Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Disciplinary action?

When you're in hospital, you expect to be treated with a bit of respect even if your situation is somewhat undignified. If friends or relatives are in hospital, you'd expect the same things for them. What you don't expect is this...

Mail.
The ultimate NHS indignity: Body of hospital patient left to die in corridor is ignored for hours... before staff simply drag him away

'He went to them for help and they left him out in the corridor to die', says Peter Thompson's daughter
Senior nurse claims it was 'the appropriate method of handling the situation'

Two heartbroken parents have slammed 'inhumane' nurses who left their dead son lying in the middle of a hospital corridor and stepped over his corpse for more than ten hours thinking he was asleep.
CCTV captured staff pulling the lifeless body of Peter Thompson along the floor like they were 'dragging the body of a dead animal'.
Today a coroner said his death was 'wholly preventable' and believes he could have survived but for the neglect of nursing staff, three of whom now face disciplinary proceedings.
41-year-old Mr Thompson had taken a cocktail of drink and drugs but instead of taking him to accident and emergency, staff at the Edale House unit at the Manchester Royal Infirmary left him sprawled on the floor, where he eventually died.
Disciplinary action is ongoing at the moment, though hopefully it will lead to sackings, culpability has been admitted by means of a written apology from the Trust, yet cases like this keep happening as human dignity seems to be a forgotten term to some members of the NHS.
 Yes the family are in line for compensation, but that just means the costs will be passed back to us as taxpayers, the nurses will lose their jobs (probably) but unless their license is actually revoked, will probably find employment again at some stage.
The whole ghastly business really stems from the social engineering carried out by successive governments since the 70's, and possibly before. People just no longer seem to care about other people any more, oh sure they'll care about family or friends, but the kindness of strangers seems to be sadly lacking from today's society, oh not totally missing of course, we still give generously to charities, though even then the governments foreign aid and fake charity set up's are straining peoples credulity when it comes to their own giving.
Yet it's becoming ever more apparent that some people no longer see the human dignity of another as a matter of any great concern. Perhaps it's down to education, or culture, but it should be a matter of grave concern to us all that this sort of thing can go on with people scarcely able to defend themselves or do anything about it.
Perhaps the disciplinary action should go further or higher into a criminal charge of neglect?
I don't know, but people used to dread going into hospitals because that's where you went to die, seems as if history is starting to repeat itself.

3 annotations:

Anonymous said...

It's about greed. We were taught that the only thing that really matters is being successful; getting a good job and "getting on".

It’s about money. With money you can buy a house, buy a car, have a good time, have good holidays; without it you live in a slum, take the appalling bus, drink to get drunk to forget, and stay at home. The only measures of success are material. Nothing else matters.

It’s about no one taking the blame for things. It’s about nothing ever being anyone’s fault. It’s about not being able to find anyone to complain to because almost everything is done from call centres where you can only speak to the lowest level of staff, who are paid the minimum wage and can take no responsibility for anything (although not, I accept, in hospitals). It’s about “lessons will be learned” from top to bottom... but they never are.

It’s about really poor education, all with one aim in mind. Maximising the school’s target achievement in Standard and Higher grade (Os and As in your country) results. The fact that no one learns anything about personal responsibility is because there is not a measurable target to be achieved, the reaching of which will increase the Rector’s (headmaster’s) salary. No one wants to take a Higher in moral philosophy; it’s far too hard.

It’s about irresponsible parenting frequently by parents which are no more than children. Some are just too busy watching the X factor to bother about bringing up their kids; some are too busy making their mark as executives, in a “presentism” culture. Whatever. It’s still about child neglect.

It’s about mothers not being mothers and fathers not being fathers.

But mainly it is about me me me me me.

Quiet_Man said...

Very well put tris

Anonymous said...

Spot on Tris,

I may have my rose tinted specs on but I believe that 40 years ago people were drawn to nursing and the medical profession in general because they cared about people. Now people make a medical career choice based purely on wages, pensions, perks and job security. Generalisation I know, there are good people in the NHS, but that is how I feel having been in hospital a few times in recent years, experienced the apathy firsthand and comparing it to my experiences from the 60's and 70's

A bit like modern politicians, money and personal power the driver, controlling not serving, career mapped out from early regardless of the route taken to power.