Ward 87. Lying In Your Own Urine Until You Die

Continuous Monitoring Around Ward 87

Of all the news I read this morning, I spotted this from the Daily Mail. They detail the neglect meted out on patients with a disability. Thankfully, I forwarded this report to Prof Graeme Catto of the GMC who agreed to implement medical school training to ensure juniors are able to deal with patients who have a disability of some sort. That will hopefully ensure some form of improvement at ground floor level.

The issue I wanted to talk about was Ward 87. I was in discussion with Baroness Barker of the House of Lords who for the record wasn't very concerned about the number of deaths or the poor standards of care on that ward. I think the impression is this - ah it was ages ago, whats all the fuss. Of course, the fuss really is about the fact that Ward 87 meted out substandard care before 1998 up until 2005 when I instigated the shut down. The impression of all authorities is that the matter "happened in 1998" ie I whistleblew and thats were it ended. Of course, the fact that the matter continued for many years escapes most people really. I don't blame them. It is the sort of narrow minded approach you get from people who don't apply their minds. Lets face it people in authority rarely apply their minds.

The other false impression about Ward 87 is that it was a elderly ward. Well, it wasn't a elderly ward, it was an acute admissions ward. That means it took patients from the age of 18 onwards. The next false impression is that I am some sort of campaigner for the elderly when I am not anything of the sort. I blame the media for creating this impression because both the BBC and the Sunday Times felt I couldn't stand on my own with the Ward 87 story, they piggie backed it on other stories that were running on elderly abuse.

So, essentially young and old patients were all mistreated on Ward 87. The 2001 Report did not look at the fact that people literally starved to death. The Daily Mail headline states " Starved to Death in an NHS Hospital". Well, this is how it worked on Ward 87. You either had the ability to pick up your food and eat or it would be left on the side table and taken away. Many of the older patients would be left moribund, diabetics were left without food and would go hypoglycaemic which is an emergency. On reviewing patients on my own, I always noted that each patient was always dehydrated because no fluids were fed by mouth, no drips were replaced over night. It is tempting for many doctors to turn a blind eye. Indeed, most did. It was though incredibly difficult for me to accept the fact that in the 20th century as it was then, people died needlessly because no one took care of them. I was particularly disturbed one day when I had repeatedly told the nurses to change the incontinence pads of a lady who had a stroke. It had not been done by Day 3, instead they left her without one. She had been lying in the cold of winter in her own urine for three days. She had opened her bowels in her bed. Her lower torso was filled with excrement. The nursing staff [ who have not been held accountable for their laziness] felt this was acceptable and told me " She will probably die anyway". God only knows when she had last been fed. Patients were essentially not bathed or fed or even observed. Patients lay unconscious and the nursing staff didn't give a damn. The nursing report by the hospital acknowledged the poor monitoring but never acknowledged the poor standards of basic care given to patients. People died. No one actually cared whether they lived or died and I think that was the basic and fundamental problem.

You see with patients like that, doctors often arrive in gaggles, do their ward round from the edge of the bed and walk away. The patients are usually covered by sheets so no one notices. When the patient looks dehydrated and ill, a TLC or DNR or NFR sign is placed at the end of the bed. People died, death certificates completed with a kind of " lets guess the cause of death", people were identified in the morgue, no one questioned anything and no one reported anything. Crem fees were made in their hundreds by junior doctors and thats where it ended.

Professor Brenton in one of his letters to the London Deanery stated that I was a little over sensitive to the short falls in the system. Well, lets put it this way, I didn't become a doctor to watch people die as they died in the third world. I also didn't train in medicine just to walk away from this sort of blatant abuse.

Those are the patients who cannot tell their tale today because most of them are dead. Most of us walk by holding people accountable hoping that someone in a great and grand high place will do that. Well, I waited for a whole decade for seniors to do their job. They didn't. They just walked by and looked down on me. The fact remains, while I may not have made a difference, at least I tried to make a small difference in a big world and no one can blame doctors for trying.

The fact that most will walk by this website and ignore various issues or term them" incoherent" is more a reflection of their ability to dust the social responsibility of others away. Of course, one day the above patients may be your mother, your brother, your sister and your loved one. This is what happened to the Professor Dutton in Scotland. Having insulted me through friends and family and having told the world he did not believe the above happened, his father died in traumatic circumstances were the care was substandard. Ah yes, it was then that he crowed away about how unfair and unjust the system was. Of course, when it happens to others in the NHS, he has remained tightlipped and in judgment. It is the sort of condescending response common of senior doctors who themselves are largely ineffective.

I have never responded to him or looked back because in the end there is no point in giving people like him the time of day. That is just an example to show that what goes round comes round. Just because Dutton's father was a the papa of someone medical does not mean he was more important than the person on the street. This Christmas his wife sent me a present. I threw it in the bin where it belongs with their false sentiments. These days, I have learned to throw material away - material that doesn't make an ounce of difference these days.