Imagine if we put the DMV in charge of your health care. Just imagine what the quality of your health care would be like. Our system isn’t perfect, but it’s the best health care system in the world at present. That won’t stop Democrats, though, as they try to re-engineer American health care.
If you’re trying to get an idea of what our new health care system will be like, it’s easy. Just look to the formerly great Britain, where socialism reigns supreme. An NHS hospital let 1,200 patients die for no reason in the filthy, blood-splattered hospital where patients were routinely neglected and left in disgusting conditions. The best part? Not a single official has been fired.
Not a single official has been disciplined over the worst-ever NHS hospital scandal, it emerged last night.
Up to 1,200 people lost their lives needlessly because Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust put government targets and cost-cutting ahead of patient care.
But none of the doctors, nurses and managers who failed them has suffered any formal sanction.
Indeed, some have either retired on lucrative pensions or have swiftly found new jobs.
Former chief executive Martin Yeates, who has since left with a £1million pension pot, six months’ salary and a reported £400,000 payoff, did not even give evidence to the inquiry which detailed the scale of the scandal yesterday.
… The independent inquiry headed by Robert Francis QC found the safety of sick and dying patients was ‘routinely neglected’. Others were subjected to ‘ inhumane treatment’, ‘bullying’, ‘abuse’ and ‘rudeness’.
… Bosses at the Trust – officially an ‘elite’ NHS institution – were condemned for their fixation with cutting waiting times to hit Labour targets and leaving neglected patients to die.
But after a probe that was controversially held in secret, not a single individual has been publicly blamed.
The inquiry found that:
• Patients were left unwashed in their own filth for up to a month as nurses ignored their requests to use the toilet or change their sheets;
• Four members of one family. including a new-born baby girl. died within 18 months after of blunders at the hospital;
• Medics discharged patients hastily out of fear they risked being sacked for delaying;
• Wards were left filthy with blood, discarded needles and used dressings while bullying managers made whistleblowers too frightened to come forward.
… The Francis report said staff numbers were allowed to fall ‘dangerously low’, causing nurses to neglect the most basic care. It said: ‘Requests for assistance to use a bedpan or to get to and from the toilet were not responded to.
‘Some families were left to take soiled sheets home to wash or to change beds when this should have been undertaken by the hospital and its staff.’ Food and drink were left out of reach, forcing patients to drink water from flower vases.
While many staff did their best, Mr Francis said, others showed a disturbing lack of compassion to patients.
One family in particular lost four members.
Kelsey Lintern was at the centre of one of the worst tragedies in the hospital’s appalling catalogue of failure.
She lost four members of her family within 18 months, her grandmother, uncle, sister and six-day-old baby.
Mrs Lintern, 36, almost became the fifth victim when a nurse tried to give her pethidine while she was in labour, despite her medical notes and a wristband clearly stating she was allergic to the drug.
The horrific story began in January 2007 when her baby daughter Nyah had to be delivered by her own grandmother because a distracted midwife was not looking.
The baby was not breathing but she was resuscitated, then discharged by a junior paediatrician just two days later, despite the family’s fears she was seriously ill.
She was not feeding properly and still appeared blue. She died four days later. A post-mortem examination revealed four holes in her heart. Mrs Lintern accepts that Nyah may have died in any case, but said the hospital should at least have ‘realised there was a problem’.
It was when she was in labour with Nyah that a nurse arrived with a syringe of potentially-fatal pethidine, oblivious to the fact Mrs Lintern was allergic to it.
In April 2007, Mrs Lintern’s sister, Laurie Gethin, 37, died of lung, bone and lymph cancer, which had taken 18 months to be diagnosed, even though she was displaying tell-tale symptoms.
Her body, with her eyes still open, was left on her blood-splattered bed in full view of other patients. Tests revealed that Mrs Gethin had ‘markers’ in her blood which can indicated cancer.
But it was only when she was sent for a scan at another hospital that tumours were discovered. Mrs Lintern’s uncle, Tom Warriner, 48, died in January 2008 after his intestine was accidentally pierced in an operation for bowel cancer.
A coroner ruled the death was accidental. That summer, her grandmother Lilian Wood Latta, 80, died hungry and dehydrated after suffering a stroke. She was left in her own excrement during her final days and the family said the dehydration was caused by staff failing to give her adequate fluids.
Mrs Wood Latta had been referred to the hospital by her GP after suffering a series of mini-strokes at home. She was moved between wards three times, and it was left to relatives to change her incontinence pads.
This isn’t an isolated incident. Another NHS hospital faced a similar scandal when 70 patients died after suffering similar conditions. Another NHS hospital let a premature newborn die… because infants born before 22 weeks are not allowed treatment. NHS also gave free Viagra to a convicted child molestor who was set free. Britain’s socialized health care system is a mess and a danger to public health, yet Democrats for some unknown reason think it’ll work just great here… or they know it won’t work, and don’t care, because Congress gets to opt out.
