Free Republic

Denial of treatment for those deemed “too old to invest in” isn’t the only hazard faced by those entrusted to the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS). Dehydration and starvation also take a toll. A recent study by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) indicated that dehydration contributes to 800 deaths and malnutrition to 300 deaths per year among those housed in NHS hospitals. Spokesperson for the Hospital Workers Union, Mildred Ratched, placed the blame primarily on the doctors. “Our people are just following orders,” Ratched said. “If the doctors wanted these patients to have food and water they should have...

In a long-sought move, the University of Miami won a legislative victory on Wednesday when Florida lawmakers agreed to extend state lawsuit protection to university doctors working in public hospitals. Gov. Rick Scott will likely sign the bill into law. Scott is also expected to sign another lawsuit-limitation bill that passed Wednesday that changes the way people can sue automobile makers. The vote to give “sovereign immunity” to UM has been years in the making. The state protects government hospital employees, residents and interns — including those at Miami’s Jackson Health System — from major medical malpractice judgments. But UM...

Is it possible to sue a politician for violation of an implied contract when he fails to perform in accord with his campaign promises?

The Republican-led House of Representatives is fighting back against big-money plaintiffs’ attorneys who use campaign cash to control congressional Democrats. A provision in the budget continuing resolution would forbid government from spending funds to implement a new Consumer Product Safety Commission program. On March 11, the CPSC is set to launch a new online database publishing thousands of outside complaints about allegedly unsafe products. These attacks would be publicized before any investigation and without independent evidence that complaints are legitimate. It’s an open invitation for competitors or interest groups to destroy a product’s reputation - and sales - without proof....

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE CASCADE, Md. — When Laurie Shifler was expecting her eighth child, she was so upset about a local hospital’s new policy restricting photographs of births that she started an online petition. Hundreds of people, near and far, signed it, many expressing outrage that a hospital would prevent parents from recording such a momentous occasion, one that could never be recaptured. The hospital, Meritus Medical Center, in nearby Hagerstown, bars all pictures and videos during birth — cellphones must be turned off — and allows picture-taking only after the baby has been delivered safely and the medical...

Republicans may have made major gains in the November elections, but they have yet to win the hearts and minds of the American people, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Monday September 13, 2010 Manslaughter Case against Massachusetts Abortionist Begins Today By Kathleen GilbertBOSTON, September 13, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The trial into charges of involuntary manslaughter against a Massachusetts abortionist whose botched abortion killed Laura Hope Smith, 22, begins Monday, exactly three years after the young woman's death, according to an Associated Press report.Prosecutors charged Dr. Rapin Osathanondh of Cape Cod with manslaughter in July 2008 in connection with the death of Smith, 22, whose heart stopped during an abortion. Osathanondh resigned his license in February 2008, the same day the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine issued charges...

Louisiana health officials suspended an abortion clinic's license Friday, the first time the state has used its new authority to shut down such a facility over health and safety concerns. The Louisiana health department ordered the Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport to immediately cease performing the procedures, saying an investigation found the clinic failed to ensure that a physician performed and documented a physical exam on each woman before a procedure. The clinic also failed to follow several procedures involving anesthesia, including not properly monitoring vital signs, the agency said. Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal signed a law in...

Associate Press article BALTIMORE — Maryland health officials have ordered two doctors, one of whom is licensed and has several offices in New Jersey, to stop performing abortions after a woman was critically injured during a procedure last month. The Maryland Board of Physicians ordered Dr. Steven Brigham to stop practicing medicine without a license in Maryland and suspended the license of Dr. Nicola Riley. Police raided one of Brigham's offices in Elkton looking for medical records, and found dozens of late-term fetuses in a freezer at a clinic. ... Riley and Brigham brought an injured 18-year-old woman in a...

Wednesday September 1, 2010 Maryland Orders Dangerous Abortionist to Stop Practicing Illegally ELKTON, Md., Aug. 31, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Troubled abortionist Steven Chase Brigham has been issued a cease and desist order by the Maryland State Board of Physicians. The order demands that he stop the illegal practice of medicine, including abortions, at five locations throughout Maryland because he does not and never has been licensed in that state.   The order, dated August 25, 2010, indicates that Brigham has been practicing illegally in Maryland since January, 2010.   The document referred to an incident that occurred on August...

Italy's health minister has apologised to a woman for a fight between two doctors in the delivery room as she was about to give birth. Laura Salpietro, 30, had her uterus removed and her baby boy suffered heart problems and possible brain damage at birth on Thursday in Messina, Sicily. After a heated exchange of words, one of the doctors seized his colleague by the neck and shoved him into a wall, according to Mr Molonia's account to police, reports said. The other doctor reacted by punching a window, which shattered, injuring his hand, they said. Prosecutors have placed five...

