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Patients starve and die of thirst on hospital wards
The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 06 Oct 2012 | Laura Donnelly

Posted on 10/06/2012 10:38:35 PM PDT by Mount Athos

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.

* 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;

The records, from the Office for National Statistics, follow a series of scandals of care of the elderly, with doctors forced to prescribe patients with drinking water or put them on drips to make sure they do not become severely dehydrated .

"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."

It followed spot checks by NHS regulators, which found that half of 100 hospitals were failing basic standards to treat elderly with dignity, and ensure they were properly fed.

In many wards nurses were dumping meal trays in front of patients too weak to feed themselves and then taking them away again untouched.

The investigation found patients were left hungry, unwashed or given the wrong drugs because of the "casual indifference of staff".

(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: dehydration; healthcare; hospitalneglect; medicalcare; nhs; obamacare; previewofobamacare; socializedhealthcare; socializedmedicine; starvation
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To: GeronL
They still have wards, as in many beds in one room?

We got your wards right here....as far as the eye can see....

In USA all new hospital building and upgrades are to single units....reduces cross infection and mortality.

21 posted on 10/07/2012 12:19:44 AM PDT by spokeshave (The only people better off today than 4 years ago are the Prisoners at Guantanamo.)
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To: spokeshave
You also might wake up to find one of these tending your needs...

(...and they don't scrub up because of "alcohol" in the cleanser)

22 posted on 10/07/2012 12:24:26 AM PDT by spokeshave (The only people better off today than 4 years ago are the Prisoners at Guantanamo.)
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To: A Navy Vet
Best TO your families, but have no sympathy when you can't get immediate care (think Canada/England) and you DIE waiting for an operation/transplant that used to occur everyday in the free-enterprise America.

I'm amazed at the difference between the available health care in the USA vs what's available in other countries, and the fact that the leftists believe that it will be improved and costs lowered if only we would give control over to professional academics in Washington DC.

I was just seeing a new doctor to whom I had been referred (a hematologist) to find why I've been getting weaker and more lethargic, being seriously anemic and low on iron and an extremely high heart rate. I happened to mention something I had noticed recently, and she immediately sent me for an ultrasound. In less than a half hour, I was being tested. When the results came back (about another 15 minutes) with a DVT in my right calf, she made arrangements for me to get a CAT scan. In less then an hour, I had an IV inserted and had a scan. An hour later the results were in... I had at least 3 blood clots in my lungs. From start to finish, I was being transported to the hospital in about 7 hours.

Please remember, this was NOT in a trauma center or an ER. It was at the Richard Block Cancer Center, part of the KU Medical Center.

I seriously doubt I could have gotten this sort of care outside the USA. In fact, I doubt I would have been able to get in to see the hematologist. I would bet that my first indication that there was something really, seriously wrong would have been a massive cardiac event, a stroke, or just death.

Mark

23 posted on 10/07/2012 12:32:21 AM PDT by MarkL (Do I really look like a guy with a plan?)
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To: Mount Athos

Liberalism on display, folks!

When liberals have full control, the needs of the people are secondary to the needs of the state.

Nationally, California is a great example of total liberal control.....fuel shortages, gas prices near $6.00 per gallon, companies leaving daily, unlimited illegal immigrants, etc, etc, etc.


24 posted on 10/07/2012 1:58:18 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi (When religions have to beg the gov't for a waiver, we are already under socialism.)
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To: Mount Athos
EVERYBODY...send the link to this article to EVERY ONE YOU KNOW. Make sure your grandparents, parents, children read this article AND the comment section, very important. Pass it on to your relatives, friends, neighbors, co-workers and tell them to read it and why. Show this link to your pastor, minister, rabbi. Send this link to any organization you can think of that would benefit from being informed, or perhaps “enlightened” on the glories of government healthcare/obomacare.

