Police probing a brutal mother-blaming hospital trust at the centre of the biggest ever maternity scandal to strike the NHS are now investigating 600 cases.
A damning five-year inquiry, published today, revealed 201 babies and nine mothers died needlessly during a two-decade spell of appalling care at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust.
By the way, guess why these assholes would push [sic] natural childbirth? Because that’s a cheaper option than Caesarian (C-section) birth.
And with Government, it’s always about cost, not quality.
After about 20 more years of “inquiries” the people who haven’t quit, died off or retired to Portugal will be “strongly cautioned”, promoted to a management position, and sent off to the wilds of Scotland with a can of blue paint.
“And with Government, it’s always about cost, not quality.“
Unless it’s about their benefits.
Or you’re one of the “Elites”.
It’s not even about the money Kim, the fuckers are never shy about pissing away billions of working families’ money on huge salaries and generous pensions for administrators and managers.
No the reason is even worse. The natural birth thing became an article of faith among the high priestesshood of NHS maternity care overriding normal medical principles and human decency.
These cunts, and the same will have played out in hospitals all over the country need jail time.
It’s a disgusting affair, and symbolic of the moral wasteland of socialised medicine (or anything else).
Disclosure – it’s my local hospital where I lived as a child.
I think you’re mistaken to blame the NHS because it is socialised. People are human inside and outside the state. Most are good; some are bad. There are bad private hospitals too. And you didn’t mention Harold Shipman.
Yes there are issues, serious issues, but don’t let the requirement of perfection get in the way. Just because private care is mostly better doesn’t stop the NHS from being mostly right. After all, here in the UK we don’t have the evils of medical insurance. We don’t have to suddenly find tens of thousands of pounds. We don’t have medical bankruptcies. We don’t have healthcare bosses with salaries in the tens of millions. We have half the medical malpractice cases per capita per year. We don’t have people begging friends, family, and acquaintances for funds for hospital care. Gofundme is all but unknown.
“We have half the medical malpractice cases per capita per year.”
Might this be due to the fact that people die waiting for operations, as there is no incentive for the doctors to actually engage in work?
The pandemic added to an already huge waiting list – no non essential operations such as knee and hip replacements, were carried out at NHS hospitals. They were often done at private hospitals under Contract from the NHS. Cancer treatments continued as much as they could, although referrals dropped as GPs hid away and did not see people face to face, hence opportunities for early diagnosis were missed.
All NHS doctors with Private Practices (any Consultant can apply to have a private practice in any Private hospital) MUST fulfil their NHS obligations before they go to their private clinics and Consultation work. Therefore a Consultant has ample opportunity to monetise (incentivise) their skills should they wish. Many Consultants work as more than one NHS hospital and locus Consultant pay runs around something like £45 per hour and upwards, if they’re in it for the money alone.
NHS hospitals have treatment/waiting list targets to reach (partly why they contract out work) and are penalised financially if they miss them. That has an indirect effect on Consultants pay.
I watched the press briefing and was immensely impressed by the Lead Investigator, Donna Ockenden. She came across as honest, open and without bias. A career Midwife, she lead a team of 90 people, through five years of what I can only describe as appalling, unrelenting, shit.
I have read the entire 250 report, (here, for those interested https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1064302/Final-Ockenden-Report-web-accessible.pdf) and there’s is not a single mention of Govmint in it. Having worked in the NHS, private healthcare and a secure mental health establishment over a span of 15 years, and with a close relative still doing so, I would say that the picture Donna paints is one that is easily recognisable in every NHS setting.
NHS hospitals, especially big NHS Trusts like this one, are fiefdoms. Not only at Board level, but within Departments too. The culture is toxic at every level, and, having clawed your way up the chain of command under such conditions, you continue to perpetrate the same on others below you.
Yes there are some excellent nurses, Consultants and even CEOs and Boards, but it is not as we should expect, I.e. across the entire service.
I have witnessed a senior Officer destroy patient notes such that they cannot be called on; seen numbers falsified and been in establishments where vulnerable people have been unlawfully restrained. I well understand the reluctance of staff to come forward. But be clear, this is nothing to do with the Government, it’s was entirely to do with how the Trust was governed and overseen by regulatory and statutory bodies.
It is clear that lies were told, evidence withheld, patients and families mislead and denied access to information, and a culture of actively discussing staff from whistleblowing. That does not happen in isolation in a hospital. Sadly, I believe it’s likely to happen in many hospitals.
We are privileged in the UK to have an NHS that is free at the point of care. The majority is staffed and run by dedicated, skilled, practitioners and back office staff. But we must not suffer from ‘white coat syndrome’, believing that a doctors’ garb or CEOs suit, is a cloak of virtue. What happened at the Trust was, IMHO, criminal. But it was not a direct result of Government.
If the NHS has a similar post-op C-section wound infection rate to Ireland, I can see why they might not want to do them as frequently as we do over here. In 2000, the Irish medical establishment considered a 30% infection rate to be normal. As far as I can tell, it hasn’t really changed in the decades since.
In the ’70s, we were told “Oh, but 10 to 20 percent of all acute appendectomies get post-op wound infections”. For comparison, Korean War MASH units treating battle wounds saw a post-op infection rate of less than 1% in spite of the initial “incision” having not been made under exactly sterile conditions.
tl;dr: I would want to avoid any sort of surgical procedure in most UK hospitals too. The one in London where the royals go is probably up to snuff, but I wouldn’t want to be an emergency case any place else.