A retired nurse died after hospital staff mixed her up with a patient on a 'Do Not Resuscitate' notice. Pat Dawson, 73, was fit and healthy and had had no medical treatment in 30 years before suffering a suspected bowel obstruction, her family told an inquest. The widow and grandmother was taken to Royal Blackburn Hospital by ambulance but died after she collapsed and staff stopped attempts to resuscitate her following a look at 'her' notes.
And 'her' is in inverted comments there because the person to whom the DNR was relevant was a man.
By the time medics realised that a mix-up had left them reading a DNR report relating to a 90-year-old man, it was too late to save her. The inquest heard that staff failed to check the NHS number on Mrs Dawson's wristband or even the gender and age on the notes.
The NHS - the place where you can ignore all safeguards and get away with it by pleading 'overwork'.
Emergency consultant Ahmad Alabood called the tragedy an 'honest mistake because [staff] were rushing' when the unit was 'over-stretched and over-crowded'.
Oh, they were rushing? Well, forget the fact someone's dead, eh?
The inquest also heard details from an internal report by the hospital trust, which warned: 'Given the relentless pressure on A&E departments, the investigation is concerned that a similar event could occur in the future.'
Utterly shameless. And why shouldn't they be? In any other industry, say, building or engineering, someone would be going to prison or facing a huge fine at the very least. In the NHS, however...
Mrs Dawson's son, John, told the inquest in Accrington: 'I know that our mum would have been horrified by how the system she gave her life to failed her.
'It is beyond belief the catastrophic way in which she was failed, not only by one individual but by doctors who have sworn the Hippocratic oath to do no harm, and our mum paid the ultimate price.'
Unfortunately, it's not 'beyond belief' at all, and it'll continue not to be until NHS staff face proper consequences.
4 comments:
Maybe they should tell their story via the medium of dance...
I am writing my autobiography. I realised that I'd only seen the inside of a doctor's surgery twice before I was 21, not because I was never ill, but because when I was, a doctor always came to my house. Those decades were in the 50s and 60s, and I exclude perhaps being taken somewhere when I was a baby.
I had, of course, been to hospital, having been sent there twice after those home visits (appendix and tonsils), plus being stitched up (literally) for cuts.
This wasn't just one home town, either, but in 9 different towns.
Now, I can't even get a phone appointment less than a fortnight away.
Get an appointment for a fortnight away? Hah! Luxury. We have to phone our surgery at 9am. If they cannot fit you in that day, you have to phone up tomorrow at 9am. They will only give appointments for that day. We cannot book ahead at all.
"Maybe they should tell their story via the medium of dance..."
Heh!
"I am writing my autobiography. I realised that I'd only seen the inside of a doctor's surgery twice before I was 21, not because I was never ill, but because when I was, a doctor always came to my house. "
Yes, the good old days. What happened to them?
"We have to phone our surgery at 9am. If they cannot fit you in that day, you have to phone up tomorrow at 9am. They will only give appointments for that day. "
Same as my local, not that I've ever needed it. But why? I did ask one of the counter dragons once when trying to get my mum an appointment, and she said it's because the drs never submitted their attendance plans far enough in advance.
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