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 – that was a predictable first post. Just like pushing a button.
This unfortunate situation doesn’t seem to have much to do with anything but negligence seeing that the doctor was standing by the patient’s bedside when making the comment….
A predictable first post, for sure, but is it legitmate? A doctor in charge of 100 patients at once is apt to make hasty and wrong decisions. Would this have happened in a private hospital? I don’t know…someone enlighten me…
#2 You are wrong.
I lived in England for two years and saw the NHS in action. A dentist set up his office in my village and on his first day there were over 70 people in queue at 6am hoping to get onto the doctor’s patient list.
I had friends that told me horror stories of the horrendous 6 to 9 month waits for various procedures.
The problem can be laid directly at the foot of the NHS. They are driving the good doctors out of the country. They rely on questionable doctors and nurses. Did you hear the news about the female Muslim doctors in training who refused to wash their arms before surgery because their religion forbid them from exposing their arms. And the NHS kowtowed to their demand. Bacteria and infection be damned!
If she was cute she would have had all kind of attention.
# 5:
So those two examples qualifies you as an expert? 70 patients doesn’t seem like a lot compared to the number of people my dentist in the good old USA has waiting to become a patient of his. As far as your “proof” of friends who told you horror stories, well, where I come from that wouldn’t do for “proof”. It’s called hearsay. And as far as people waiting 6 to 9 months for “various procedures”, the same thing happens here, only we have Insurance companies to thank. Based on plenty of publicly documented Insurance company screw jobs, I believe profit is not compatible with Health Care…
@jbenson2
Did you hear the news about the female Muslim doctors in training who refused to wash their arms before surgery because their religion forbid them from exposing their arms.
Now I am a Muslim and this is the first time I am hearing this. Dont you feel a little ashamed of yourself for making these stories up just to give credit to your comments?
There is no such thing as forbidden to wash arms if you are women. Espcecially when you are ina place where a persons health can be in danger.
So quit making anti-Muslim stories.
[Look here. – ed.]
#8, he is not making it up. I too remember this story, mainly because I work in the health care industry and was appalled by the British Health care system for this.
I still cannot believe people want the government to take over their health care. I know they have done such a wonderful job with the military’s health care here in the US, and of course the IRS is full of care and understanding.
We don’t need socialized medicine in the US. What we need is a health insurance provider of last resort for people that can’t afford health care. I would also support tax exempt medical savings accounts.
God, I hope our hospitals never get this bad.
Funny how everybody hates the government but when its bailout time, private industry is lining up for the freebies.
I work in Medicare. Our state experimented in privatized medicine for our poor. The contracts were competed over, and providers offered to get in on it. A few years later the providers decided they didn’t want to pay, so they broke the contracts and left my state out in the cold.
After an emergency reorg that lasted 6 months we are (thankfully) back to good old fee-for-service, it has always worked and will continue to work.
Privatized medicine is a joke.
Hawaii recently experimented with UHC and they have decided to drop it as the costs have ballooned many times more than the estimates and is going to bankrupt the state if continued.
Most things that gov’t runs that is properly private industry are badly botched and many times more costly than the private sectors alternative…
AP story “HONOLULU — Hawaii is dropping the only state universal child health care program in the country just seven months after it launched.”
#7 (Very appropriate name seeing as you refuse to face facts)
I never said I was an expert, but I heard enough horror stories from British citizens who agreed the system was totally screwed up.
They were concerned about the outflow of qualified doctors who left England to practice in the USA.
You did not read my post very clearly. 70 patients in a line at 6am on very first opening day is an indication of how bad the problem is.
My village had a population of 800 people.
The line ran from the locked outside office door, through the parking lot and onto the street. The news that night reported that over half the people in line were not accepted.
How many people waited in a line outside your dentist’s office at 6 in the morning just become a patient?
If you don’t like hearsay, then try using a new invention called Google and search for the NHS medical horrors stories reported by the press.
You are so very, very wrong when you try to say: “And as far as people waiting 6 to 9 months for “various procedures”, the same thing happens here, only we have Insurance companies to thank.” Why do you think Canadians flock over the border for medical care?
#8
News Flash for zorkor: Just because it is the first time you have heard something does not mean it is wrong.
Take a look at the UK Telegraph
http://bit.ly/1LUa1q
Muslim medical students are refusing to obey hygiene rules brought in to stop the spread of deadly superbugs, because they say it is against their religion.
Don’t you feel ashamed of yourself for trying to refute the news reports just to give credit to your religion?
I await your sincere apology.
#19
I guess I’m starting to buy into the entire Obama “Hope” thing.