Nearly 1 million children in the United States are potentially misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder simply because they are the youngest -- and most immature -- in their kindergarten class. These children are significantly more likely than their older classmates to be prescribed behavior-modifying stimulants such as Ritalin. Such inappropriate treatment is particularly worrisome because of the unknown impacts of long-term stimulant use on children's health, Elder said. It also wastes an estimated $320 million-$500 million a year on unnecessary medication. Elder said the "smoking gun" of the study is that ADHD diagnoses depend on a child's age relative...

Friday August 6, 2010 Late-term Abortionists Dump Kansas Licenses, Will Avoid Discipline Albuquerque, NM, August 6, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Two Albuquerque late-term abortionists who worked for George Tiller’s Women’s Health Care Services (WHCS) in Wichita, Kansas, before it permanently closed last year have dumped their Kansas medical licenses.Troy Newman, the president of Operation Rescue, has speculated that the move was deliberately made in order to place the pair outside the disciplinary jurisdiction of the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts (KSBHA).Tiller and his employees have come under intense scrutiny from the KSBHA for engaging in practices of questionable legality. The...

When Alain Reyes’s hair suddenly fell out in a freakish band circling his head, he was not the only one worried about his health. His co-workers at a shipping company avoided him, and his boss sent him home, fearing he had a contagious disease. Only later would Mr. Reyes learn what had caused him so much physical and emotional grief: he had received a radiation overdose during a test for a stroke at a hospital in Glendale, Calif. Other patients getting the procedure, called a CT brain perfusion scan, were being overdosed, too — 37 of them just up the...

A DESPERATE woman texted photos of herself slowly DYING to her mum as she lay suffering on a hospital bed - being ignored by NHS doctors. Tragic Jo Dowling, 25, sent over forty messages to her mother and best friend including pictures of a deadly rash spreading across her body as her life ebbed away. The pretty youngster was diagnosed by her family GP with suspected Meningococcal Septicaemia after developing a purple skin rash and low blood pressure last November. She was rushed to Milton Keynes Hospital where A&E doctors rejected the diagnosis believing instead her illness was a mild...

Woman chronicled her own death from meningitis in phone pictures as doctors told her spreading rash was only a 'minor infection' 30th July 2010 Doctors stopped antibiotics and gave her headache tablets Medics 'didn't see' deadly rash spreading across her limbs Patient died just 14 hours after being admitted to hospital A desperate patient texted photos of a deadly rash spreading across her body to her mother as she lay dying on a hospital bed while being ignored by NHS doctors. Critically ill Jo Dowling, 25, sent more than 40 pictures and messages to her mother and best friend as...

Some legislative ideas for the new Congress. Any "comprehensive reform" bills must be good, right? Let's send them to the emperor's desk, and make him veto them. Another possible idea: single-payer litigation services (the right to file a claim is a God-given, Constitutional right, right?) Discuss.

WASHINGTON—The government is set to begin handing out $25 million in grants Friday aimed at reducing medical malpractice lawsuits, part of a compromise offered by President Barack Obama last year in response to calls for an overhaul of the malpractice system. During last year's health debate, Republicans criticized the president for not addressing the rising cost of medical liability lawsuits as part of his sweeping health overhaul legislation. The final health bill passed in March included only limited measures aimed at curbing such lawsuits. In his joint address to Congress last September, Mr. Obama asked the Department of Health and...

The practice of defensive medicine -- the ordering of excessive tests and procedures by physicians -- is regularly targeted as a major contributor to the high costs of healthcare. But how widespread is it? A recent posting on Medscape's Physician Connect (MPC), an all-physician discussion group, asked the question: Do you practice defensive medicine? Most physicians responded with an emphatic YES. "Defensive medicine is practiced everywhere, everyday. And the costs have got to be simply enormous," says a radiologist. "Here in southeastern Michigan, home of [notable] malpractice attorneys, we practice defensive medicine every day, with every patient," replies a neurologist....

Two North Carolina doctors have been reprimanded for performing a caesarian on a woman, only to discover she wasn't pregnant at all. The incident -- a rare case of pseudocyesis or a false or hysterical pregnancy -- happened at the Cape Fear Medical Center in Fayetteville, N.C. The woman reportedly appeared at the hospital with her husband asking for a C-section. A resident in charge made the pregnancy diagnosis and doctors agreed to surgery after trying to induce labor for two days.