the NHS system. Not once.
I didn't say it was to blame for this. I didn't even bring it up.
Oh .. and you LIED when you posted these off topic comments ...

Flyersfan, I know you want to demonise the NHS

Your bias to anything other than the healthcare system you grew up with is blindingly clear -

1 - Anything wrong with the NHS is glaringly obvious and I don't have to 'demonize' anything.
2 - Since I never once blamed NHS, your rhetoric about me 'demonizing NHS' is without merit.
3 - I have bias in favor of the healthcare system that is in the USA? Really? Obviously NOT since I have spent a whole lotta time on threads discussing how bad the health care and doctors and big pharma in this country are ... so again, it's EPIC FAIL on your part and you are totally off topic. You should apologize.

So again, you say hunger and thirst are not problems in American hospitals - prove no cases of dehydration or malnutrition (

1 - You have it backwards. YOU have to prove that cases of dehydration and malnutrition exist in the USA. I don't have to prove a negative. that's silly.

2 - I didn't say that people in the USA aren't suffering in hospitals from dehydration and malnutrition. I have no idea if they are or not. I found no information on it. I clearly said that the really BIG problem in the USA is that doctors give bad diagnosis and bad drugs because they are in bed with Big Pharma. Thousands die every year from that.

3 - The ONLY PERSON displaying any kind of biased nationalism on this thread is you. I posted an article and said .. 'why is this happening'. And you went ape-crap off topic crazy. How about YOU drop the nationalism and just figure out why people, by the thousands, are suffering from hunger and dehydration in hospitals in England. THAT is the topic. NOT ME. (and yes .. THOUSANDS ... the article said 5,000+ discharged from hospitals suffered from dehydration and were hungry)

No, frankly, pee poor response - 'Thousands die of hunger'? Fail.

Sorry Flyersfan, you provide no statistical proof if the NHS is better or worse than any other country, you simply call out a sensationlistic article with no further grounds. You cut my responses to only cover the points you want to make a comment on, you are frankly not very good at this kind of thing really. Let me say again because you don't seem to want to listen..... put this article you are clinging to in perspective - how does the UK measure against other nations for the points you have listed - dire, really bad, bad, medium, good, very good.... give it some basis or just admit you throw in these articles with absolutely no background research from yourself - easy to answer, do some homework and make it an OP worth more people commenting on.

Originally posted by GrandStrategy
The answer is that the Tories are in power and there's a concerted effort to demonise the NHS and bring in private healthcare. The same way when the tories and their buddies get into power foxes start crawling out of the woodwork and eating children

I'd propose this is made-up garbage by the Daily Mail. Another junk "statistic" to go along with the rest of their imaginary statistics.

I've had nothing but good experiences with NHS hospitals, and I've been in them more often than I'd like the last couple of years.

The real problem the NHS faces is that right-wing extremists are actively tearing it apart. They're doing their best to weaken and collapse the system, and the more they do to break it, they more they say "Look, we told you, it's not fit for purpose"

This is one of the biggest conspiracies in Britain right now. They're actively trying to destroy the NHS. What's funny is the tories who whinge about the NHS, they're the ones who vote for the tory politicians who are f######g it up in the first place. You couldn't write it.

The Tories attacked the NHS a long time, starting back in the 1980's. Back then, every hospital had its own cleaning staff - every ward had its own cleaning staff and the hospital had its own cleaning department. They worked in coordination with nurses to keep wards clean. NHS scientists had also determined the most effective way of keeping a ward sterile and clean - strong bleach for the floors, medium strength bleach for the walls, and a weak solution for the ceilings. That worked effectively until one days Margaret Thatcher came round to visit hospitals. When she saw cleaners with three buckets of different strength bleach, she thought this was the most inefficient systems she had ever seen and right there and then decided that the cleaning services should be privatized. At the same time, there was also a big fuss over how some newly built hospitals had no patients (they had been built in advance of new housing developments anticipating new homeowners starting families), while at the same time other hospitals were running waiting lists. This led to the idea of the NHS internal market where hospitals could buy and sell services from each other. That's where all these managers came from - they were supposed to act like city traders as well as supervise the now privatized cleaning services.

Another complication was the growing economy and rising house prices. School-leavers no longer chose nursing as a career and instead went to college to do media or admin studies. To make nursing more attractive, they had to turn the on-the-job training into a university degree course. So the nurses weren't trained about keeping wards, beds or patients clean. Combine that with managers not inspecting wards and remaining in their own furnished offices and you end up in the Orwellian situation where the health boards will hire lawyers to gag witnesses.

