Thousands Die of Hunger and Thirst in Hospitals

reply to post by FlyersFan


But there is only so much doctors and nurses can do when someone is dying. Like the poster above said, feed and providing water, will just make the process longer and harder. It happened to my gran over Christmas. In my opinion the most humane thing to do would have been to up the morphine level to a fatal dose.

But that is illegal and considered murder. The doctors tried everything they could to save my gran, using all possible antibiotics. For pneumonia. But she was 85 and a heavy smoker and basically her organs were failing. It is more cruel to keep the dying alive as long as possible, just because we can, or for the selfish desires of the family.

Once someone is in the process of death. There is nothing any doctor of hospital can do to save them. Private or socialised. What's more cruel? Extending the process of death or helping someone on their way painlessly? Unfortunately the latter is murder in this country.

Originally posted by watchitburn
I wonder how many of those deaths were due to feeding tubes and such being removed from people who are brain dead and stuff like that.

Considering that over 5,000 people who were discharged from the hospital were suffering from malnutrition and dehydration as well .. I'd say that the numbers probably cover very few people who were 'brain dead' ... it looks like it was pretty much everyone in the hospital who suffered ...

reply to post by FlyersFan


My step-father had a stroke. After waiting 28hrs on a trolley in the corridor with no treatment whatsoever, he was finally moved to a bed. Bearing in mind he was then paralysed all down his right side, there were no side bars on the bed and no-one came to turn him or see to him for another day until we got there in the evening, by which time he had fallen out of bed and broken his femur. During the total of 38hrs he hadn't had anything to drink nor eat. The following day when we visited again, he still hadn't had anything to eat. We got onto the nurses who didn't understand us as they were new and from the Philipines. The following day we had to bring him a meal in ourselves, we had to ask for water for him and when we explained through a lengthy process that the table and water would have to be on his left and within reach as he was paralysed, the nurse said a cleaner would do it!! Apparently he kept asking for a drink but never got one. We ended up taking him a flask of coffee in most days. To our disgust, there was a half eaten sandwich under his bed which he had dropped 3 days previously which was now mouldy too.

This was in West Yorkshire and is not unusual at all just another attempt at running down the NHS so that more and more people opt for private care

Originally posted by woodwardjnr
But there is only so much doctors and nurses can do when someone is dying. Like the poster above said, feed and providing water, will just make the process longer and harder.

Nothing was said that these people were on their deathbeds before they died of hunger and thirst. If they were in their end life stages that would be something that could be expected to a point. The story said that they died from neglect ... being starved ... being dehydrated .. that kind of thing.

I find that hard to believe. Being a cook in a hospital, I know we go to great lengths to make sure everyone gets their food!
It is a long chain of checking and re-checking the orders each patient makes for each meal, and when the dishes come back, we know if anyone didn't eat their food and exactly who it was, by the placement in the chariots. When food isn't eaten, we call the service and ask what's up. We need to know if the patient didn't like it, or had trouble swallowing it or something, to adapt the following meals they get.

Every time I have been hospitalized, I was given too much food to eat. The only problem I ran into was before I spoke french, was in the maternity ward, and they kept giving me tons of milk products, despite my repeated assertions that I was lactose intolerant.

It might depend upon the country you are in, but I find this really hard to believe. As I've been watching the recent witchhunts against pharmaceuticals that exaggerate things in order to scare and anger people, I wonder if this isn't just an extention of that fad.

Originally posted by Bluesma
It might depend upon the country you are in, but I find this really hard to believe.

You are in France. This story is from England. And there are other similar stories from Australia. Every place is different. And yes .. this one is true. It's been documented and it's been reported on mulitple news outlets so there isn't any political agenda in the reporting ...

I know that horror stories do exist I am not naive to suggest that gross neglect doesn't ever happen in the NHS....

But I would be interested to know of those figure's, how many of the malnutrition numbers where people suffering because of an underlying medical condition that caused it?...and of those who were suffering with it when they were sent home how many were malnutritioned when they were admitted? and how many suffered after being admitted?...how many of those sent home if any, that were suffering from malnutrition signed themselves out of hospital as opposed to being discharged?...and of those discharged how many of those people was it reasonable to treat for malnutrition as an outpatient?.
For those who have dehydration "mentioned" on their death certificate how many where admitted just prior to their death and how many had been in NHS care for sometime? And how many of those who suffered dehydration was in response to a another medical condition or just because they weren't given adequate fluid's whilst in hospital?

