Melanie Phillips gets letters;
“Unfortunately, 30 months ago I was diagnosed with bowel cancer and had my bowel removed. On arriving at the hospital the day prior to the operation, I went to the toilet. No soap or hand-wash. Spoke to nurse. Yes we know we will get some tomorrow when the cleaner is back!!!!! The patient in the next bed informed me he had said the same the day before. Basic hygiene. After the operation, excrement from a spill from a colostomy bag was left on the floor for 2 days until the next bed patient’s daughter brought in disinfectant to clean up.”
[…]
“Many days I watched the nursing auxiliaries bring his food in and place it temptingly on his table at the foot of his bed, often out of reach. After what seemed a relatively short time they returned and noticing the full dishes commented that he must not be hungry! He couldn’t reach the food. When I complained they left it there but no-one came to feed him so I and his friends fed him. On very few occasions did any of the nursing staff attempt to feed him (they may have when I was at work. I visited him every evening for 3-4 hours). Had it not been for myself and his large group of friends visiting and feeding him I believe he would have received little or no food at all. As a result he didn’t last very long.”
[…]
“I am a nurse of some forty years experience, most of which has been spent in community nursing and working with elderly people. Nurses are no longer encouraged to nurse (care) for their patients. Instead they are directed to learn abstract concepts and highly technical procedures from the beginning of their training. Long gone are the days of bed bath, bed pan and temperature rounds. These rounds generated the time for nurses to share confidences with patients and to observe ways in which their patients’ comfort and progress could be monitored and improved.”
There might be a science-fiction scold story in this. The best equipment, the best procedues, a highly-educated crack staff…and everyone is too hurried to remember the sanitation. Then, people die.
(I’m not enough of a scold to write it.)
These stories have to be made-up. After major surgery years ago in Montreal even during a nurse strike things like this didn’t happen.
No, it wasn’t for a lobotomy.
Two years ago I spent a month in the cancer ward at RUH in Saskatoon. The nurses were angels and my care was the best. I’m not saying that the medical system isn’t sick, but don’t slight the nurses there. They’re the best.
FYI – The letters refer to British nurses.
Sorry Kate, I shudda read the link.
The link may refer to British nurses but my wife was treated exactly like that in the Regina General Hospital.
The letters refer to British nurses
I realize that, but I find it inconceivable that such conditions could exist in a hospital in the “first world”. Perhaps I am just a pampered Canadian though.
As a possible off-topic adder to this, I’ve heard of people having trouble finding family doctors in Calgary. I had no problems doing so after arriving 18 months ago – was I just lucky or are such complaints amplified out of proportion by the media?
Health care pretty much sucks countrywide, no matter where you live there are very few doctors, nurses or beds. Major hospitals (SARS in tranna) are cesspools of disease. If I can afford to sidestep this process then I should be allowed to do so. If I had a choice whether or not to invest in it, I wouldn’t.
Nurses have figured out that there’s no point in the whole ‘professionalism’ thing, so, just like teachers, they’ll go for the money instead. The Unions demand it be that way.
As a retired nurse (left in 1991 cuz I could see the writjing on the wall), I have been both care-giver and patient. From the nursing perspective I fully understand the heart break of wanting to give quality care but having to settle for standard. As a patient or family member of a patient, I also understand wanting the best possible care for yourself or your family. I encourage anyone that is going in for surgery to tell their family and friends not to send flowers but to pool their funds and hire private duty nurses for the first 24 to 48 hours. (Blue Cross covers 80% with a letter from a phycisian.)
This is not because the hospital staff is unable to care for patients. It’s just the difference between quality care and standard care. Hospital staff do the best with what they are given, but when when staff is over-worked, tired, and stretched to the maxed, something has to give. By the way, I’m not just talking doctors & nurses. I mean any person who works in a hospital.
Sadly it is happening all too often in British hospitals. Despite pouring billions into the National Health Service (mostly spent on administrators it seems) the system is still a disgrace. Though when you give free treatment to anyone who turns up, regardless of whether or not they have contributed, what do you expect? I wouldn’t like to see a system like the US where people without adequate insurance are left to rot but the socialist ideal of free healthcare for everyone is a sick joke.
In Britain we have hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants that make use of the NHS despite never paying a penny in National Insurance. They are never turned away because the hospitals would be accused of racism. People turn up on holidays heavily pregnant or sick and get treated but they never recoup the money. We gave asylum to hundreds of thousands of people who are by and large unemployed and make full use of the system. Then we wonder why the costs continue to balloon and the standards decline.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/7042193.stm
all free to the user courtesy the maligned mr douglas.
Your “user” doesn’t pay any taxes?
I have been on both sides of the fence. I was employed in the health care profession as a technologist. I have to agree that much of what is described in the National health System in Britain is going on in Canada. Cleaners don’t clean any more and nurses don’t nurse.
Most days if you go into a hospital ward you will find a bunch of disgruntled women sitting at the nursing station ” charting”. This has become their “raison d’etre” . This is so much easier than actually caring for patients. You never know they might break a nail.If you listen to their conversations all they talk about are their breaks and their days off. They seem to have very little interest in the purpose they are being handsomely paid for.
On a personal note my 82 year old Mother was recently admitted for hip pain. 5 days later she began to decline rapidly. No one “caring ” for her even noticed.
After 30 years in health care I recognized that she did not have much time left. I tried to question her nurse and the nurse supervisor , just to try and see if they could actually give me some hard facts on my Mother’s condition in order to make an informed decision. I never did get any actual information on her condition from these two women and I was treated me in a very dismissive, condescending manner to boot.