Originally posted by something wicked
you provide no statistical proof if the NHS is better or worse than any other country,

Because I didn't say that it was worse or better than any other country.
My god ... are you still on that? Seriously nationalistic of you.

The subject is that thousands died of hunger and thirst in hospitals.
The question was ... WHY? I said NOTHING about NHS. Not a thing.
And yet you are obsessing about it .. and flinging poo my way. Too funny.

Just try to stick to the topic and answer the question .. or get off the thread.
WHY are people going hungry and dehydrating in hospitals?
Very simple. Just answer the question ... if you can.
ETA .. and apologize for the lies ... if you can.

Originally posted by FlyersFan

Originally posted by something wicked
you provide no statistical proof if the NHS is better or worse than any other country,

Because I didn't say that it was worse or better than any other country.
My god ... are you still on that? Seriously nationalistic of you.

The subject is that thousands died of hunger and thirst in hospitals.
The question was ... WHY? I said NOTHING about NHS. Not a thing.
And yet you are obsessing about it .. and flinging poo my way. Too funny.

Just try to stick to the topic and answer the question .. or get off the thread.
WHY are people going hungry and dehydrating in hospitals?
Very simple. Just answer the question ... if you can.
ETA .. and apologize for the lies ... if you can.

edit on 3/4/2013 by FlyersFan because: (no reason given)

You are right, I apologise for missing your point.

Thousands have not died. Mismanagement and in some cases poor judgement based on resource allocations have led to issues where some patients had been left without access to water. There appear to be no signs that they were not fed apart from in the case of Staffordshire Trust.

I don't fling pooh, why would I? I asked if you could say if the statistics showed the mortality rates were largely showing the UK was much worse than any other country - you are not in a position to respond to that.

I think if we delved a little deeper would find a reason that these patients are malnourished, many come into hospital malnourished and lets remember they are sick and sick people lose weight.

Its not like we are starving over 1000 patients to death every year, yes it happens on the rare occasion but it is very rare.

Let me explain as a Nurse what I have to do for every inpatient under my care in regards to meeting their nutritional needs.

The first thing I have to do within 24 hours of their addition to hospital is complete a Malnutrition Universal Screaming Tool (MUST) assessment to determine if they are malnourished or at risk of malnutrition. If they are found to be nutritionally stable then no further intervention is required but this assessment is still done at least once a week to check for any changes. If they are deemed to be at risk or already are malnourished then they get a referral to a specialist dietician and put on a food chart where I have to document everything that they have eaten, usually the dietician has prescribed them with build-up drinks. In addition to this in every patient’s documentation I have to give an account of how well they are eating and justify why i am or am not providing peticular care.

Now that is for every day run of the mill patients but many don’t quite fit that model and it gets even more complicated if they for example develop a dysphagia I need to start playing with NG tubes, or possibly even thing about a PEG or JEG tube. At the same time I have to start thinking fluids (and not its not as simple as popping up a bag of saline). If they are really bad then I might need to go down the road of TPN and trust me that is not the best thing for anyone.

If someone has Cancer, a Stroke, Crones disease, any form of Dementia has had abnormal surgery, is nauseous or any other number of problems then they will automatically have a compromised nutritional status. It is also important to remember that not every patient is the same, you could find one guy with Dementia who will eat his full and another guy next to him with the exact same condition who won’t even look at his food and again contrary to what some believe we can’t force a person to eat.

As a nurse it is very annoying when these “armchair Nurses” come out of the wood work questioning how we provided care based on some random statistic with no meaning behind it when they clearly know nothing about how to meet the nutritional requirements of the sick patient.

reply to post by OtherSideOfTheCoin


My point as well but as always you say it better

reply to post by BMorris

Its called the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), endorsed by government, rolled out nationwide, and requires that hospitals activly withold food and water from patients they arbitarily deem not to be worth saving.

Well based on that response then I am guessing you have never sat down with a family when their loved one is close to the end to discuss end of life care and completed a LCP. Actually that response shows you have never actually even looked at a LCP because at no point does it “require” that food and water is withdrawn by any patient.

Again fed up of the “arm-chair Nurses” of ATS.

The only thing these figure's reveal is that over a thousand people in the UK died in hospital's in the last 4 year's as a result of malnutrition or dehydration....it doesn't state how this situation came about in each of those individuals and whether it was a result of neglect.

