Government Healthcare In Action
By Mitch Berg
Nurses in a Brit hospital allow a man to die of dehydration:
Kane Gorny was so desperate for a drink that he rang police to beg for their help.
They arrived on the ward only to be told by doctors that everything was under control.
The next day his mother Rita Cronin found him delirious and he died within hours.
She said nurses had failed to give him vital drugs which controlled fluid levels in his body. ‘He was totally dependent on the nurses to help him and they totally betrayed him.’
He worked for Waitrose and had been a keen footballer and runner until he was diagnosed with a brain tumour the year before his death
A coroner has such grave concerns about the case that it has been referred to police.
So that’s how you get accountability from government healthcare; you die under suspecious and hideously cruel circumstances.
And they say we peasants will have no options.
March 9th, 2010 at 10:40 am
Apparently Mr. Gorney wasn’t aware that British courts had already ruled in 2005 that terminally ill patients can be starved to death (and denied water) if his doctors think providing these can be “adverse to the patient’s clinical needs.”
http://thenightwriterblog.com/2009/07/28/i-dont-want-to-go-on-the-cart/
March 9th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Wow, a case of medical malpractice under government health care.
We have those same kinds of cases here, under our non-government health care system. I lost my father to similar problems with health care ribght here in Minnesota, despite excellent health care in the same hospital for the illness for which he was originally admitted. We have been discussing health care and tort reform on Penigma with the assistance of one of our newest contributing authors, Dr. Kirsch, who is a practicing MD with a specialized writing focus on medical ethics. One of our topics has been how to design tort reform that addresses really egregious neglect and other horrific substandard care under our current health care system.
I’m assuming we all feel tremendous compassion for the man who died and his family. What seems to be missing from the focus of bringing it up here is that he apparently received substantial, excellent health care up to the problems with care that resulted in his death.
I wonder how many of the readers of SitD also feel such tremendous compassion for those people in this country who receive NO health care whatsoever, much less what this man in the UK received prior to his death.
Or is it instead that you all are worried that if everyone, or nearly everyone in the US gets health care you might not get what you want for yourself and your families, and the hell with anyone else?
March 9th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
As for me, I want those “Cadillac” plans the unions and government workers have — and I want to be exempted from paying the Cadillac tax the same way they were.
I do wonder, though, how a man who was receiving “substantial, excellent care” could be denied water to the point where he died of dehydration (which takes a rather long time). Perhaps, to paraphrase another Brit, “this is obviously a meaning of “substantial and excellent” with which I am unfamiliar.
Perhaps this poor bloke had the misfortune to be a patient at the British hospital that was in the news a couple of weeks ago because of it’s high mortality and patients being left in their own filth for days at a time. Or perhaps his medical records were being tended to by the East Anglia weather research team.
March 9th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
Dog Gone said:
“those people in this country who receive NO health care whatsoever”
Wow! You have identified a problem, so how about proposing a solution that addresses that problem. No? You need to change health care distribution for everyone else as well? Does that seem as stupid to you as it does to me?
March 9th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
Night Writer, under usual circumstances, a patient couldn’t die after so short a time from dehydration. The lack of meds however, I found more serious.
Are you trying to suggest Night Writer that we don’t have hospitals here in the US where some pretty bad things occur? Like the rate of preventable infections for example? We have that too. Those few hospitals are no more indicative of a national problem than this instance or the others you cited are.
The other thing I noticed was that the Brit response to investigating and holding the staff and hospital accountable seem to mirror pregtty closely the ones in the US. What is done when something bad like this occurs is in some ways more significant than just the original problem incident.
March 9th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
It is common knowledge that US medical facilities are cleaner and more sanitary that those in Europe.
March 9th, 2010 at 4:38 pm
Let me weigh in as somebody with more than a paper degree. I read the linked Brit article and after looking at the pictures of the patient (before illness and during) and I believe he suffered from a pituitary gland adenoma–a benign tumor than over produces, among other things, human growth hormone. His facial appearance as a youth is textbook classic. In past centuries the afflicted would become literally giants and die young. They frequently suffer from early arthritis, which would explain his hip replacement. One possible consequence of treating the adenoma is a decrease in an essential hormone–ADH. Patients lacking ADH may easily die of dehydration because they cannot adapt to lack of fluids. To me this explains why he died in a hospital. I assume his doctors had made the diagnosis but the nurses withheld his DDAVP, which would have corrected the problem.
I can only guess that pediatric endocrinologists are in short supply in the NHS and likely the nurses caring for him lacked training. This is a classic system error. Contrary to DG’s assertions, I don’t see this happening in US hospitals, where we are told there are “too many” specialists.
March 9th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
There are two mindsets at work here, DG (and not just between you and me). There are infection problems in US hospitals, but it isn’t due to lack of effort or attention. I have family members who work in hospitals, and I’ve visited (too) many family members IN hospitals the last few years and I know the hospitals wage a constant and aggressive war against a very resilient and adaptive foe on this subject. Also, from my experience as a Day Writer, I know a bit about the effects of the (evil) profit motive in this arena that forces all staff to stay on their toes to treat their patients, aid the families of those patients, and keep their jobs. Negligence is not accepted and is usually dealt with by termination or lawsuit or both (another reason to stay on one’s toes).
My experience with UK hospitals is more limited, but I’ve run up against the maddening lack of initiative and apathy there in other areas on many occasions. When asked why they accept such shoddy products or services when just a little initiative on someone’s part could reap a windfall, I heard over and over, with a shrug, “that’s just the way it is, innit?” Granted, that was a heavy generality I just lofted there, but to be more specific, if the negligence I referenced earlier at the UK hospital had occurred here it would justifiably be front page news for a week and the hospital would receive the same approbation as reserved for slip-shod meat packers, or worse.
Medical care can be over the top in prolonging life but here in the U.S. the patient has to tell the doctor, “Please, I want to die.” In the UK, as in the case I linked earlier or in the Charlotte Wyatt case (http://thenightwriterblog.com/2005/04/24/charlottes-web-when-the-state-decides-if-your-baby-shall-live-or-die/) the patients have to tell their doctors, and even their government, “Please don’t kill me” and even then they can be officially ignored. I wonder why that may be?
March 9th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
One other thing: in the U.S., if you go to an Emergency Room, you will be treated, even if you don’t have insurance or money to pay for your care. In the People’s Republic of China, a friend of mine rushed an ill orphan infant to the People’s hospital for care, and she and the child were refused admittance unless she could come up with 10,000 yuan on the spot.
March 9th, 2010 at 5:35 pm
health care is available for everyone. Paying for it is not. I would love to see the gov provide tax breaks for everyone who buys a high deductible HSA. Over 20-30 years most people would save a pretty good sum of money. Some would save no money. But that isn’t even on the table. Only “free” insurance is being considered.