Sunday, March 7, 2010

Man Dies of Dehydration While Staying at a UK Hospital

This story is actually worse then it sounds. A 22 year old man was in the hospital begging for the nurses to bring him a drink as he was slowly dieing of dehydration. Instead of help, they restrained him, not that he was able to get the water himself anyways. Desperate, he called the police from the hospital to ask them to help. The police were turned away by the hospital. The mother tired to get involved only to be rebuffed until it was to late to do anything.

Is this really the system we want to be emulating in this country?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255858/Neglected-lazy-nurses-Kane-Gorny-22-dying-thirst-rang-police-beg-water.html

"A man of 22 died in agony of dehydration after three days in a leading teaching hospital.

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.'
...
Although he had stressed to staff how important his medication was, she said, no one gave him the drugs.

She said that two days after his hip operation, while Miss Cronin was at work, he became severely dehydrated but his requests for water were refused.

He became aggressive and nurses called in security guards to restrain him.

After they had left, he rang the police from his bed to demand their help.
...
'I told three nurses there was something wrong with my son and they said, "He's fine" and walked off. I started to cry and a locum doctor who was there told me not to worry.

'Eventually the ward doctor came round, took one look at Kane and started shouting for help.'
...
The death certificate said Mr Gorny had died because of a 'water deficit' and 'hypernatraemia' - a medical term for dehydration.
"

12 comments:

  1. none of the plans being considered, let alone the ones they should be but are not- Single Payer- Are anything like the National Health Service in Britain.

    Which by the way gets much better outcomes for a lot less then our shitty, inefficient, inhumane system.

    This example tells you nothing about the British health system, or practical health care reform. Its scare mongering.

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  2. @Ian Spencer Dubrowsky - one example may be scare mongering; but horror stories and problems with nationalized systems are way to common place. It is worth mentioning again that the leaders of countries with nationalized healthcare trust our system over their own.

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  3. it is scare mongering.

    the system in the United States is already nationalized, its called the emergency room. By law you have to treat someone in an emergency if they show up, if they can't pay, we all do. We tell people that if you cannot afford care, we won't give it to you, until your so effing messed up that you have to go to the emergency room- besides this being morally abhorrent- costs taxpayers alot more then if people just had access to care. Thats a horror story.

    leaders of countries are wealthy, I'm wealthy too. if im sick you bet I want to be in the United States, because I can afford it. Too bad my taxes are higher, and my private insurance rates are higher, because were paying now to subsidize a nationalized healthcare system that gives us terrible outcomes, and only really benefits private insurance companies like aetna, and politicans in their pockets like the republican party and joe lieberman.

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  4. @Ian Spencer Dubrowsky - Its not scare mongering if it is true. I do not deny that our system is not perfect, but making it worse is not the answer. If the Democrats abandoned the 2k page monstrosity none of them have bothered to read anyways and passed the important reforms one at a time we may be able to make positive process in the near term.

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  5. oh, by the way if anyone reading this isn't sure about that total non-sequiter, I found this gem:

    "The vocal opponent of health care reform in the U.S. steered largely clear of the topic except to reveal a tidbit about her life growing up not far from Whitehorse.

    "We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada," she said. "And I think now, isn't that ironic."
    - very sharp policy mind Sarah Palin.

    Yeah, its almost as ironic as the Americans who cross the border to go to Mexico or Canada for care, or the Americans who line up all day to go to free clinics here at home. Lets keep protecting graf capitalist monopolies though.

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  6. @Ian Spencer Dubrowsky - there is nothing wrong with quoting, I do it all the time, just make sure there is a link to the source or it becomes plagiarism.

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  7. Truth and scare mongering aren't mutually exclusive, and you were scare-mongering.

    Private insurers already pour millions in costs -that could be going to people's care -for politicians, lobbyists and political operatives who are getting paid to scare people. No ones paying you I don't know why you feel the need to protect them either, then again I don't know why you also feel the need to defend Oil companies that are obviously hurting us too.

