Want To Die Needlessly? Go To My Local Hospital!

And people wonder why I refuse to be admitted to my local hospital.
Deaths, mistakes, errors, neglect are common place and just going in to give birth or for a broken arm can result in death.

Today in my local paper we have yet another example of the neglect and incompetence regularly shown by the "Swindon Great Western Hospital".

Article from the Swindon Advertiser on 07 January 2008.


Arnel Cabrera's wife Mayra, 30, died after an epidural anaesthetic was wrongly injected into her arm during childbirth rather than into the space of her spinal cord.

She died at the Great Western Hospital in May 2004

Swindon & Marlborough NHS Trust has since admitted liability for her being administered Bupivacaine, a potent anaesthetic, intravenously rather than epidurally.

The court heard Mrs Cabrera gave birth at 8.14am on May 11 but began complaining of dizziness just before 9am.
She then went into cardiac arrest. Efforts to resuscitate her failed and at 10.27am she was certified dead.

Mr Cabrera was ushered into another room as the resuscitation attempt began.
He was told immediately afterwards by doctors that she had died from an amniotic fluid embolism, the inquest heard.

But he learned later that she had died because the Bupivacaine had been administered wrongly, the inquest was told.

The drug was found to have been given to Mrs Cabrera via a cannula into her right hand.

Post mortem tests found the cause of death to be Bupivacaine toxicity, the coroner said.
Mr Masters told the jury that there have been two other deaths at hospitals in the UK in the last decade caused by Bupivacaine being administered intravenously.

first published Thursday 25th Oct 2007.

George Harvey was admitted to the Great Western at the age of 92 for treatment of stomach cancer.But he was not diagnosed with the superbug Clostridium Difficile until he left the hospital to spend his final days at Prospect Hospice in Wroughton.

Although George had been told his cancer was terminal, the first doctor to treat him at GWH said he was in "marvellous condition" for a man of his age.

During his five-week stay at the hospital, George's health progressively worsened and his family could only look on as he became severely ill.
Mrs Pitman said: "On one occasion my father was left alone on a bare mattress with a bed pan for 45 minutes."My sister came to visit and discovered him calling for help because he was in pain. "Throughout his stay I was appalled by the things I saw and the sheer lack of respect demonstrated towards the patients."

Two weeks after he was moved to Prospect, George died.

Jenny, said the hospital has even admitted a stool sample taken from her father was never tested for the Clostridium Difficile bug, after he had fallen ill.
She is compiling a dossier detailing "inexcusable" shortfalls in the provision at Great Western Hospital.

OAP died after catching hospital bug
From the archive, first published Tuesday 23rd Oct 2007.

Joan Kennedy died when she went into hospital with a minor infection.

Three weeks after being admitted to the Great Western Hospital for treatment for a urine infection,she was diagnosed with Clostridium Difficile and died.

Joan's daughter who visited her regularly was shocked by the hospital's hygiene standards.

She said she had to clean faeces from the handrail of her mother's bed and saw medical staff risk contaminating other patients with the contagious bacterial infection.

"Mum was quite happy when she went in, I know she was elderly but she was in good shape, but 12 weeks after going in she died.

Joan was admitted to the Great Western's Jupiter ward on July 6. Three and a half weeks later she was diagnosed with C Diff while on Orchard ward.

"They transferred her back the main block and put her in a ward with four other people," She was there for four days, but when I asked a nurse if it was all right having C Diff and being around others they didn't even know she had it.

"I had to ask for the railings to be cleaned. My daughter and I would use disinfectant wipes and cleaned them several times. One time there was faeces on there, and that was after she had been diagnosed with C Diff.
"On the Saturday before she died she was vomiting blood. I had to call a nurse to help her. He was from the cardiac unit. He went back and could have infected patients there.
"The staff regularly gave her dinner and even treatment without wearing gloves."

The hospital's registrar confirmed Joan died as a result of the hospital superbug and her death certificate cited Clostridium Difficile as the cause of death.

"I'm glad that the death certificate reflects the truth," said Christine.

I could fill an entire book the size of "War and Peace" on the ever increasing list of deaths and disgustingly low levels of "care" which happen daily in this hospital.

I refuse to be admitted there and will refuse medical treatment rather than risk my life by just being there. It's crazy but true when I am actually better off refusing medical treatment and staying home than going to hospital.

* Last year I was unconscious for 3 whole days and even though I obviously couldn't
go home as I wasn't awake my husband was told he could collect me on all three
days even though I was unconscious.

* I've had to ask a nurse and a doctor on two separate occasions to wash their hands.

* I've had to leave the ward and go to the Emergency Dept to get a doctor to
prescribe me my due insulin injection because it wasn't signed for on my chart and
the nurses would not call a doctor even though I'd had the injection every other
night I had been there.

* I've waited over 4 hours for an I.V drip to be taken out so I could go home. I was
taking up a bed needlessly. I took it out myself in the end (I'm now expert in
doing this correctly) AND it wasn't even noticed when I left.

I haven't even mentioned the food. Which is so bland and poorly cooked that even the staff prefer to bring in their own sandwiches from home or order take-aways.
If the basic hygiene and cleanliness is so poor then how on earth can basic food hygiene be up to an acceptable level.

The National Health Service is wonderful in theory but with this money-grabbing, penny pinching government it's working less and less in practice.