#7 – The wait for procedures in the US is nothing like that in the UK. I worked there for 8 months so it’s not hearsay (I’m an anesthesiologist). The waiting list for knee scopes was over a year. In the US it is rare for the patient to wait more than a day or so for surgery. Heck, we do elective gallbladder surgeries on Saturday and Sunday when the patient had an attack on Friday. The patients don’t want to wait despite the likely hood that they might never have a second attack. In the UK they were sent home for _at least_ 6 months and had to have several episodes to even be considered for surgery.
Near the end of the fiscal year they had to stop doing joint replacements because they ran out of money for the joints. Each department had a budget and had to decide what they could afford to do. By postponing patients 10-12 months about 15-20% of the patients either moved, died, decided they didn’t want the procedure, or had the procedure done at their own expense.
Socialized medicine is rationed health care. To provide unlimited care to every person in the country would be cost prohibitive, and frankly is stupid. At some point you have to limit care. In the US we expect ridiculous measures taken. I recently had a surgeon bring in a 96 year-old for a mastectomy – if he had done nothing, she would die of other causes long before the tumor was an issue.
Every hospital in the US has patients in the ICU that will never recover, but are given full blown care because the family wants it despite there being zero chance of survival. We do total knee and hip replacements on the morbidly obese who will only destroy the joint in a couple of years. In the UK you had to get down to a normal weight before you’d even be put on the waiting list. US citizens will never accept that standard of care (and hence, insurance premiums are sky high).
#23 – Proud Alien – I have had direct experience with the Canadian system (in BC). Loved it.
Communist bastard!!! 😀
#5 – Jay Benson II
>>Did you hear the news about the female
>>Muslim doctors in training who refused to
>>wash their arms before surgery because their
>>religion forbid them from exposing their
>>arms. And the NHS kowtowed to their demand.
>>Bacteria and infection be damned!
Well, not really. The hospitals fire their asses:
http://tinyurl.com/5fd2ed
And even the local Imam supports the new health regulations.
Just because you think you know something doesn’t mean you do.
I await your sincere apology.
#27 – ‘dro
>>Serious reality issues
Like what? My annoying habit of bringing reality back into the conversation? I quoted from the CIA World Fact Book
http://tinyurl.com/3pa5o6
Showing that for all the money the US spends on medical care (or denying it), it pretty much sucks.
¿Qué te pasa, m’hijito? Still can’t think of anything intelligent to say? Just spitting out that bitter bile?
#22 Mister Jagger, your BDS is still coming through loud and clear.
Clearly George W Bush has strength that even his enemies refuse to recognize. He is within a 100 days of riding off into the distance.
And as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull said “I never went down”. The left might have laid a lot of weird gloves on him, gloves that he didn’t even notice.
But this cat ran during one of the most Hatfield and McCoy times in American history politically against two of their “champions”, Al Gore and John Kerry, and beat them both for the Presidency.
All they can do is throw these old rotten tomatoes because he won and he never has to run again.
That just drives them crazy!
#29 – Jay Benson II
>>All they can do is throw these old rotten
>>tomatoes because he won and he never has to
>>run again.
Tee hee! You’ve got a great career in stand-up comedy in your future.
Dumbya is crawling out of office, leaving behind a legacy of being the worst president in US history.
Even his fellow Republicans have kenneled him for the remainder of the campaign, for fear that he’ll taint the few remaining Repubs who have a chance of winning on Tuesday.
#16
3 things:
1) When you target somebody’s screen name as one of your points, its usually an indication that you don’t have much of an argument.
2) I live ~ 20 minutes from the Canadian border and about 2 hours from the largest population center in Canada. Canadians generally don’t come here for medical service; Americans go there.
3) I myself have had to wait almost 9 months to get 3 herniated cervical disks repaired, thanks to the insurance company. My wife is currently waiting for the insurance company to approve surgery for torn cartilege in her knee. We expect they will take ~ 6 months to approve it, even though 3 surgeons agree the surgery is necessary (it’s already been 3 months…). My sister has been refused by her insurance company to have her jaw repaired even though when she opens her mouth her jaw dislocates because the joints are so bad. These are just the ones I know personally. Read the local papers from a few mid-sized cities and see the same thing over and over – Insurance companies screwing people over in the name of profits.
If you can afford it, the waiting times in the US are non-existent. We sent my father to Austin Texas to get his knee done and paid cash. His other knee had taken 6 months to get done.
The US problem is that the system avoids treating about 1/3 of all cases. Canada has problems, the US has problems. Both are breaking.
