Royal Preston Hospital

Mail Online – November 1, 2008:

A woman bled to death following a routine NHS operation after doctors said they were too busy to assess her.

Kathleen Doherty, 29, screamed for help after a procedure to remove gallstones, crying: ‘I need water, I’m dying.

But doctors ignored her pleas and she died in agony hours later after medics failed to examine her in a catalogue of blunders, an inquest heard yesterday.

Coroner Dr James Adeley criticised hospital doctors yesterday for ‘serious and repeated failures‘.

He said the death of the social worker could have been prevented if doctors at Royal Preston Hospital had checked her condition.

Her mother Frances, 64, a former psychiatric nurse, begged nurses and doctors for help as Miss Doherty complained of increasing pains in her stomach, sickness, feeling clammy and headaches after the operation.

But they were told by one doctor standing at their daughter’s bedside that he was too busy to check on her because he was responsible for 100 patients that evening.

Shortly afterwards, Miss Doherty started thrashing around on the bed, screaming: ‘I can’t cope. I can’t cope.’

But the newly qualified physician on the ward, Simon Hughes, decided she did not need a review.

Miss Doherty died five hours later after massive internal bleeding.




  1. brm says:

    Unlimited demand and limited supply, jeez, what a shocker.

    Everyone keeps bringing up life expectancy, but I’ll gladly trade a couple of my worst years to avoid BLEEDING TO DEATH in a hospital after routine surgery.

  2. zorkor says:

    Seems like a fake story to me. Especially about the Muslims not washing their arms because its against their religion? Yea nice one to show your hatred against Islam and Muslims.

  3. bobbo says:

    #46–pedro==I’d love to help you shred Mr Mustard but I can’t do it when all you post is “you’re dense.”

    Mustard consistently responds with an expanding argument or a rephrasing of it. Meat on the bone whether you agree or not. As in most things not religious, I find MM having the upper hand on you here.

    Why not respond with analysis?

  4. bobbo says:

    Zorkor==dirty armed Muslims is not “in the story” at all. Maybe those stories would not be out there if Arabs had invented soap or toilet paper instead of writing?

  5. Mister Mustard says:

    #46 – ‘dro

    >>Man, you’re dense.

    Oooh, that stings! I’m wrong, you’re right, it’s all becoming clear to me now, thanks to your skillful presentation of your argument.

    Pffft. If you don’t have anything of value to say, why not just STFU?

  6. DrT says:

    #35 bobbo – You’re exactly right. This country is so polarized and the citizens tend to take the most extreme positions. There is room in the middle. We really need a third party. Both the Democratic and Republican parties have become so corrupt and extreme that neither represents what is best for the country. They are nothing more than big industries generating money for the party’s leaders.

    The health care system in the US is completely broken and any patches that are done inevitably make it worse. I saw good things in the UK as well as bad. Primary care and maternal care was much better. Also, there was a much better utilization of resources as unnecessary procedures were rarely done.

    We need a system that gives universal coverage with the patient and family sharing some cost of the care, perhaps something in the form of a sliding scale based on net worth or income. Right now, families of medicare patients want everything done even though the case is hopeless. Over 60% of medicare expenses are in the last 3 months of life.

    If they had to pony up even a few dollars, a lot of that would be cut out. We desperately need improvements in primary care and preventative medicine. We need oversight on medication utilization; I see people on unnecessary medications every day.

  7. jbenson2 says:

    #44 Mr. Mustard

    Geeze, I’m getting tired of having to explain every little nuance to you. You suffer from the classic “I know you are, but what I am” attitude when you are caught making an error.

    You were the one who brought up the “iatrogenic deaths” spin. I pointed out some of the reasons for the high rates.

    One of the reasons is that the ambulance chasing lawyers in the USA make a lot of money if they can scam an insurance company into settling over a highly questionable claim. Did the doctor kill the baby due to neglect or was it due to other circumstances? Due to the high legal costs of representing a doctor and the uncertainty of jury decision, the insurance companies are forced to pay out a settlement.

    And guess who takes the fall? The doctor. This cranks up your iatrogenic deaths rating, which just happens to include the incredibly vague and subject to massive interpretation of death caused “inadvertently by a physician or surgeon or by medical treatment or diagnostic procedure”.

    Let the loser pay in a court case and your sacred iatrogenic deaths rating will take a massive hit.

  8. Paddy-O says:

    #26 “why is it that we are 45th on the list when it comes to lif expectancy.”

    Umm, because we have 12 million dirt poor 3rd worlder’s who have illegally entered the country and they count on the statistics?

  9. jbenson2 says:

    #44 Mr. Mustard

    For once, try reading the post and thinking about it for a few seconds before replying with a knee-jerk reaction.

    for instance, your comment:
    4 – It seems you’re arguing against yourself here, son. I believe you said (and I quote) in #16 “.” Why do you think Canadians flock over the border for medical care?”. So either they flock over the border, or they don’t. Could you make up your mind?

    There is quite a big difference between moving your family from one country to another, and simply crossing a border to get temporary medical health care.

    If you lived in Minneapolis, then you know it used to be relatively easy to cross the border (pre-passport times) from Canada to Minnesota. The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN draws a lot of Canadians for temporary visits, but those Canadians don’t move here permanently.

    Jeeze!

  10. grass4 says:

    It seems to me that Zorker only comments to try to defend the ridiculous things that Muslims do. Facts will not change Zorker’s mind. Zorker is a Muslim.

