Patient deaths & rural health horror: Politicians now ducking for cover

SYDNEY — Now we have Deputy Premier The Hon John Barilaro, state MP for Monaro, for calling for a probe into ‘horrific’ hospital allegations.

They are not “allegations” Mr Barilaro.  They are fact.  Read your correspondence, deputy premier.  It’s called due diligence.  Talk about ducking and weaving.

Mr Barilaro, to illustrate being out of touch, claims they ‘warrant an immediate investigation by the NSW Health Department and not could not wait for an upcoming parliamentary inquiry’.

Excuse me Deputy Premier Barilaro — it’s the NSW Ministry of Health (aka NSW Health Department) which is covering up malpractice, horror patient deaths, adverse medical patient events, bunglings et al.  They know of every incident.  Anything to save their malfeasant Local Health Districts (LHDs) and their own necks.  And you want them to probe?

This is the task for the NSW Police Force.

READ MORE of Carrie Fellner’s story in The Sydney Morning Herald:

Barilaro calls for urgent investigation into ‘horrific’ hospital allegations

Bring in police. Hospital patient deaths covered-up by Ministry

SYDNEY — For 25 years MEAG has reported untold hospital patient deaths were covered up by respective government health departments.

Do these health departments think we’re stupid?  Covering up death is a crime.

“Reporting” deaths to the NSW Ministry of Health is absurd – they bury the reports.  Patients go to their grave unaccounted for.

BRING IN NSW POLICE FORCE.  Deaths are reported to the Coroner.

MEAG knows what is going on and it is ugly, shameful and abhorrent that people in power allow this to happen and continue.

Doctors today have now confirmed MEAG’s claims that hospital patients deaths are deliberately and intentionally covered-up by the NSW Ministry of Health.

The Ministry’s idea of “handling” patient deaths is to have the Clinical Excellence Commission report that a few incidents here and there occurred and everything is rosy.  The Ministry is clueless.  Spin doctors run it.

Time for Health Minister Brad Hazzard to go.  Think cruise liner “Ruby Princess” debacle – cluelessness on full display.  Coronavirus arrived and the minister was scared.

The failings in rural health didn’t just happen last week.  For 10 years this Government has been in power and allowed rural health to rot and patient deaths to be smothered.  As long as it wasn’t happening to their relatives.

Out of touch, out of sight, out of mind, that is how the NSW Ministry of Health operates.

The public already knows they are not up to the task and why MEAG has done their work for them because they are incapable of doing it themselves.

The NSW Ministry of Health is a cabal and woe betide anyone who encounters it.  They’ll keep their jobs and you’ll lose yours if you speak up.  Sounds like we’re in China.

Crime can be covered up for only so long.  The truth always rises to the surface.

READ MORE of Carrie Fellner’s story in today’s The Sydney Morning Herald:

‘Keep the ministry unaware’: doctors allege cover up of hospital patient deaths

Stupidity reigns at NSW Health Ministry

SYDNEY — This quote in today’s The Sydney Morning Herald illustrates that the New South Wales Ministry of Health is clueless.  There should be no need for any inquiry if they had just listened (they don’t know how) and took note of the thousands of letters they receive every day about problems and fixed them.      Read this:

NSW Health acknowledged the concerns and said it welcomed the opportunity to participate in the inquiry.

“Of all those patients who pass through our public hospitals, 99.999 per cent will have a positive outcome,” a spokesperson said.

“Just 0.001 per cent of all patients discharged from hospital will be involved in a clinical incident which results in serious patient harm, known as a sentinel event.”

“Welcomed the opportunity”?  “Participate”?  NSW Ministry of Health should be driving this, not welcoming it.  Sounds like they are a side participant looking in. They are the government department of health and supposedly in charge.  Their incompetence reigns … the dumbest response from a government health department.  And they can’t work out why the rural hospital system is a mess because they don’t know what to do.

As for the 0.001%?  That is a fabricated percentage.  All lies.  All spin concocted by people who have not got a clue but got to protect their unaccountable ministry.  Patients being discharged via the morgue instead of the front door adds up to more than 0.001%.

Read the full horror (no surprise to MEAG) of Carrie Fellner’s in The Sydney Morning Herald:

BYO bandages: inquiry told of ‘horrendous’ state of NSW hospitals

St John of God hospital bungles again, mother overdosed, baby dies

BUNBURY, WESTERN AUSTRALIA — A mother has described the heartbreaking moment she woke from a coma to discover her baby boy had died at birth after she was given 10 times the prescribed dose of morphine at the private St John of God Hospital in the West Australian town of Bunbury, south of Perth.

The mother was given 100 milligrams of the drug during labour instead of 10 milligrams to ease the pain, at St John of God Hospital on December 10, 2020.

“It was devastating. It just broke my whole life,” the mother said.

St John of God Health Care has already concluded: “On the available information at this time, it appears that the incident was caused by human error”.

A midwife has been stood down and her registration suspended by AHPRA.  Another staff member has resigned.