We have read some horror stories and I don't question the genuineness of them....but we have no way of knowing if those stories reflect what happened in the biggest majority of those case's and if neglect was present.

Like someone else posted I fail to see how these "claim's" are devoid of a political agenda when the government is looking to make change's to the NHS based on the falsehood that the NHS is less effective than other countries....I would say that's every reason for a political agenda in making the UK population feel like the NHS is failing regardless of fact's.

The fact's are that the NHS is regarded as one of the most efficient healthcare system's in the developed world based on level of care and mortality and amount spent per head of the population. As opposed to somewhere like the US which is the most costly healthcare system in the world and one of the least efficient.

Again...I know the horror stories exist. But I fail to see how the NHS is failing compared to the rest of the world....infact we get MORE right than most. There is always room for improvement and it's always important to recognise this especially when it's shown that some individual trust's are grossly under performing.

From personal experience I have seen first hand the effects of staff shortage's etc....and I have also seen a vast amount of the very good work and level of care given to people...and I have to say I am VERY proud of the this great British institution that hold's no regard for a person's wealth, position or race for those accessing medical care!

Originally posted by FlyersFan


The subject is that thousands died of hunger and thirst in hospitals.
The question was ... WHY? I said NOTHING about NHS. Not a thing.
And yet you are obsessing about it .. and flinging poo my way. Too funny.

Just try to stick to the topic and answer the question .. or get off the thread.
WHY are people going hungry and dehydrating in hospitals?
Very simple. Just answer the question ... if you can.
ETA .. and apologize for the lies ... if you can.

edit on 3/4/2013 by FlyersFan because: (no reason given)

I think the point here is that no-one can answer that question because all we are given is a few statistic's that don't define anything and don't mean anything specific and are open to interpretation...but can be sensationalised without cold hard fact's That right there make's me rather suspicious of the finding's and the intent behind them.

If anyone can show from these statistic's that over a thousand people have died of hunger or thirst and over 5000+ people have gone home with malnutrition who didn't already have a problem and these figure's where all a direct result of neglect.....then I will be more inclined to sit up and pay attention.

Every time there are horror story's they are played out to the max in the UK media....but I find it disrespectful that the same amount of attention is not paid to the huge majority of good work and level of care carried out by doctor's and nurse's which is admired and recognised globally.

reply to post by Logos23


Well said, you never hear of headlines like "Nurse saves patients life" because they do it everyday. Heroes they are bloody Heroes .
Iam on the bottom rung of the ladder in care but see acts of kindness everyday from my fellow workers, I got attacked by the strongest 97 year old today (poor old dear has dementia) and heck I still love the old dear, she makes me laugh
The NHS saved me as a baby (born premmy at 28 weeks) so I will always stand up for and If it came down to it fight for it.
No matter who you are the NHS will try and do something for you without a massive bill at the end.
I love the NHS and I think most Brits do also.

reply to post by boymonkey74


I have the utmost respect for those working within the healthcare system and it is often those who are on the lower rung of the ladder as you put it who work on the "front-line" ...so applause for ya mate

Like you I would stand up for the NHS and fight for it if necessary...I absolutely hate the way the UK media like to bash the NHS and find it rather shameless.

Send the obese into hospitals. It seem the cure is in there.

reply to post by pacifier2012




Actually the food nowadays is pretty good.

Originally posted by beezzer
reply to post by FlyersFan

 

Okay. I guess I'll be "that" guy.

(Caveat first. My uncle died last year because of kidney failure. He was told by Britain's NHS that he was too old to be put on a transplant list.
So I've a personal issue with this.)

This is what the American healthcare system will be once Obamacare comes to the fore. Underpaid, understaffed floor nurses, poor conditions, negligent medical staff, overworked, too busy to tend to the care of patients because bean-counters are determining care.

So, I'm assuming that since you dislike National Health Care so much you would have prefered your Elderly Uncle just die in the street?

WTF? Do you really believe having no access to care (as is true in the US) is better then access to 'need to improve' care?1

I think this is a horrifying example of what AUSTERITY is all about. And it's shameful that the NHS and it's members are suffering so that PROFITS will continue to flow to the wealthy.

What a pig this post is - just horrible.

Originally posted by FlyersFan


1 - You have it backwards. YOU have to prove that cases of dehydration and malnutrition exist in the USA. I don't have to prove a negative. that's silly.

I'd like to know just why you did post this? For informations purposes? or for effect? or for attention?