大象传媒

Rose Gibb has been dismissed /resigned. Much more to hear on this aspect along with NHS responsibility?
But how come the Doctors & Nurses(Angels) on the Wards were complicit in allowing this to happen to patients in their care!!... It really does amaze me!

The Millenium Bug

A few weeks ago, Mr & Mrs Brian Cook
( aged approx early 70's )of Leominster, Herefordshire , sadly both died of a hospital bug that Mrs Cook contracted whilst hospitalised for a leg injury, and Mr Cook contracted shortly thereafter...

( As Mrs Cook's Catalunian niece is a doctor, somewhere nr Barcelona ,it might be interesting to get european perspective on bug business )

When I mentioned this sad news to an old doc chum,( pioneering muscular skeletal radiation ) he suggested MRSI has been exacerbated by the misguidedly large quantities of anti-biotics GPs dish out to patients who would get better anyway in the same time in takes for the meds to work ;
whilst the super bugs adapt to being resistant to the anti-biotics

( BTW, this chap is also on the board of medicins sans frontieres -and says filthy NHS hospitals are easily on a par with 3rd world standards if not worse ; indeed he and his adorable wife - a neurologist - are now so fed up with the NHS they are emigrating to Canada with their two toddlers )

Post op infections can be due to compromised immune systems , but are as likely caused by sloppy practice by inadequately supervised ignorant protected public sector workers too bone idle to change wound dressings on a frequent enough basis , let alone wash their hands / instruments properly between patients

Also guilty are PCT's / hospital managers employing contract cleaners without setting sufficiently high standards to because they are spending other people's money ( i.e. tax payers ) rather than their own, with which presumably they would be far more diligent

Have we mentioned the doctor's and hospital staff's own persistent usage of illegible scrawl ,
( a.k.a "Shipman Script" )
even where forms request
BLOCK CAPITAL LETTERS ONLY which wastes oodles of fellow workers valuable time trying to decipher ?

( Just imagine how often busy lab techs run the wrong blood tests for the wrong patients as a result of misinformation )

bring back hattie jakes

pip pip - AB

The Fat Politics Cartoon

Looks more like John McCririck rather than Michael Crick

Dear Newsnight

Triple the pay of cleaners, publicise the service and check out who made millions from their privatisation

best wishes
Bob

In 2004, my father was admitted to Queen Mary's Roehampton with the purpose of receiving some physio therapy to improve his walking skills (he had had a nasty fall and had been admitted to Kingston General but after recovering was then sent to Roehampton for the therapy. He had to stay for they intended to give him intensive therapy). He was put in a ward where there had been some outbreak of this sickness and it was still treated as a quarantined ward(visitors were told to wash their hands before coming in and when leaving). My father caught the bug within a day or two of arrival and was greatly weakened, and eventually died of pneumonia (the official but not real cause of death). We did not complain for in many ways my father's quality of life had deteriorated (his deafness and loss of voice made it difficult for him to communicate except in quiet spaces, but he was mentally alert. He died 1st January 2005, aged 84, one month short of his 85th birthday. His name was Grant Anthony Clavell Blunt. They have since demolished the old 1st World War block and erected a new hospital.

Having been as a patient in several local hospitals over the years, ( fortunately not too recently ) it strikes me that infection problems are greater in newer hospitals than the old ones. Only last week a brand new local maternity unit was found to have a major outbreak of MRSA, and I can't help speculating that the enclosed space of modern wards makes a contribution. The original pre antiseptic hospitals prescribed by the likes of Florence Nightingale had wards with high ceilings to allow the foul air to circulate and disperse any infection. Many " modern " hospital wards have carpets on the floor, the perfect place for infection to lurk with little chance of proper cleaning for years. The old lyno would be a far safer option even if the ward doesn't feel like home and you have to wear slippers to walk about without getting cold feet. If people want to expect freedom from the threat of infection they are unfortunately going to have to have more austere conditions on wards. I have experienced hospitals with and without private cleaners, the hospital with private cleaners was filthy, while the in house cleaning was much better. Perhaps as Bob suggests, cleaners should be paid at least as much as nurses as they are probably becoming just as important in final outcomes these days.

Questions should be asked about the medical judgements surrounding this issue. Those most likely to really know the true causes of death in hospitals are the consultants, doctors and nurses. To what extent is there a conspiracy to hide the scale of this problem? I hope Kirsty takes no nonsense from whomever Labour wheel out, if anybody, to talk on this subject. After 10 years and huge spending, blaming the Tories will not cut it. Blaiming the lowest paid and the highest paid in the NHS seems a little too convenient for the majority of staff who knew, but did not seem to care. Clearly Mr Brown was aware of this report before deciding to cancel the election.

As a GP I am constantly having to educate the public about the difference viruses and bacteria. I am appaled that Newsnight called C difficile a virus.Humans are more closely related to sunflowers than viruses are to bacteria

Dear Newsnight

perhaps hospitals also need more people to help provide the sort of basic care for patients such as helping them to eat, which may be neglected, with nurses playing a more specialised role.

Does Newsnight know how many Westminster politicians and their families use private hospitals when ill, and how many use public ones?

could it find out, might this be part of the problem?

for example the extremely generous mileage allowance enjoyed by MPs may mean that some can avoid experiencing the overcrowding on public transport and may therefore be less concerned about tackling the problem,

if -and I don鈥檛 know the answer to this some of them are going private for medical treatment this might reduce their incentive for sorting it out, just a thought, sorry if unfair to our reps in Westminster

Bob

This is one topic that I am most able to comment for two years ago my 91 y.o. mother in law was sent home from hospital with this CD and they knew full well she had contacted it. I have a file an inch thick on the hospital that did this and the excuses they made.

My 26 y.o. daughter had to cope with this for two days whilst we were on holiday. I had to fight to get her GP to come and when he did it was an immediate re-admission, the ambulance being 3 hours coming!
The day she was at home the press then latched on to this in 2005 and if I had been interested in publicity the "Sun" would have had Lilly on the front page.

We eventually had a meeting with the Trust and nursing staff where my daughter wiped the floor with their lies. Dirty floors soiled clothing, nurses that didn't care (except one) a 91 y.o waiting in a discharge room for 6 hours with a smell that the most ignorant nurse could have diagnosed. She was returned home with no support or assessment just to get rid. The smell still remains with us to this day, no dignity for Lilly!!
On re-admittance the nursing could not have been better. A few months later she died and we wonder if this had affected her life expectancy.

Lilly must have been the first of such an epidemic and I wonder if we hadn't done the public any favours by keeping this story in the family. How many have died since then?

It's all to do with cuts and nurses forgetting how to care (nurse) and the lack of Matrons to see Wards are kept clean and the public bringing dirt in from outside with all day access. Perhaps we should revert to restricted visiting hours, (remember 7 to 8 and the odd afternoon?)

I fear today going into hospital, not for why I am being admitted, but for what I can catch. Hospitals are dangerous places.