NHS Meltdown: Deaths Caused by Hospital Mistakes in UK Up 60%
I ran this cartoon yesterday in an edition of SHS Funnies. But it is apt here, and not in a humorous vein. Tragically, it isn't healthy to go to the hospital under the NHS. In the last two years--think about how short a time that is--hospital-caused deaths are up a whopping 60%. From the story: NHS records show that 3,645 people died as a result of "patient safety incidents"--including botched operations and the outbreak of infections - between April 2007 and March 2008. The figure was 1,370 higher than two years earlier. Patient groups have warned that the true toll is likely to be higher because some hospitals do not record all incidents.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:46 AM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
Wesley,
If it is about the UK, who do you turn to for informed and learned insight? George Monbiot of course - the scourge of denialists, dissemblers, and shills everywhere. Sure enough I checked Monbiot.com and came across this article, from the Guardian-
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/04/29/the-great-consolidation-2/
Do I need to explain the implications? The US health system, which the British government seems determined to emulate, is both more expensive and less efficient than ours; those who can’t afford to pay are either excluded or treated like battery pigs(13). The independent sector treatment centres (ISTCs) – private clinics performing routine operations for the NHS - that the government introduced in England in 2003 have been a costly disaster. Private companies receive their money whether or not they carry out the work they are contracted to do. The government refuses to release comparative figures, but the little evidence we have suggests that their costs are much higher than the public sector’s(14). The risks have been transferred back to the taxpayer and in some cases the standards of treatment are appalling. In 2006 Angus Wallace, professor of orthopaedic and accident surgery at Nottingham University, told the Guardian, “We expect failures of hip replacements at approximately 1% a year and knees at about 1.5% a year. But we have got some of the ISTCs that are looking at 20% failure rates.”(15) Because they put profits first, companies that run these centres have generated a stack of litigation claims and a huge NHS bill for repairing the damage they have caused(16). Far from reversing its policy in the light of this evidence, the government is setting up a competition panel, to ensure that the health service never discriminates in favour of the public sector when awarding contracts(17).
At the same time as Lady Warnock is running around loose with her title and her advocating the "duty to die."
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