Adventures in Gov't-Run Health (S)care: Malnourishment, Bedsores, and Death, Oh My!

Vocal Minority ^ | 10/8/12 | EricTheRed

[EricTheRed_VocalMinority]

In case you didn't know, the beginning of October marked the point where, under Obama(Doesn't)Care Section 6001, physician-owned hospitals are banned from being started, existing ones prohibited from expanding. This improves our health care system how? It doesn't.

But just keep saying everyone's covered, covered, covered. We're all covered, covered, covered. Covered, covered, covered. Like a bunch of freaking sheep. Free colonoscopies! Free condoms! Free free free! Covered covered covered! Republican war on women! Ryan hates Grandma! Romney hates Big Bird! Free free free! Covered covered covered! 

Meanwhile, things aren't going terribly swimmingly in the U.K., whose utopian health care system was the envy of Obama administration members and other Democrats who crafted Obamacare:

Patients starve and die of thirst on hospital wards

"Forty-three hospital patients starved to death last year and 111 died of thirst while being treated on wards, new figures disclose today." ...

The death toll was disclosed by the Government amid mounting concern over the dignity of patients on NHS wards.

They will also fuel concerns about care homes, as it was disclosed that eight people starved to death and 21 people died of thirst while in care.

Last night there were warnings that they must prompt action by the NHS and care home regulators to prevent further deaths among patients.

The Office for National Statistics figures also showed that:

* as well as 43 people who starved to death, 287 people were recorded by doctors as being malnourished when they died in hospitals;

* there were 558 cases where doctors recorded that a patient had died in a state of severe dehydration in hospitals;

* 78 hospital and 39 care home patients were killed by bedsores, while a further 650 people who died had their presence noted on their death certificates;

* 21,696 were recorded as suffering from septicemia when they died, a condition which experts say is most often associated with infected wounds. ...

Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association, said the statistics were a grim and shaming reflection of 21st century Britain.

"These are people's mothers, fathers, and grandparents," she said. "It is hard enough to lose a loved one, but to find out that they died because they were not adequately fed or hydrated, is a trauma no family should have to bear."

Michelle Mitchell, Charity Director of Age UK, described the figures as "deeply distressing" given that such deaths were avoidable.

There are more dire statistics in the rest of the article.

Rick Moran at AT asks: Under Obamacare, it will never get this bad, will it? Umm, probably. 

So everyone ask your Obama(Doesn't)Care supporting friends:

Q: What do the 43 British hospital or home care patients dead from starvation, 326 from malnourishment, 661 from dehydration, 884 from bedsores, and 27,796 from septicemia (blood poisoning from infected wounds) all have in common?
A: They were all covered by government-run health care!

As Papa Josef Stalin said: One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic. FORWARD!

[The Great RJ]

I fail to understand why family members aren’t seeking legal action against these facilities and care givers. Is it that these facilities are state run and have tort immunity or is it that the Brits just aren’t as malpractice happy as we are in the States? In the US such mistreatment would bring swarms of tort lawyers as well was the wrath of state regulators. In the UK it just seems like these cases are seen as “too bad...better luck next time” rather than bringing hell fire to those who perpetrate this shoddy care. Perhaps the US could help by exporting a few thousand tort lawyers to the UK.

[EricTheRed_VocalMinority]

My guess is these are government facilities. You can’t sue the gov’t, right?

[knarf]

I was listening to Quinn and Rose this morning and he said that the death panels (I forget the ‘official’ nomenclature ... ) were written in such a way as their decisions were unchallengeable.

[Little Ray]

I think NHS in the UK enjoys “sovereign immunity.” That is, you can’t sue them unless they say you can.