Tag Archives: Nurse

NHS horror story: neglected patient calls police for water, dies of thirst

I spotted this UK Daily Mail story on my FB feed from bioethicist Wesley J. Smith.

Excerpt:

A young patient who died of dehydration at a leading teaching hospital phoned police from his bed because he was so thirsty, an inquest heard yesterday.

Officers arrived at Kane Gorny’s bedside, but were told by nurses that he was in a confused state and were sent away.

The keen footballer and runner, 22, died of dehydration a few hours later.

A coroner had such grave concerns about the case that she referred it to police.

Yesterday an inquest was told how Mr Gorny died after blunders and neglect by ‘lazy and careless’ medical staff at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, South London.

His mother Rita Cronin, a civil servant told Westminster Coroner’s Court that staff tutted at her and repeatedly refused to listen to her concerns that her son hadn’t been given vital medication.

At one point he became so desperate and upset that staff sedated and restrained him – and on the night before his death, his mother said, he was not checked on by medical staff, despite being in a room on his own.

[…]When he arrived at hospital for the hip operation, nurses assured the family they would give him his medication and said: ‘Don’t worry, he’s in good hands – we’ll look after him.’

But, despite the repeated reminders and insistence by both Mr Gorny and his family, staff failed to give him the tablets and he became severely dehydrated after being refused water.

In an interview with the Daily Mail in 2010, Miss Cronin said of the nurses who treated him: ‘They were lazy, careless and hadn’t bothered to check his charts and see his medication was essential. He was totally dependent on the nurses to help him and they totally betrayed him.’

Yesterday Miss Cronin told the inquest she received a distressed phone call from her son on May 27, 2009, in which he told her he’d called the police because he was so desperate for a drink.

[…]She then went to the hospital where she found him ‘confused and angry’, shouting at staff and behaving in an uncharacteristically abusive manner.

Despite this, one doctor asked if he was ‘coming off the booze’ and another asked if he was ‘always like this’. Miss Cronin said: ‘He sounded really, really distressed. He said “They won’t give me anything to drink”. ‘He also said “I’ve called the police. You better get here quickly: they’re all standing around the bed getting their stories straight”.’

When Miss Cronin arrived, she recalled: ‘They weren’t doing anything. They seemed out of their depth. It felt like the two locum doctors were nervous about calling anyone more senior than them.’

The inquest heard Mr Gorny was restrained by security guards and sedated with strong medication to calm him down. Later, he was put into a side room and left alone.

Miss Cronin said she sat in his room for three hours the night before he died without a single nurse checking on him or giving him vital medicine.

Dr. Smith also linked to this article where doctors have to prescribe water to patients in order to ensure that they do not die of dehydration in the NHS. This is what you get in a secular socialist system of health care where you pay through your working life and then when you ask for health care, you get in line, because they spent your money buying votes from people with “free” breast implants, sex changes, abortions, contraceptives and IVF.  Is that health care?

The benefit of the free enterprise system with respect to health care is that you keep your money in your pocket and you pay for quality health care at the best price. No one complains about Amazon.com, they only complain about the Department of Motor Vehicles. There is a reason for that. Amazon has to compete for your business, but government monopolies don’t. You have no choice when it comes to government monopolies. They don’t care. They get paid anyway.

UK midwives protest ruling forcing them to perform abortions

From the UK Telegraph. (H/T Dina)

Excerpt:

Mary Doogan, 57, and Concepta Wood, 51, told NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde they were not prepared to delegate, supervise or support staff who were looking after patients through “the processes of medical termination of pregnancy”. Their position was rejected by officials and they hope to have the ruling set aside in a judicial review.

The women claim the refusal to recognise their entitlement to conscientious objection violates their rights under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

They say they “hold a religious belief that all human life is sacred from the moment of conception and that termination of pregnancy is a grave offence against human life”. Their involvement in the process would be wrongful and “an offence against God”.

Miss Doogan and Mrs Wood, both midwifery sisters at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow, are seeking a ruling at the Court of Session in Edinburgh on their entitlement to conscientious objection under the 1967 Abortion Act. David Johnston QC, for the women, said the matter became an issue for the midwives, who were long-standing employees, in 2007.

They had both previously given notice of conscientious objection to any involvement in abortions and said they were not expected to participate in such treatment. But in 2007 the health board introduced changes that meant patients undergoing medical terminations were cared for in the labour ward, where the women worked. They were not expected to administer abortion-inducing drugs but management said requiring conscientious objectors to provide care for patients through a termination was lawful.

If the health care system were private, then it would be easy for midwives to find another company to work for that did not violate their consciences. But when the government runs the whole health care system, where are you supposed to go? They are a monopoly and they make the rules. Yet another reasons for Christians to vote for smaller government. In a free market, if you don’t want to buy something from one store, you can go to another store. There is competition. But where are these nurses supposed to go? They are midwives, and the government and the courts make the rules in a government-run health care system.

Even here at home, Obama is showing his hostility to rights of conscience.

Hospital told nurses: assist in abortions or lose your job

From Life News.

Excerpt:

A dozen nurses have filed a lawsuit against their employer, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, which told them they had to either assist in abortions or risk losing their jobs.

The Alliance Defense Fund filed a lawsuit on behalf of 12 nurses in New Jersey who work for a hospital receiving federal health funds who were told they needed to assist abortions or be terminated from their employment. The mandate violates several federal conscience laws and state law, ADF senior legal counsel Matt Bowman tells LifeNews.

“Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs,” Bowman told LifeNews. “No less than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections. That is flatly illegal.”

According to a copy of the complaint ADF sent LifeNews, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey was “demanding that the Nurses must assist abortions in violation of their religious objections or they will be terminated. Defendants have illegally coerced some of the Nurses to train to assist abortions already, and Defendants are presently scheduling the others to do so.”

Keep in mind, though, that the Obama administration is opposed to these conscience protections for pro-life doctors and nurses. Democrats believe that Christians should act like non-Christians in public. They think that it is ok to force their views on Christians, using the power of the law and the courts.