Socialized Medicine can be deadly

Displaying 1 - 4 of 4

Patients starve and die of thirst on hospital wards

Laura Donnelly, The Telegraph • Fri 2012 Oct 12, 11:34am

• as well as 43 people who starved to death, 287 people were recorded by doctors as being malnourished when they died in hospitals;
• there were 558 cases where doctors recorded that a patient had died in a state of severe dehydration in hospitals;
• 78 hospital and 39 care home patients were killed by bedsores, while a further 650 people who died had their presence noted on their death certificates;
• 21,696 were recorded as suffering from septicemia when they died, a condition which experts say is most often associated with infected wounds.
The records, from the Office for National Statistics, follow a series of scandals of care of the elderly, with doctors forced to prescribe patients with drinking water or put them on drips to make sure they do not become severely dehydrated .

Top doctor's chilling claim: The NHS kills off 130,000 elderly patients every year

Steve Doughty at the Daily Mail • Wed 2012 Jul 11, 3:04pmLiverpool Care Pathway, a method of looking after terminally ill patients that is used in hospitals across the country. It is designed to come into force when doctors believe it is impossible for a patient to recover and death is imminent. It can include withdrawal of treatment – including the provision of water and nourishment by tube – and on average brings a patient to death in 33 hours. … This determination in the LCP leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy. The personal views of the physician or other medical team members of perceived quality of life or low likelihood of a good outcome are probably central in putting a patient on the LCP.’

Medicaid Freedom of Choice

Stephen Moore & Peter Ferrara at American Spectator • Sat 2012 Jun 30, 6:19pm

Medicaid patients face grave difficulties obtaining timely and essential care, and suffer worse health outcomes as a result. Occasionally, the ensuing tragedies play out in newspapers, as with this 2007 report from the Washington Post: A 12-year-old Maryland boy named Deamonte Driver complained of a headache, which ultimately stemmed from an abscessed tooth. His mother had not noticed the problem, partially because she was working frantically to find a Maryland dentist to treat her other son, who had six rotten teeth. But of the approximately 5,500 dentists in the entire state, only about 900 accepted Medicaid. None of the children received routine dental care. By the time Deamonte complained, the infection in his tooth had spread to his brain. He was rushed to Children’s Hospital for emergency surgery and spent more than two weeks there. Then one night, he called his mother from his hospital room and told her, “Make sure you pray before you go to sleep.” In the morning, he was dead.

NHS indignity: Peter Thompson's body ignored for hours in corridor of Edale House unit

dailymail.co.uk • Wed 2011 Jun 8, 2:50pm

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'.