Get good and angry and motivated as never before to make sure Romney wins in November. Support those conservative/Republican candidates who are running behind in their state Senate races with a donation...IF they do not win their Senate/House races, Romney WILL NOT have sufficient votes to repeal obomacare.

When we read of things of this nature, it should stir us to DO something about it, rather than make “oh what the heck” comments and move on to something else. It is too easy to become complaisant, to become accepting of, say, socialism, for instance. The kids in our schools today are perfect examples of how indoctrination by the leftist school system has made socialism, “free everything at the expense of someone else” appealing and acceptable. We must be pro-active and pass along any article we read that is of importance to our well being in this country to others, and have them pass it on. We must go beyond making commentary to what we read here, and become active in doing something about it, however we can. We must not become complaisant..we must not become another United Kingdom.

25 posted on 10/07/2012 2:25:19 AM PDT by itssme
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To: Mount Athos

Another touching story about the caring hearts of socialists. Sadly, I heard Conservative candidates telling voters that they could run the socialist NHS better than the Labor Party was doing. Americans should not laugh because the Republicans are now telling voters they will run the socialist public education system better than the Democrats have been doing.

When will people wake up to just how evil socialism is?


26 posted on 10/07/2012 2:50:03 AM PDT by theBuckwheat
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To: Mount Athos

Article would be much improved with international comparisons. It is obvious that the same problems occur everywhere, but differences in rate between countries might be very revealing.

How often does this happen in USA vs UK?


27 posted on 10/07/2012 4:33:11 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: Mount Athos

Just one more way to curb the herd, agenda 21
Take the time to view this it’s eye opening
long version detailed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GykzQWlXJs&feature=related


28 posted on 10/07/2012 4:38:47 AM PDT by ronnie raygun (bb)
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To: Sherman Logan

Without some standards, the article is meaningless as you say EXCEPT for those patients dying of dehydration. This should never happen in a hospital anywhere. To withdraw hydration is immoral for any patient.


29 posted on 10/07/2012 4:45:31 AM PDT by johniegrad
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To: johniegrad

I quite agree this should not happen anywhere, but it obviously does happen in every country. So the relevant question is not whether it happens, but how often it happens.


30 posted on 10/07/2012 4:52:20 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: johniegrad

I quite agree this should not happen anywhere, but it obviously does happen in every country. So the relevant question is not whether it happens, but how often it happens.


31 posted on 10/07/2012 4:52:24 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: Sherman Logan

I only clicked once. I swear.


32 posted on 10/07/2012 4:53:18 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: Sherman Logan

Liar.


33 posted on 10/07/2012 4:53:49 AM PDT by johniegrad
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To: winner3000

Yeah, that was a chapter from “The Book of the Surreal” - choreographed nurses frolicking and pushing patient beds had to just fill the monarchists with such a sense of pride.../s


34 posted on 10/07/2012 5:17:36 AM PDT by T-Bird45 (It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't.)
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To: Mount Athos
The hospital workers probably come in to the room of an incapacitated patient and kindly say, “I brought you your water or I brought you your food,” and goes on to the next room....

never thinking that the patient needs assistance to eat and drink.

35 posted on 10/07/2012 5:30:18 AM PDT by stars & stripes forever (Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord!)
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To: gleeaikin
“People need to learn how to care for their loved ones at home, so they die with dignity when the time comes”

“Two Weeks” an EXCELLENT movie about a family dealing with this subject. Sally Field (ignore her politics) is fantastic in the role of the dying mother.

It deals with many uncomfortable subjects. Kleenex required.

36 posted on 10/07/2012 7:04:45 AM PDT by faucetman ( Just the facts, ma'am, Just the facts)
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To: Casie

And I thank gawd for private rooms.

Initial stay at a VA hospital after ER admitted me. . .I was in great pain and was zipped upstairs.

After a couple, of days on the eight floor infectious disease section (single room), I was moved to a same-sized room with three other beds (four total). One guy was dying, another was hacking a wet cough all the time and the third had huge painful foot thing going on and bowel issues. Great.

