Filth and Shame in a NHS Hospital (Great Britain)

[pnwmom]

Britain's National Health Service has some problems . . . .


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-2472127,00.html

The broken new Labour promise that caught most public attention last week was the failure to abolish mixed-sex wards. Janet Street-Porter, the ferocious media personality, wrote about the misery of her sister when dying of cancer in a mixed-sex NHS ward. Plenty of other people have tried to draw attention to this disgrace and Baroness Knight, the Conservative peer, has been campaigning about it for years but — such is the spirit of the times — it takes a loud-mouth celebrity to get public attention. . . .

Street-Porter published extracts last week of the diary of Patricia Balsom, her dying sister. They were horrifying. Among the miseries she endured was lying neglected in a mixed ward, where she was woken more than once to see a naked male patient masturbating opposite her bed. Her shocking stories prompted a flood of others.

The late Eileen Fahey, for instance, dying of cancer, was put onto a mixed geriatric ward where confused people wandered about without supervision. One man with dementia regularly masturbated at the nurses’ station and tried to get into women patients’ beds; he was a threat to them all but staff took no notice, according to her daughter Maureen. Other patients have to give answers to intimate questions in the hearing of other patients. One deaf old man was repeatedly asked when he last had an erection, until tears ran down his cheeks.

A former midwife described eloquently on Radio 4 the indignities of being in a 24-bed mixed-sex ward, stripped of all dignity and intimidated. . . .
Patients lie naked, half washed and forgotten, their sick and ageing flesh exposed to everyone, while nurses rush elsewhere. It is commonplace to have to walk to filthy mixed lavatories with gowns wide open at the back. At a time of sickness and anxiety many people are profoundly embarrassed to be surrounded by a clutter of bed pans, colostomy bags, nakedness, cries of pain and sweat, blood and tears — their own and other people’s.

SNIP

[Syrinx]

1. Isn't the Times Of London a Tory-friendly newspaper?

I'm not saying that the article is inaccurate, I have no way of knowing. But it seems convenient that this comes out now that we have a Democratic congress coming into power that may be on the verge of doing meaningful work on US health care issues. Just saying.

[sweetheart]

2. for british consumption?

A tory approach would be to say, that in a private hosptial system, such treatment would be cheaper
than treatment with a private room, and economics would better allocate resources, as if its really
true nobody wants to stay in such conditions, then they will pay for better hospitals. But as the
public budget is just spread on the country like butter on toast, without economic allocation, the
budget is wasted in parts of the nation... and in other parts, produces substandard 'soviet' problems,
where a giant centrally planned medical service hits its limits.

The NHS is a religious meme in the british politic, but i'm in favour of universal insurance,
that everyone have medical doctors and treatment, at public clinics even, but that hospitals and
such services compete for private clients, otherwise there ends up a second tier medical system,
a substandard tier like the VA hospitals when so underfunded, and the NHS similarly, rich people
head abroad for treatment. Richer persons go to private dentists too, the common denominator
must be excellent medical care for all people, but universal insurance, an eminent domain buyout
of the entire medical insurance sector by government single pay, offers a way to achieve that
in a world where soviet medicine based on noneconomic incentives, however hipocritic, is failing itself.

[Syrinx]

3. I don't pretend to understand the fine points of British politics

And my brainpower is quite wobbly at this hour. I was thinking in simplistic terms of Conservatives as Republicans, and Labour as the Democrats. I'm sorry if my thinking was TOO simplistic. But I GUARANTEE you that this article will be fodder for the likes of Limbaugh and Hannity and O'Reilly in the days and months ahead.

[sweetheart]

4. The only point to take

... from british politics, is that all parties, *all*, stand
for universal medical treatment for all citizens.

They disagree on how that treatment might be provised, the
tories tending to side with business friendly mechanisms and
the traditional left siding with national public institutions.

I actually believe the tory mantra is more like 'choice' and
'vouchers' in an attempt to sound nonsensical, i listened to
cameron talk about this, but it was so wooly, i don't recall
except that he believes in medical treatment.

Apologies for arrogance and 'fine points', surely all fine pints
are meant to be drunk.
:toast:

[Syrinx]

9. no need for apologies, my friend

You merely educated me, and for that I am always grateful. :hi:

[pnwmom]

5. And I'm saying

that as we design whatever our health care system will be, we have other countries experiences -- good and bad -- to draw on.

It does seem strange that in all this time Blair hasn't been been able to fix the problem of co-ed wards.

[kellenburger]

6. exactly.

"that as we design whatever our health care system will be, we have other countries experiences -- good and bad -- to draw on."

So as all of the bad stories of "socialized health care" come rolling in
we should learn from them.

BUT. There was a story about universal health care costing around
300 billion ( http://mediamatters.org/altercation/ ). If we could have back the
4+ trillion that Bush & the republican congress has wasted we would have the
rolls royce of health care. Probably with many fewer problems given our resources.

[pnwmom]

7. The money that has been diverted to the disaster in Iraq

is unimaginable and unconscionable.

[intaglio]

8. Odd thing is that 20 years ago people were agitating

for mixed sex wards! Should go under "seemed like a good idea at the time"