Also is there a breakdown of which hospital's these figure's come from? I only ask because we know in the UK that there are a few hospitals over the last 4 year's that have been subject to a " hospital scandal"

I know there are a numbers of horror stories relating to these figure's and I am certainly not playing down the genuine neglect that some have received.....but statistic's alone without other factor's rarely give a clear or precise picture.

Originally posted by FlyersFan

Originally posted by Bluesma
It might depend upon the country you are in, but I find this really hard to believe.

You are in France. This story is from England. And there are other similar stories from Australia. Every place is different. And yes .. this one is true. It's been documented and it's been reported on mulitple news outlets so there isn't any political agenda in the reporting ...

So far the multiple sources are this one you linked to and the Daily Mail, and I am not familiar with the first, and have learned to ignore anything the second publishes! But I am still looking and might find these studies they wave at. I know how the pharmceutical scares work, how they calculate "how many people died from this drug" and know that the media makes it sound like these are real cases- instead of hypothetical possibilities.
So even if the media makes it sound a certain way I am nto biting until I can get my hands on the actual data.

There may be some truth to the problem- I am just saying this sounds puffed up to get attention.


But I see already that some people have started in on the socialized medicine argument as being to blame!
I live in a country with socialized medicine, and it has the best quality of care in the world, (World Health Organization ranking). This is not a problem stemming from a system being socialized.

We treat animals better.

Originally posted by FlyersFan

Originally posted by Bluesma
It might depend upon the country you are in, but I find this really hard to believe.

You are in France. This story is from England. And there are other similar stories from Australia. Every place is different. And yes .. this one is true. It's been documented and it's been reported on mulitple news outlets so there isn't any political agenda in the reporting ...

There isn't a political agenda? of course there's a political agenda, the political agenda is privatisation and capitalism without regulation, that's an agenda that every political party and every media outlet in the country supports.

Most in Britain, or France, support socialised medicine 100% Worry about your own crappy system

www.opendemocracy.net...

www.opendemocracy.net...

www.opendemocracy.net...

www.opendemocracy.net...

www.opendemocracy.net...

Last week my son saw a homeless women fall and crack her head open. Blood everywhere, so he called an ambulance. She was stitched up and released. After they patched up her head, she sat in the emergency waiting room for hours, too ill to go anywhere. My son went up to check on her and realized that she couldn't survive if left on the streets, and the mission wouldn't take her because she was too ill. So, he brought her home for me to patch up.
She had gotten poison oak and had huge gapping sores all over her legs. She couldn't walk to the bathroom nor could she eat. The hospital released her in that condition. Within one day, she was completely incoherent, so I took her to a different hospital, where she was admitted immediately. She weighed only 79 lbs. She is still in the hospital. She has a raging infection through out her body from the uncared for sores, Her blood pressure was extremely low, her potassium, ect were completely depleted. She was suffering from malnutrition.

I was able to locate her family, who were very worried, and are coming up to get her when she is released.
Please I don't need anyone reminding me how dangerous it is to bring home a homeless sick person. Believe me, I wanted to shoot my son for it.

After reading your post, I will be taking her some "homemade medicine soup" this afternoon.
My sister worked in the hospital that stitched her up for 16 years. And had repeatedly told me to never leave anyone alone there. Now I understand why.

On a silly side note: The only UFO I have ever seen, was hovering over that hospital.

I work in care with old folk and at the moment we have a 97 year old lady who is in pain 24 hours a day she is on morphine and she can not get any more into her without it killing her, she cries in pain all the time her, body is broken and she asks me why she can not die and see her husband again, she has asked me many times to help her go..it breaks my heart.
In the past 3 weeks she has been refusing food and water but we talk her into having a small bit but sometimes she just refuses so we ring the doctors, her doctor has sent her to hospital 3 times to get re hydrated and she has come back a little better but still in great pain and not wanting to eat nor drink...she just wants to let go and die.

My point is the OT is not just a black and white situation, when this lady has passed she will be one of those stats, do you want me to force feed this lady? I can only try so much but no way will I force food down her neck.
We are keeping so many people alive for the sake of things like money (makes $$$ for the care homes, drug firms etc) and the law, this must change so people who are able can decide when they can die.

reply to post by Dimithae


I don't work in the health care profession, but I do run a small environmental lab. It is heavily regulated by the Dept of Health (DOH). There is now TONS of "checks and balances" built into the system now, which means "TONS" of paperwork. I'd say that actually analyzing samples is only 10% of my job. The rest is filling out paper work and making graphs to appease the DOH. I do not think that all the "checks and balances" make me a better analyst (if anything worse, because there is less time to spend on actually analyzing the samples.) It just makes me better at filling out paperwork. I did the same job a little over 10 years ago and the paperwork was no where near as daunting. This makes the 8 hour day I worked 10 years ago, into an 11 hour day now. I can only imagine this is true for hospitals as well.