This was the norm during my Mother’s stay in hospital. Nobody ever knew anything. Any time I asked ever a very basic question there was a lot of running around and paper shuffling but to no actual information.You would think that all the time these nurses spend “charting ” that someone might actually know some thing .
I still had no real information on my Mother’s condition . I went with my clinical judgment and contacted all my siblings and my Mother’s siblings and her closest friends. They all had a chance to say goodbye. She died 36 hours later.The sheer incompetence of these “professionals” is only exceeded by their lack of compassion.
There are some people in the system who are competent and who care but they are becoming increasingly scarce. Many of the good people are retiring early or choosing different professions because they can’t stand the way these organizations are run. The good one either get burnt out or become so jaded they can’t stand themselves. Individuals who have a good experience in hospital are just lucky.
The cleaning issue is another total sham. In the last hospital lab I worked in the only cleaning that was ever done was done by the techs. The Doctors would come in after hours and find the cleaning staff talking on the phone or playing computer games on the hospital computers. This is instead of cleaning. I could tell you stories that would make your hair curl.
“Tommy Douglas: The Greatest Canadian Export”
I don’t see what value it would be to export Douglasism…the world was bleeding and starving under advanced socialism and it also seemed pretty well versed in depopulating eugenics in its spread of socialism…so there’s the 2 Douglas ideals already in full practice abroad.
I guess all Tommy could add to Maoism, Stalinism,Ceausescu, Mugabe or Chavez Is put a clerical collar on these regimes and paint a happy face on the state’s theft of private business/property.
We have a brand new hospital in Swift Current. A few weeks ago a friend of mine died of cancer at home. His family wanted to keep him at home as long as he was comfortable and his pain could be managed. In his last few days the family asked for him to be transported to the hospital to better manage his pain. They were told that the hospital was full however if they insisted, he could be put on a guerney in the hallway. Thanks, Lorne.
We’ve just been through a year of caring for my dying father-in-law. When he became obviously worse, he was in Cayman. The care and attention was wonderful…we paid cash. They did not have the equipment to determine the exact heart problem he was having. We decided to airlift him to Halifax. To do this, you need a ‘receiving’ doctor. Even though Halifax is where PEI sends its serious heart patients, Dad’s ‘heart guy’ in PEI would not help us connect. He said he hadn’t seen Dad for a few months and wasn’t up-to-date (even though the very nice German doctor in Cayman sent all the tests etc…). Dad’s personal physician of many years refused to help. He didn’t ‘know’ anyone in Halifax! Finally in desperation, I called my obstetrician, whom I had not seen in 5 years, and asked him for help. Though he was out of town, he immediately said he would help. Finally, we were able to get Dad home to a hospital that could diagnose his (terminal) problem.
Because he was terminal, he was sent home. He required 2 stays in hospital during his last 6 months – in Charlottetown. His physician, it turned out, had no visiting privileges. We didn’t even know this for a few days, and were very confused as to who was looking after him. He was also confused. The staff, not knowing him, thought his confusion to be a sign of dementia (!). I guess we were demented too! They subjected Dad to all kinds of unnecessary tests, and we practically had to kidnap him to get him out! The nurses were efficient, but not very kind. A sick, grumpy old man with a Jamaican accent and a British sense of humour is not every one’s cup of tea, and they basically decided to avoid him. They didn’t answer his questions to quell his panic. He couldn’t tell who his doctors were. The ‘care’ was not considering that he was a PERSON . We also came to the conclusion that the hospital must have been making a profit on all the stupid tests for a dying man.
Luckily for Dad, my husband was with him every day until he died. Woe to those who are left at the mercy of the system, and the luck of the draw as far as personnel goes.
There’s something to be said for paying cash.
LT:
“I wouldn’t like to see a system like the US where people without adequate insurance are left to rot”
Really, can you point me to where I might see these piles of putrefying Yankees?
Sounds like you’re suffering from a large overdose of CBC.
My mother is sickened with the state of health care in Canada.
She is a doctor.
When she had a knee replacement, her care was poor when it wasn’t non-existant. They had no private or semi-private rooms so she was in ward. No one else seemed to get any better care.
She also can’t get timely care for any of the patients she refers to specialists (she’s a GP.)
When the insiders think care is s**t, then it’s s**t.
The 4 year nursing program can’t fill nursing spots fast enough. It should go back to the 2 year program.
Anyone who hates Tommy Douglas hates people.
“I wouldn’t like to see a system like the US where people without adequate insurance are left to rot” I guess the Canadian press has managed to brainwash you as well. Do you know for instance: It is illegal to deny ANYONE care at Emergency in any American hospital. That includes all illegal immigrants. Many people without insurance simply choose not to buy it but will show up at Emergency in their brand new SVU. For many it is a question of priorities with medical insurance way down the list. As Governer Romnney showed, there are many many Americans who qualify for Medicade but haven’t got round to registering. So that is the first thing that happens when they show up at emergency. In spite of a couple of horrendous cases I have personally known about, (my brother being turned away from emergency while he was having a heart attack for one), the Canadian Medical System is excellent so far as they can manage, but it is over used and under funded. It is that third party payer thing combined with unions with voracious appetites for salaries and benefits. Too bad, but that is not likely to change. Except maybe to get worse. The US system will get better but I hope they do not opt for socialized medicine. If they do, where will we Canadians go for treatment?
The feds should fully fund medicare. Then there would be no problems. It’s all about who you believe.