READ FULL STORY FROM THE WEST AUSTRALIAN BETHANY HIATT:
Bunbury hospital’s morphine bungle leaves baby Zyeen dead, other Mansurin Sarah Hassan in coma
AND FROM ABC NEWS NICOLAS PERPITCH:

WA mother wakes from coma to find baby was stillborn after hospital in Bunbury gave her 10 times prescribed morphine dose

Bowral Hospital time to shape up

BOWRAL, SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS, NSW — Another misdiagnosis upon presentation to Bowral and District Hospital‘s emergency department.

This is the 5th case of patients’ families not being listened to and sending the patient home for them to present again and again.  Bowral and District Hospital refused to transfer patients to any major Sydney hospitals.  Families had to organise it themselves.  Two of the patients died shortly after admission to different Sydney hospitals.

The hospital needs to conduct root cause analysis and see what’s going on.  Is it capable of doing so?

Better trained doctors in the ED are required for a start.

Warning to patients:  Steer clear of Bowral.  Drive to Sydney if you have to.

Made in China drugs AVOID

Made in China drugs — not the illegal ones Chinese crime gangs distribute unlawfully in Australia but the ones Big Pharma outsourced to China to make even bigger bucks.  Big Pharma didn’t reduce the cost of their medicines they got made for 50¢ in China, instead ripped off everyone worldwide and kept prices sky-high to increase their already mammoth profits.

When you have your next prescription filled at your local chemist, ask where the medicines are manufactured.  Decline the ones Made in China — they are usually the big known brands.  Go for a generic brand but make sure it is not made in China.  It is an interesting exercise and requires little effort in asking a question.  Go for Australian made at all times.

Support Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and go for generic brands not made in China.

D E M A N D   A U S T R A L I A N   M A D E

 

German doctor arrested on suspicion of killing COVID patients

ESSEN, GERMANY —

A German doctor is facing manslaughter charges over two deaths, reportedly of COVID-19 patients. Police cited him as giving medication to hasten the death of one patient and to “avert further suffering.”

Two patients, aged 47 and 50, were terminally ill when a senior doctor allegedly administered medication that led to their immediate deaths, police said Friday.

Authorities are still investigating the circumstances of the two deaths amid reports that the patients were being treated for COVID-19.

The senior doctor, 44, employed since February at the University Hospital in Essen city in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), was arrested on Wednesday, charged with manslaughter on Thursday and remained in custody, city police said.

The hospital said suspicions about the deaths on November 13 and 17 had prompted it to immediately notify prosecutors and remove the doctor from duty.

Assisted death is an extremely sensitive topic in Germany in light of the legacy of the 6 million Jews killed and experimented on by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. 

Read full story in Deutsche Welle (DW):

German doctor arrested on suspicion of killing coronavirus patients

Ridiculous that hospital COVID-19 case numbers not available

MELBOURNE — The Victorian Government has so far refused to reveal how many people have contracted coronavirus in health settings, such as hospitals and rehabilitation centres.

But from the general information available, it’s clear there are at least 25 people like Ms Heywood who entered a facility to be treated for an unrelated illness and became infected.

At least four of them have died — three of them cancer patients at The Alfred Hospital.

The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) said a report with the final figures would be released in the coming weeks.

Key points:
  • Christina Heywood is one of 17 patients who caught coronavirus while staying at a Frankston rehabilitation centre
  • Three months on she is still suffering the lingering effects of coronavirus
  • A health expert says better infection control in hospitals is the key to controlling the spread of the virus to patients

Read the read full story by ABC’s Jessica Longbottom:

Patients who caught COVID-19 in health settings demand official figures, as experts claim cases were preventable

Hospital care Hornsby style

SYDNEY — An elderly dementia patient acquired a myriad of cuts and bruises while in hospital – and now her family are demanding answers.

The 83-year-old woman received treatment at Hornsby Ku-Ring-Gai Hospital, north of Sydney, before her family collected her last Thursday, 1st October 2020.

When they picked her up, she had bruises running up her arms, across her face and on her neck.  She had skin falling off her forearm.

It took five days for a representative of the hospital to answer the family’s questions over what happened, saying she suffered two falls.

“I was broken-hearted, shocked, just couldn’t believe the state she was in,” daughter Tracey McCarthy told 7NEWS.

However, with bruises around her neck and blackened eyes, the family and others are struggling to understand how this happened.

“Bruises around the neck? I mean what’s that from?” Lorraine Long from the Medical Error Action Group said.

Police, however, say there is no evidence any sinister took place.

Detectives interviewed staff and the woman herself – but she was not of much help given she didn’t remember sustaining the injuries at all.

THIS IS AFTER HOSPITAL TREATMENT!

   

For more of 7NEWS and The Daily Mail see:

Family of elderly dementia patient demand answers over relative’s bruises in hospital care

Family horrified after 83-year-old dementia patient suffers injuries at a Sydney hospital