Sunday - July 08, 2012

some scary articles to start your week with. how are things where you are?

THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN?

Or at least, the medical world.
What is happening?  I was going to ignore one or two but stuff like this keeps cropping up.  Now then, either this kind of thing is a regular occurrence in the USA as well, or they do a better job of covering it up.  Because I never read as many nor did we even hear as many nightmare medical stories back home in the US, as have been broadcast here.  And it is scary.  Maybe they are just more open here?  I don’t pretend to know.

Some people may want to blame national health. But I think it’s more then that.  Somehow for some reason, too many of the wrong sort of people are given jobs they just plain do not belong in. There have even been foreign doctors working here who had a problem with English and as a result, patients have actually died.

They may be able to pass a test, and as an example, I’ll use myself and the majority of my classmates who attended a Radio Operational Engineering School, in Newport Beach, Ca., circa 1969.

When I was younger and knowing a bit about some of the then requirements to work in radio, I attended a radio engineering school in Calif.  We were taught how to pass the FCC test(s) that were mandatory at that time.  From early morning to late in the evening every day.  We actually were taught the basics of how Xmitters worked and read schematics etc.  It was all of it very technical.  But we were being prepared to take a series of tests, not become actual engineers.  Back then, you HAD to have an FCC radio operator’s license to do no more then read the meters every hour on the transmitter and then log them.  There were 3rd , 2nd and 1st class licenses.  You stood a better chance of being hired (if you could even find openings) if you had what we called a First Phone, then a 2nd and at the bottom, a 3rd.  And all to read a meter.

You obviously couldn’t take a test for the First Phone till you’d passed the tests for the other two.  A lot of late nights and a lot of work and hundreds and hundreds of Q&A tests at school taking dummy FCC tests to prepare.  The questions numbered in the hundreds although the test you actually took might only have say 50 questions. But don’t let that fool you.  Among those 50 were questions that required you work out the mathematics involved. And the FCC wanted your work sheets where you worked out those math problems.  So in the end, when taking the tests, everything the FCC asked had been covered over the course of the months and months you were at school.  And btw, the majority of us lived right there in dormitories. The discipline was quite military.  And all to do no more then read a meter or two every hour.

Funny thing about that last item.  Once you got to actual work, you were not always as well prepared to read those meters as you thought you’d be, because often they didn’t appear to be like the ones in your illustrations etc.  Or the digits in place of numbers might have been hard to read.  So you simply copied the readings of the guy who was on before you and chances were he had done the same. Sometimes you might alter one number to make some things look okay.  But if a Transmitter failed or something happened, I was no more qualified to go in and repair that huge thing then I was to fly a jet plane.

That’s what chief engineers were for and every station had to have one.  As long as we knew what parameters were safe to run on, and we did, all worked out well.

So what I’m suggesting is, maybe some of these folks working in these hospitals, went to schools that prepared them to take and pass all the correct tests, but are still not qualified.  How else pray tell can we account for these horror stories?  They are far too serious to be referred to simply as, mishaps.  This is very serious indeed.  More serious because I’ve listed just three here.  But there is so much more.
Take a look.

Patient dying of thirst rang 999: Inquest hears of mother’s fury at nurses who neglected son
· Nurses forgot to give Kane Gorny his medication and he became so delirious he called 999
· His mother said she spent hours trying to convince staff he needed attention but was told he was alright
· Alarm finally raised an hour before his death when a doctor realised how serious his condition was
By CLAIRE ELLICOTT

A young patient who died of dehydration at a leading teaching hospital phoned police from his bed because he was so thirsty, an inquest heard yesterday

PATIENT DIES OF THIRST

-30-

Hospital staff suspended after man dies on doorstep of A&E
Eleven medical staff have been suspended and an investigation launched after a patient collapsed and died on the doorstep of a hospital.

The man had been admitted to the Accident and Emergency unit of the Manor Hospital in Walsall, West Midlands, when the incident occurred.
It is thought that despite his condition he was allowed to go outside for some fresh air but collapsed shortly afterwards.
As he lay on the ground just yards from the hospital entrance it is alleged that medical staff, including nurses, porters and paramedics ignored his plight.
It is also claimed that members of the public stepped over the man as they entered the hospital, with some even stopping to take photographs and video footage on their mobile phones.
An unnamed eyewitness said he was horrified by what he had seen.

DIES ON DOORSTEP

-30-

My 17 hours of hell at hospital where a patient died of thirst: Left unattended in agony, one writer’s account of her ordeal at an NHS ‘centre of excellence’

By MELISSA KITE
Lying in an ambulance, drifting in and out of consciousness, I managed to ask the paramedics where they were taking me. ‘St George’s Hospital in Tooting,’ came the reply.
If I could have jumped out and made a run for it, I would have. I was in desperate need, but I think I would rather have put up with an ambulance ride to the other side of the country.
However, St George’s - where 22-year-old Kane Gorny died of dehydration - has been my local hospital for ten years. In an emergency, I was always going to be taken there.
I had no idea then that a patient had died from thirst. My fear of the place was born from my own bitter experiences.

17 HOURS OF HELL

-30-

I sure hope things are better where you are.

Posted by peiper     on 07/08/2012 at 02:34 PM   
Filed Under: • Health and Safety • Health-Medicine • UK •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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