Oh, and I when I stretched out my arm, it would hit the other bed. . .we were that close together.

When they were moving me into the room there was a nurse putting up a sign on the door telling people this room was a “mask” room, meaning because I was in there they had to put on a mask before entering. . . but yet, they move me into a room with three other sick (one terminally) and they didn’t give it a thought.

The showers were down the hall and had gnats flying around the OLD BANDAGES that other patients tore off and left on the hand rails in the shower. Mold and mildew was as thick as paint. My doctor was appalled and even SHE couldn’t get housekeeping to clean the showers. I could go on. . .

Welcome to obamacare—government employee drones and substandard care. . .and you get to share a room with multiple other people suffering from all sorts of stuff.


37 posted on 10/07/2012 9:17:15 AM PDT by Hulka
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To: Hulka
Hulka! That is horrible! I'm so sorry you had to go through that!

I know that in the UK they can have 3-4 beds in delivery rooms and I thought that was disgusting.

The VA is a good example of what Obamacare will look like. When my grandfather was dying from terminal cancer in the VA, they denied him morphine because... get this... he was very very weak and it may kill him.

We discovered that if you position 3 upset girls outside a patients room and you grab every singe nurse, doctor, visitor, and orderly and cry loudly, someone shows up with a morphine drip.

That day I could have killed people with my bare hands. Seriously. But when my father had open heart surgery at a private hospital everything went so super smooth. His doctors met in his room with us all together. We had names and phone numbers. He had a nurse assigned to him that knew his meds. His room and bathroom were large, comfy and super clean. And we had people pop in all the time asking if we needed anything!

38 posted on 10/07/2012 10:38:31 AM PDT by Casie
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To: Mount Athos

There is not much dignity in a nation that starves and dehydrates it’s undesirables in hospitals. No much dignity in Nations that sexually molest people at the airport, either. Wait until the liberals here get the power to murder at will via Obamacare.


39 posted on 10/07/2012 10:53:02 AM PDT by SaraJohnson
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To: Casie
Indeed.

I was eventually released (after 5-days and still with discomfort) and went to the corporate apartment. The day after I was released they called at 5:30PM and told me I need to come back right away—that evening—because I had MRSA (results just in). I asked if I was contagious and they said ‘no.”

I told them no way was I going back to them, they would kill me. I hung up.

I booked a flight first thing the next morning to Texas (where home is). I landed DFW, wife picked me up and we went straight to private hospital where I was immediately admitted, private room, nice nurses and docs, heck even the orderlies were clean and kind. Completely different from the VA personnel.

In my private room (with flat screen TV), I was comfortable, quiet, recovered quickly. . .it helped being truly cared for (Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, Flower Mound, TX). Oh, and daily an orderly would come by in the morning with a menu in hand and he would take my order for the day. The VA? Slop delivered from downtown LA (an hours drive from my VA hospital), no options, eat what they give you. . .did I mention it was slop?

I swear I will NEVER go to a VA hospital again—even for emergency care because I know what to expect.

(As a side note, when stationed in the UK in the 80’s my wife came down with a kidney stone—dropped her. On-base hospital closed during weekend so she was brought to the hospital in Ipswitch where it took over an hour before she was seen — all the while in great pain and hyperventilating. Eventually admitted and they discovered the kidney stone and I said, “great, when are you going to zap it?” They said, “what?” I said, “You know, use the ultrasound to pulverize the stone.” At that time they told me they had only two ultrasound kidney stone zappers in the entire UK. One was in Manchester and the other was in Westminster. My wife was admitted to one of those old-time, open bay, dozens of beds wards with linoleum floors with cracked and yellow tiles, and the beds were adjusted by the hand-crank.)

I am now done fussing.

40 posted on 10/07/2012 12:41:16 PM PDT by Hulka
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