Ward 87: Fear of the Unknown

Saturday, 20 September 2008

Fear of the Unknown

All bloggers In Their Igloos

Something has happened to the bloggers this weekend. Dr Rant has not appeared. Witchdoctor is subdued and Jobbing Doctor is trying to write about things to keep his mind off the real issues. I believe everyone is utterly shocked by Debra Shepherd's death. It has stunned the blogsphere, stunned the doctors-only web site she frequented and placed most doctors into uncertainty.

Well, Debra Shepherd is not the only death that happens at the General Medical Council. They destroy lives and most of those lives are recorded here. Debra will be forgotten just like all the people the GMC have taken from this earth. Like all the doctors and families we forget.

I am sure if I had died in the year 2000, the posters on **** would have said " Ah, well, she deserved it and we all said she was crazy anyway" and just moved on. I doubt there is any kindness in this profession of ours. I have found droplets of kindness in people like Witchdoctor and perhaps even Jobbing doctor but in general the profession is a cruel place. Debra found it a cruel place because that is what she told me. It is a cruel, unhelpful, cold place where your peers judge you constantly. That could be seen by the discussions regarding her, each posts analysed, contemplated upon, dissected, each person doing their postmortem on her mental state through her posts. I wonder if anyone found her grave and placed flowers on it?

I also want to know why it was me and not anyone else on **** who discovered her death? For me it was an accident - a thought that happened after midnight. I was not a close friend to her as many posters on the doctors-only website were to her.

I am surprised that not one of the forum's posters asked why Debra had not been posting anymore . I am surprised no one thought to mail her or phone her or check how she was doing. She seems to have died silently. She seems to have died as Mozart did. We all lead our busy little lives and never stop to think of others who may require help.

In life, everyone is too preoccupied doing their own thing.

Take Richard Marks of Remedy UK for instance. He stated as follows today :-

"I've been completely snowed under this week with non-Remedy work and am getting a bit behind, so sorry I haven't been in touch sooner"

Yet, he had enough time to post on that same forum about Debra Shepherd and discuss the pros and cons of Shepherds posts with Liz Miller. Richard of course thinks I was born yesterday and that that none of us notice. Richard though is Richard - just like every single person on the forum - busy with being busy. We love people when they are happy, fit, healthy, have good careers and are accepted into the fold - and we forget them when they find themselves in trouble or are ostracized by their peers. And so everyone is too busy for anyone these days. This sense of being "busy" always amuses me somewhat - because doctors are of the view that they are the busiest in the planet and no other mortal is busy :). I ought to tell the many many mailers or those who search for help that I am too busy - in fact I don't think I have ever told anyone I am too busy for them - we all have to make time.

The kindness has disappeared out of the medical profession. What is it about us these days. We fail to take care of our own. Debra Shepherd is simply a product of the fact we as a profession are uncaring by nature. Some spend their time conspiring to backstab their own friends and take a certain pleasure in it. A wicked sense of glee that arises out of power. Perhaps the profession, medical school, peer pressure makes us the people we are - totally uncaring and cold about each other - unwilling to help, overlooking those in trouble or judging them at posh dinners while we all gloat about how great our lives are. Are our empty selfish decadent lives really so great?

The fact remains that since the above news the bloggers have lost their fire to fight. The day we stop raising important issues or caring for one another is the day we all truly die. There are of course more meanings to death than just physical death.

It is very easy to blame the death on the GMC. It is though harder to blame Shepherds death on ourselves. As the Inspector Calls play states " We are all responsible"

2 comments:

Dr Liz Miller said...: You are right, I have known Richard for a long time. Ask him about the Westminster Summer Ball in 1976 and whether two people on a Bantam 175 motorcycle are faster than a man running whilst waving a stick, and how you get a motorcycle across a railway bridge.

Richard does phone me from time to time, largely I think to check that his reputation as a medical student is still intact. He also knows my cousin. Richard, of course your reputation is in safe hands! After all we have learnt from the Scot Junior that what you do as a medical student can badly affect your later career.

As you can see, it is important he keeps me sweet!; 21 September 2008 at 00:11
Dr Liz Miller said...: Rita,

You raise a wider point.

The problem of people posting even when suicidal is one which we face from time to time on the Doctors Support Network Forum. We have a clearly policy to deal with this. As do any almost all the email forums we contacted whilst setting our own forum up. We are happy to advise Tim Ringrose with respect of the Couch.

The three most important points are
1) our forum is secure, not completely secure but as secure as we can reasonably make it.
2) it is effectively moderated by people with experience and who care about the people who post.
3) we have distilled our own and others experience into a document, that we refer to depending on what is happening on the forum.