  11. bobbo says:

    It would be nice if Zorkor did offer a defense for offensive Muslim culture, practive, belief. Instead, all we get is some pretty good proof that every bad thing said against it is pretty accurate: what do we get except knee-jerk contradiction offered in the form of talking point/mantra repetitions? Just like their culture that offers no analysis, just conformity to a mantra.

    Until Muslim culture and religion opens up to self examination and acceptance of criticism, they will remain the desert of ideas that Zorkor demonstrates.

  12. Digby says:

    Hey, Barry, give us THIS!

  13. Mister Mustard says:

    #62 – ‘dro

    >>But mustard was quite adamant in defending
    >>him in that point (read post #25).

    Would you like us to translate post #25 into a language other than English?

    Read it again, and tell me who I was “adamant in defending”? The fired radiologist? The Imam who was supporting the firing? The Muslim Doctors’ Association that was objecting to the firing? Jay Benson II?

    Please try to be a little clearer in your posts. Often they don’t make too much sense.

    But maybe it’s just that I’m “so dense”.

    Haw!

  14. Mister Mustard says:

    #64 – ‘dro

    >>Have you seen the tendency you have to tell
    >>people that you don’t understand what they
    >>wrote?

    No.

    I sometimes don’t understand what YOU write, because it often doesn’t make any sense.

    To wit: You said that I was “adamantly defending” someone in post #25. You didn’t specify who. I wasn’t defending anyone in post #25 (I was merely pointing out that the Muslim doctors with poor hygeine were being fired, not kow-towed to). When I queried you, you came back with one of your usual “man, are you dense” retorts.

    Do you see my dilemma?

  15. ithinkimachicken says:

    #38

    Like i said, attempting to use someone’s screen name as one of your points tends to discredit your argument. The point still remains,

    “But they were told by one doctor standing at their daughter’s bedside that he was too busy to check on her because he was responsible for 100 patients that evening.”

    Pure negligence on the part of the doctor. Socialized medicine may in fact suck, but the point is a person lost their life because a doctor was too incompetent to recognize a problem that was right in front of him. An attempt to spin this as a failure of the system is dishonest.

    And no, I don’t live in Maine ( I don’t believe Maine is within 2 hours of Canada’s largest population center). I live in a metro area with a respected medical school and ~ 1.5 million people. Folks still go to Canada.

    Oh, and didn’t you say this?

    “I had friends that told me horror stories of the horrendous 6 to 9 month waits for various procedures.”

    Of course you can list anecdotal comments with the best of them, too. Consider, though, when you do it first, it leaves you on shaky ground to call somebody else on it.

    Eat your anecdotal along with the logic of firing folks with Obama bumper stickers if he wins. You’ve got class buddy, and it shows.

  16. deowll says:

    Bet the dude has plenty of time to think about it now.

    Course most hospitals don’t mind running short handed either. 100 patients and one doctor? Get real!

  17. Lou says:

    Nice HMO !

  18. Mr Truther says:

    “Also, there was a much better utilization of resources as unnecessary procedures were rarely done”
    Who gets to decide if it is unnecessary?

  19. ithinkimachicken says:

    #69

    Since I made no argument about wait time, I’m not sure what you are responding to…

  20. Mr. Fusion says:

    benson,

    You are wrong. You claimed Muslim women forced the teaching hospitals to accept their customs where in fact they didn’t. They complained yes, but the hospitals didn’t budge.

    Americans in far greater numbers are flocking to Canada for health care than Canadians are coming to the US. Also, areas in India, Singapore, Malaysia, and other countries, are attracting Americans for surgery. They can do it at a far cheaper rate than in the US.

    Pedro,

    It seems most of your posts are just retorts that someone else is stupid. You bring nothing to the the discussion

  21. ithinkimachicken says:

    Please disregard # 71. Hit send when not fully awake…

    My wait time argument was secondary to the point about Dr negligence.

    Site moderator – how come my previous comment was posted without me filling out the “captcha” screen?

  22. Mr. Fusion says:

    #74, peedrool,

    Wait times is only one of the subjects. Another one

    The actual subject is physician negligence. The physician stood over the woman while she was bleeding internally and did nothing.

    Luckily, the professional standards in Canada are very high. Yet you can see places were some don’t give a rats ass on how they treat their patients.

    This isn’t about Canadian health care. The right wing nuts like to point out Canadian health care because it is so much better than the American system. Even the worst doctor is better than what is available in Venezuela where they have to import doctors from Cuba to meet the demand.

    Peedrool, you are such a tool.

  23. Paddy-O says:

    #75 “The physician stood over the woman while she was bleeding internally and did nothing.”

    Yep. The epitome of a gov bureaucrat behavior.

  24. Guyver says:

    Kurt Loder of all people commenting on Universal Health Care: http://tinyurl.com/5fcn75

  25. Mr. Fusion says:

    #77, peedrool,

    That is what we usually wonder about your posts. It seems you have a comprehension / expression problem.

  26. KarmaBaby says:

    #47, Zorkor – Don’t let hard facts sway you. Everyone’s lying, including the Muslim news organizations. They all should have consulted you first about this “rule” because you are obviously very knowledgeable about your own religion, and know that this rule doesn’t really exist.

  27. Mr. Fusion says:

    #80, guyver,

    Kurt Loder of all people commenting on Universal Health Care:

    Who the eff is Kurt Loder and why should I give a shit what he thinks?

    Typical, you demonstrate your ignorance by watching some propaganda from YouTube. WEEEeee, that sure shows brilliance on your part.


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