It’s just like British or Canadian politicians who don’t have to suffer through this abysmal health care. They’re able to get private care, so why should they care when the little people have to suffer through such despicable conditions? As long as they keep getting reelected it makes no difference to them. The system’s not about to change, which is clear when you consider that not a single official from this disgusting hospital has had to face repercussions.
It’s not too late for Americans yet. We can still stop this monstrosity from coming here, but if we don’t… these NHS hospitals will be coming across the pond to us.
Cross-posted at The Green Room.
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Just a logical extension of pro-choice. If folks can exercise their pro-choice rights to treat junborn babies that way, why not born babies and older folks?
Meanwhile, back in the US, approximately 250,000 die each year due to poor healthcare, and another 45,000 die due to a lack of it.
In Australia, an approximated 4,550 people die per year due to poor healthcare.
Neither set of figures is desirable, but I know which I prefer.
[...] 27 02 2010 From Cassie Fiano Imagine if we put the DMV in charge of your health care. Just imagine what the quality of your [...]
Take your lies to Kos, Sonja. No one here is buying it.
Two points to make
First:
>The best part? Not a single official has been fired.
What everyone needs to understand about how this appalling situation could happen and no one gets punished for it is this:
In a bureaucracy, “I followed procedure” is an ABSOLUTE defense against an accusation of wrongdoing. No matter what, if you can document that you followed the established procedures to the letter, no only will nothing bad happen to you, you will be rewarded and looked up to as an example of how to behave. The outcome of following the procedure DOES NOT MATTER! There may well be changes in procedures or required paperwork as a result, but no adverse action will be taken against you personally.
By the way, this documentation requirement should be a clue to why there is so much paperwork in bureaucracies.
Second:
The “it’s not my problem” attitude shown in the article is the natural outcome of a system where
1. there is no competition,
2. there is no requirement to show a profit and
3. there is no possibility of going out of business.
This is the overwhelming advantage government has over private sector companies. In addition, government both sets and enforces the rules. That means it can get away with things that would send executives and regular employees of public or privately held companies to jail (think Social Security “trust fund” accounting games). The people running this organization clearly have no fear of lawyers waiting to sue and easily winning a judgment against them that would wipe out their assets, destroy their company and blacklist them from future employment in the field. If they get sued, what happens? Government has unlimited resources to defend a suit for years and even if they lose, big deal. Names on the org chart get reshuffled, some of the lines are redrawn and life goes on. If the lawsuits really get to be too much of a nuisance, just change the law to exempt themselves. What company has that kind of immunity from accountability?
Sonja,
What is the source for your statistics? Numbers aren’t meaningful in themselves. It is important to know how they were gathered.
You might also consider that (using your figures) as a percentage, Australia is not significantly better off than the United States. There are roughly 21 million people in Australia, as opposed to the USA which has closer to 300 million.
Not that I accept your figures. Just sayin’.
Justin, that 45,000 figure was from Harvard. Your own elite medical school.
There is a difference between “lack of healthcare” and “lack of healcare coverage” The studies Sonja mentioned have been discussed elsewhere and have not proven accurate. Additionally, going to “ObamaCare” would actually reduce actual health care while increasing health care coverage
All the people mentioned in the article had coverage but did not receive care
Don’t like your hospital/insurance in the US, go get another one. Don’t like it in Britain . . . well, die. Or move to the US.
Not so say that our system is perfect, but it certainly is better.
But they have healthcare and it’s free (Democrats will point out)… and worth every penny (as anyone with a brain will understand).
If we think our healthcare is expemnsive now, we should wait until it’s “free.” (For this sh*t, we’ll double our taxes and still bankrupt our country… stupid Democrats.)
I do want to know something from the people against it– because I’m concerned about this kind of medical happening here. This isn’t hypothetical, this is my ACTUAL situation right now and I’m at my wits end. I’m not trying to make a point for or against Obamacare, but I don’t know which is the lesser of two evils.
I’m a student, and I work part time to pay my rent (I live with my parents but I help with bills because I AM nearly 22) and my cellphone bill and for clothes and gas for work and school. My job doesn’t offer parttime health insurance, and since I pay to go to school I can’t afford private insurance and cannot work full time to get health insurance through work. Because I have a job, I am not poor enough that i qualify for medicaid or our local CMSP. My parents do not work (outside of my control) so I cannot get health coverage through them.
Do I quit school and have no future of supporting myself comfortably so I can work fulltime and pay for health insurance? Do I quit my job so I can’t pay my bills or for school so I qualify for government help? Or do I go without?– and I should mention I have a hormone disorder that I need at least four medications for daily that I cannot get right now because I have no health care. I know I’m not the only person with this problem, my best friend– who lives in another state– is in the EXACT same situation (minus the hormone disorder) right now, and so are many other college students I know.
So maybe not nationalized healthcare, but what about a better program for college students than the nurse on campus that’s for birth control and emergencies? That would certainly go a LONG way for a LOT of uninsured Americans.