#21–Dr T==can you imagine a functioning healthcare system that does not deny/delay necessary healthcare nor encourage unnecessary procedures? In other words, why do “advocates” always have to start from one skewed end of the anlysis or the other?
To all American
Please DO NOT change you health care system. The fact that you and your companies pay more than twice as much as the rest of the world for medical care makes gives our businesses a major competitive advantage. In these times of economic uncertainty it good to know we have a significant economic advantage over you. It better that your car factories shut down rather than ours.
#32
1.) I target somebody’s screen name when it applies to the subject. It certainly seemed applicable in your case.
2.) Probably because you live in some god forsaken forest along the Maine / Canada border where no doctor would bother ever setting up shop. Two can play your game. I live in Minneapolis. How come there are no Mayo Clinics in Canada? Why do so many Canadians cross the border to come to the Mayo?
3.) I can list annecodotal comments with the best of them too!
#36 – Jay Benson II
>>You’ve been proved wrong several times
I didn’t realize that. Could you point out some of those instances?
And if you think medical care in the US is any better than the UK or Canada, think again. Use your friend “the Google”, and look up “iatrogenic deaths USA”. You will find that physician-caused deaths is very near the top of leading causes of death in the United States.
This whole argument about the “superiority” of the US denial-of-health-care industry is bunk. Sure, maybe a few foreigners, like Carlos Slim or a Saudi oil magnate might be willing to foot the bill to go to one a them thar elite, liberal teaching hospitals like the Harvard system or Johns Hopkins for their medical care (which of course would come out of their own pocket). Most people in countries with UHC are quite happy to stay in their country of origen to receive care.
And guess what??
THEY LIVE LONGER THAN WE DO!
#39
I already covered your mistake.
Regarding the comment that physician-caused deaths is near the top of leading causes of death in the United States … could that possibly be due:
1.) The USA has one of the the highest percentage of ambulance chasing trial lawyers in the world? (such as John Edwards who made millions by filing malpractice suits that had no relation to medical issues)
2.) There are a lot of countries where people die due to medical neglect because there are no doctors in the first place. Guess what – those countries can skate on your lame “iatrogenic deaths” spin.
3.) I’m no Carlos Slim or a Saudi oil magnate, but my wife and I get superior medical support from the local medical clinics in the Minneapolis area.
4.) And regarding your final illogical comment: Most people in countries with UHC are quite happy to stay in their country of origen to receive care.
They stay in their country because they live in that country. It takes a lot of effort to move from your native country to a foreign country. But there are many people who come to the USA for medical treatment. How many American’s go to England for medical treatments? The answer just proves my case.
#40 – ‘dro
You’re big on telling me I “avoid reality”, but very small when it comes to pointing out where I’ve avoided it.
As to your plan, people who “have money”, are already set (as long as they either already have insurance or can afford medical care on their own), medicare is only for those 65 or older (and it is subsidized with taxpayer money anyhow), and the VA system only covers the 7% of the American populace who are or were in the military.
#41–jbenson==other than crowing, waiving a flag, and being personally happy with your healthcare, what measurement(s) do you look at to “objectively” determine the quality/utility/effectiveness of any healthcare system?
#41 – Jay Benson II
So far, I haven’t seen any errors.
1 – Are you saying the ambulance-chasing lawyers cause the doctors to kill patients? That’s lame, even by your standards.
2 – wtf does that have to do with anything? Sure there are third-world banana republics with no doctors. And some of them are even worse than the US when it comes to life expectancy and infant mortality.
3. Congratulations on your superb health care in the Minneapolis area. I, too, used to live in Minneapolis and received superb health care. Although it was almost fully paid for by my employer. And I receive superb health care where I live now, also almost fully paid for by my employer. Of course, when I lived in Minneapolis, I made it a point not to go the Hennepin County Medical Center (where the uninsured to). Don’t want to be tempting the hand of iatrogenic death!
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?
And as I said in an earlier post, it’s only those with bank accounts that rival Carlos Slim’s or the Saudi oil magnate that do such a thing. They fly to the Dana Farber Cancer Center or Brigham & Women’s, or to Johns Hopkins, for the best medical treatment money can buy, for a life-threatening condition. And if the world’s best medical care for their condition isn’t available in the US, they fly to Paris or Geneva or Zurich or Tokyo.
You don’t see any Canadians “flocking over the border” to go to the Bellingham Medical Center for a sprained ankle. Most of the “flocking” takes place when Americans go to Thailand or India or somewhere to get medical treatment for pennies on the dollar, because they can’t afford it here.