    Your making it worse by advocating to protect the "rights" of private health insurers to use the government for their own ends instead of helping the rest of us. Which it does already for certain sectors of the population anyway and is by no means tantamount to a "government takevover" if say something like Medicare was expanded for millions more people- who could actually benefit now while they are alive.

    There has never been a free market for health insurance, for the past 100 years or so they have had a legal monopoly and the arguments have always been some variation of (we need dregulation in order to better provide care)

    Even the shitty bill they will pass has broadly popular provisions in it and will certainly do net good for people when it passes. (because its 2k pages is a non-arguement, this isn't 1833, legislation isn't piecemeal, if you actually want some kind of movement toward reform of the system and aren't just taking positions because its against the "left" but just not too far "right" for you to be comfortable, then we should be advocating to make these provisions in the bill stronger).

    Besides you know the republicans aren't going to do anything, and you know they are full of it when they at once warn that the bill will be a political disaster, yet do everything in their power to make it worse.

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  8. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/sarah-palin-sees-eye-to-eye-with-albertans-in-calgary-speech/article1492634/

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  9. @Ian Spencer Dubrowsky - why are you supporting what you referred to is a "shitty bill". Passing a bill for passing sake is not the solution, it is actually more damaging then doing nothing. Start with a few helpful provisions that most people support. Pass that, and move on from there.

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  10. Thats an easy answer.

    because as awful overall the bill is compared to what I would want, there are things in it that are an improvement over what exists now- If it were up to me I would want a system adopted like what exists in Singapore, or at least pass a Single-Payer bill..

    If you actually want to know what is in the bill that looks likely to pass- and can at least put us on a structural path towards a saner system, that's easy too.

    15 million more people will become elligible for medicare, A massive multi-billon dollar investment in community health centers, a proven socially beneficial form of stimulus that already covers 25 millon people's primary and dental health care- this kind of funding can expand these centers capacity to another 20 million more people in the next five years. Families below $44,000 and above $66,000 would pay less in premiums. Also raises the percent of health costs that are paid by insurers.

    Also its the most serious, although again in my view an extremely mild one, but a start at realistically tackling the deficit.

    For example as far as the medicare "donut hole goes" Replaces $500 increase threshold increase limit with a $250 rebate to Medicare beneficiaries who hit the donut hole in 2010. Closes donut hole by phasing down the coinsurance so it is the standard 25% by 2020 throughout the coverage gap.

    These things polled invidviually are broadly popular, the reasons why are because its easier to wage a public relations campaign against "Obamacare" whatever that is, then actually informing people about what is being proposed.

    and again the moral issue aside-that we as practice tell people that by virtue of their status they can be denied sufficient healthcare, until they are so sick they have to go to the emergency room- This is good business for me. Becauase of the family I come from and the job prospects I'm likely to get after college, I don't believe I'll have a problem getting the care i need. So in that position I don't want to have to be paying taxes that subsidize private health insurers that run with 30 percent overheads (as opposed to medicare which runs at 4%), and taxes that are funding emergency room visits that would be not needed if people were just had access to care. if my taxes can instead be going to things that are actually helpful, and in reality improve my life and the lives of the people around me- while also putting us towards a structural path of coming out of these deficits- then that's something i want.

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  11. @Ian Spencer Dubrowsky - I agree that there are problems with our system, but change for the sake of change is not going to help. The bill as proposed will make things worse. We should pass the important provisions individually or in very small clusters that most people agree on to make our system better instead of forcing through a 2k+ bill that they have read and most do not want.

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  12. you keep saying you "agree there are problems" but you seem pretty indifferent or uniformed about them. I don't know what other conclusion you think anyone should come to.

    no, blind advocacy by people who position themselves as authority on issues will make things worse.

    That's very idealistic, its not very realistic if you actually want to be put on a path towards structural reform.

    ReplyDelete

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