Until those three conditions are met, it is irresponsible for DNUK to run a forum such as the Couch, targeted at people in distress.; 21 September 2008 at 00:21

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About The Author

There is a lot of things most people can say about me but in reality I am NHS Whistleblower. In 1998, I followed the guidance set out in Good Medical Practice[GMC] and raised concerns about substandard care on Ward 87 North Staffordshire NHS Trust. I also raised concerns about the large number of Midlands Hospitals covered by West Midlands NHS Executive in 1999. Following the recordings of the HSMR scores, only Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust spiked their figures. This was due to the inordinately high death rates. These deaths could have been prevented had the government acted in 1999. There are many other hospitals with equally high death rates but 1000s have not raised the HSMR scores. The Mid Staffordshire Inquiry shows poor standards that are similar to many hospitals in the Midlands [particularly Distinct General Hospitals]. They were also the identical to the concerns raised by me in 1999, many years before.

In 2010 the CQC finally admitted that North Staffordshire had "significantly high mortality" in the years I raised concerns.

This blog follows my adventures as a whistleblower. It was written between 2008-2010. It seeks to present what the media have never done. I also aim to discuss a number of medical issues important in the NHS today. A short account of my experiences is presented here.

Essentially, I raised concerns in 1998, locally then to all the authorities, the GMC, Department of Health and Trust attempted to say there was no substance to my concerns. In 2005, I discovered that all authorities had concealed the 1998 and 2001 internal reports that verified my concerns. This is a brief step by step summary of the events related to Ward 87.

Between 2000-2002, the General Medical Council conducted a "discreet inquiry" into my Fitness to Practice. I was never told of this investigation until I discovered quite by accident following a subject access request under the Data Protection Act 1998. The GMC were subjected to litigation by me due to the illegal investigation and repeated leaks of prejudicial information to potential employers. They were beaten in court following the first litigation of its kind. The GMC settled the case in favour of me. During litigation, the GMC subjected me quite severe harassment by revolving door vexatious complaints - 2 in total. I was cleared of all of them. I was never subjected to any Fitness to Practise hearings. All complaints were thrown out at case examiner's stage despite the GMC's malevolent intentions.

The GMC subsequently erased me from the Register for non payment of subscription fees. It should be emphasized that I was never sanctioned or struck off has speculated by some bloggers. In total, I have been subjected to 4 years of complaints that had no relation to my clinical work. This has had catastrophic consequences to my work as a doctor and eventually caused the assassination of my references in 2007.

This led to the test case R v General Medical Council Ex Parte Pal with the intention of defining the definition of potential misconduct and preventing vexatious complaints against doctors. The complaints were made by Penny Mellor and her associate Fiona Wollard [ niece of Professor Sir Charles George].

While permission was granted by a judge with Employment Law experience, the final hearing was lost courtesy of Justice Sir Andrew Collins who made various statements. One was that the GMC was free to rule differently on two separate cases with exactly the same facts and the other was to widen the analysis of misconduct to include conduct outside the profession. Justice Sir Andrew Collins has sat on numerous cases related to the GMC. He has often failed to declare that his brother Dr Mark Collins was once prosecuted by the GMC for alliances in Clapham Common. Details of this can be read here.

The two diametrically opposite analysis of misconduct was also discovered following the GMC's submission to R v General Medical Council Ex Parte Remedy UK. Essentially, one analysis appears to be used for some foreign doctors and a different more lenient definition is used for establishment doctors such as Liam Donaldson. The GMC were essentially caught red handed touting two different analysis of misconduct in two cases. This discrepancy is currently being investigated by both the CHRE and the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

The defenses to all these cases have taken up 52 files. By comparison, the GMC refused to investigate the doctors on Ward 87 despite the fact that their conduct was directly related to clinical work. They continue to work in various positions in the UK. No one was held accountable despite 2 reports verifying my concerns. Moreover, the Health Commission refused to conduct a broader data study in relation to the Ward 87. The GMC and Ombudsman refused to inform the patients on the Ward of the 1998 and 2001 Reports. The Sentinel newspapers refused to feature a legitimate advert.

In 2009, after discussion with Dr Phil Hammond, he wrote an excellent piece in Private Eye. While the media have provided little or no support for these issues, I am indebted to my fellow bloggers - Dr Rant, The Jobbing Doctor, Dr John Crippen and Witchdoctor. This blog exists to protect other doctors who I hope will never tread the path of whistleblowing. It is a path paved with injustice. It also serves to show the public that they cannot legitimately expect doctors to raise concerns in such a dangerous terrain. This indeed places patient safety in great jeopardy.

This blog ended in February 2010 as it was unlikely that I would ever return to medicine. I have also decided to end this particular saga here. I hope this blog will educate, entertain and remind the public that whistleblowing is a dangerous escapade and no junior doctor has treaded the same path as I have for a reason. The terrain is unsafe and always has been. I would say that I have been relatively unsupported in my journey through whistleblowing but singlehandedly I have been able to undercover evidence and establish some very important issues regarding the dangers of whistleblowing. I have ceased to respond to the media but I am always very happy to discuss matters with the public.

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Saturday, 20 September 2008

Fear of the Unknown

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