I'm not standing up for someone not doing their job. I do have a mother in law in hospice care now. There have been times when we've gone to see here on the weekends and they don't have her cleaned up, out of bed and dressed yet. We're talking 10:30 am. They always talk about how they're understaffed on the weekends. It's a lose / lose situation for everyone. My mother in law has been on a waiting list for a year and a half to get into another place. Like I said, its a lose/ lose situation for everyone.

Is their hospital food that bad that people would rather starve than eat it Gotta remember that if I ever go to England.

reply to post by mistressofspice


My place isn't as bad as that but the problem I see all the time is the home is run for profit, my place is running on the bare minimum staff but a few of the workers (not all) are ninja carers, we do the impossible sometimes, for example I showered dressed and had sat down for breakfast 6 people in one hour this morning and half of those can not walk . Not ideal at all but the good staff have a caring attitude.
I treat all my old dears like my Gran and Grandad it is the least they all deserve.
Care homes are getting checked out and name and shamed lot's now and rightly so but when care is run as a business care will go down hill.
It is a great job but I wish they payed more

Originally posted by boymonkey74
when this lady has passed she will be one of those stats,.

I don't think so. The 'thousands die of hunger and thirst' and the 5,000+ released from the hospital suffering from malnutrition and dehydration aren't figures that come from end-life situations in nursing homes. It's from the hospital.

reply to post by FlyersFan


Do you know the age range of those who did starve?
BTW many are sent to hospital just before they die, it is about 50/50 in my home.

Originally posted by boymonkey74
Do you know the age range of those who did starve?

The article didn't say. If it were all 'end of life' situations wouldn't it have caveated the information by saying that? And 5,000+ came out of the hospital with dehydration and malnutrition .... so those for sure weren't 'end of life' situations ..

BTW many are sent to hospital just before they die, it is about 50/50 in my home

Even people going in for minor problems at the hospitals come out dead ...

Originally posted by misskat1
Last week my son saw a homeless women fall and crack her head open. Blood everywhere, so he called an ambulance. She was stitched up and released. After they patched up her head, she sat in the emergency waiting room for hours, too ill to go anywhere. My son went up to check on her and realized that she couldn't survive if left on the streets, and the mission wouldn't take her because she was too ill. So, he brought her home for me to patch up.
She had gotten poison oak and had huge gapping sores all over her legs. She couldn't walk to the bathroom nor could she eat. The hospital released her in that condition. Within one day, she was completely incoherent, so I took her to a different hospital, where she was admitted immediately. She weighed only 79 lbs. She is still in the hospital. She has a raging infection through out her body from the uncared for sores, Her blood pressure was extremely low, her potassium, ect were completely depleted. She was suffering from malnutrition.

I was able to locate her family, who were very worried, and are coming up to get her when she is released.
Please I don't need anyone reminding me how dangerous it is to bring home a homeless sick person. Believe me, I wanted to shoot my son for it.

After reading your post, I will be taking her some "homemade medicine soup" this afternoon.
My sister worked in the hospital that stitched her up for 16 years. And had repeatedly told me to never leave anyone alone there. Now I understand why.

On a silly side note: The only UFO I have ever seen, was hovering over that hospital.

Do you live in the US?

If so, this is how far down we are going.

I use to work in health care and 10 years ago , she would have been admitted into a hospital. I can tell you this.!

Today, it is all about profit.

reply to post by boymonkey74


I understand your position. We like the "regulars" at my mother-in-laws home. They do care about her. My point was, it's difficult for anyone to do their job efficiently and effectively when they have to worry about the tons of paperwork being filled out before they leave their shift, nevermind being understaffed to boot! It makes actually taking proper care of the patients even harder. I'm not condoning neglect. This is going to sound a little silly, but there's a lot more to being a healthcare worker than just taking care of the patients. I can empathize as there is a lot more to being a lab director than just analyzing samples.

I think health care workers in nursing homes for the terminally ill have one of the hardest jobs there is.