Ms Jago is unable to pick up her five-year-old daughter, and the pain she constantly suffers in her neck, shoulder, wrist and thumb can only be managed with painkillers and steroid injections.
She is taking legal action against Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, and blames staff shortages caused by Government-imposed NHS cutbacks for the incident.
Well, of course! What's an ideologically-hidebound NHS worker to do..?
Ms Jago was working on the neurological ward of the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, when she was attacked after helping a patient to the toilet.
The Uckfield mother, said: "The hospital authorities knew he was dangerous. He had held another nurse up against the wall and threatened to strangle her.
"There was one night he chased me down the ward threatening to kill me. We all submitted incident reports - there were two or three daily. This was going on for weeks, if not months.
But despite this, you decided to take him to the toilet
on your own..?
"I took him to the toilet and we were chatting. Everything was fine. I was leading him back and he suddenly grabbed my arms and slammed me several times against the door. I was crying out as he lifted me by my arms so my feet were off the floor.
"I called out for help but the only other nurse on duty was on the other side of the ward and she couldn't hear my screams.
"As I was shouting out he was looking at me and repeating back my cries in parrot fashion."
It's not 'the cuts' that are at fault here - it's the policy of putting clearly mentally-deranged patients onto normal wards, slack management of risk and people ignoring the genuine threat either out of habit, or some bizarre belief that the severely mentally ill shouldn't be treated as dangerous because it 'infringes their rights', or similar crap.
There are deeper causes and whilst the general public will not contemplate let alone implement the solutions to address them this problems and the many others that the NHS and all public bodies suffer from will not be rectified. In fact they will worsen. The solution is simple and that is to break their monopolies so as to force cultural change that will make them put the public's interest before their own. This nurse does not appreciate the fact that she is a victim not only of this deranged person but of the system under which she works and would undoubtedly defend as being the right one.
ReplyDeleteGovernment-imposed NHS cutbacks
ReplyDeleteGovernment-imposed? Who the f*ck else is going to impose cutbacks on a state bureaucracy?
Presumably her solution is to rid themselves of government control. Oh, wait...
But despite this, you decided to take him to the toilet on your own..?
ReplyDeleteI do not see what else she could have done, otherwise she would have faced disciplinary action. I think that is all wrong, but I can see how she has been put at risk by a system which would have punished her if she had done the obvious thing weeks earlier and called the police when a patient threatened her.
I bow to Antisthenes' opinion but I do not see how cultural change would help here. The nurse already put the public interest ahead of her own and tried to do the unwise supervision on her own, the cheapest and most credible immediate way.
My suggested remedy is that the hospital director has to have his/her wage directly cut so that they have 'skin in the game' as Guido so often advocates. At the moment the hospital - and everybody else - has the incentive to try to pass the risk down the line since there is no penalty for doing this and getting it wrong.
The nurse ended up carrying the risk, and lost the gamble. Commenters under the story think that the negligence of the management should come under a criminal investigation. If it were not for the difficulty of establishing negligence to criminal standards, I would agree with them.
"The Uckfield mother". Thanks for that, I will be sure to use it. There's a certain resonation.
ReplyDeleteManagers are highly paid because of the responsibility they shoulder - or so I'm told. Just seems odd that the responsibility when things go wrong is never theirs.
ReplyDelete"The solution is simple and that is to break their monopolies..."
ReplyDeleteGood point! I'm none too sure our current crop of 'conservatives' have the bottle for that, though..
"Government-imposed? Who the f*ck else is going to impose cutbacks on a state bureaucracy?"
I genuinely think these people simply parrot phrases they hear without actually thinking about them...
"...but I can see how she has been put at risk by a system which would have punished her if she had done the obvious thing weeks earlier and called the police when a patient threatened her. "
Her union would have supported her in that, surely? In fact, they'd have loved the opportunity - wouldn't they?
"Commenters under the story think that the negligence of the management should come under a criminal investigation. If it were not for the difficulty of establishing negligence to criminal standards, I would agree with them."
Me too.
"Managers are highly paid because of the responsibility they shoulder - or so I'm told."
Also to 'take the big decisions'. So often, they are incapable of this too!