MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
By Sarah Lyall, New York Times, Feb. 6/7, 2013
LONDON — Shockingly bad care and inhumane treatment at a hospital in the Midlands led to hundreds of unnecessary deaths and stripped countless patients of their dignity and self-respect, according to a scathing report published on Wednesday.
The report, which examined conditions at Stafford Hospital in Staffordshire over a 50-month period between 2005 and 2009, cites example after example of horrific treatment: patients left unbathed and lying in their own urine and excrement; patients left so thirsty that they drank water from vases; patients denied medication, pain relief and food by callous and overworked staff members; patients who contracted infections due to filthy conditions; and patients sent home to die after being given the wrong diagnoses.
“This is the story of the appalling and unnecessary suffering of hundreds of people,” Robert Francis, the lawyer appointed by the government to lead the inquiry, said at a news conference [....] The report into what has been called the biggest scandal in the modern history of the health service found that many of the problems were due to the efforts of the hospital to meet health-service targets, like providing care within four hours to patients arriving at the emergency room. It also said that in its efforts to balance its books and save $16 million in 2006 and 2007 in order to achieve so-called foundation-trust status, which made it semi-independent of control by the central government, the hospital laid off too many people and focused relentlessly on external objectives rather than patient care. [....]
For more see:
Stafford Hospital: Does NHS boss have case to answer?
BBC News, Feb. 7, 2013, and these other links offered there:
And this Guardian editorial:
Mid Staffs and the NHS: church in need of reformation, Feb. 6, 2013
What Francis has done is expose a new unhealthy, managerially obsessive culture of targets, money and incentives
Comments
Remember when facilities in the Western world were assumed to be the best that could possibly be available?
by Orion on Fri, 02/08/2013 - 7:34am