Soaring drugs bill 'threatens to bankrupt NHS'

I have copied and pasted the following, with the Comment paragraph, from Dr Rath's newsletter. I fully concur with Dr Rath's views on this matter. My personal strongly-held, sincere belief is that pharmaceutical drugs do far, far more harm than good and are the cause of most of the avoidable illness in the world. They are a major cause of obesity, and in particular, of morbid obesity. They have certainly done me great harm: destroyed my life, health and happiness, and I would urge caution on everyone contemplating taking prescribed medication. Check it out as thoroughly as you can before deciding whether to take it.

The NHS risks bankruptcy from a soaring drugs bill which is outstripping Britain's GDP growth according to a report. The report, by the pressure group Compass, calls for regulation of the pharmaceutical industry to curb prices. The coalition of academics, campaigners and union leaders also warns that the billions spent by big pharma on seminars and conferences gives companies undue influence over doctors.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)
Comment: If the health service in the UK - where the government can still negotiate drug prices - is risking bankruptcy, what chance do other countries stand of avoiding a similar fate? In the U.S., for example, the government has already capitulated to the pharma mafia and essentially pays whatever the drug cartel wants. Meantime, whilst its annual sales now total 773 billion dollars, adverse reactions from the cartel’s drugs continue to kill and injure millions of innocent patients each and every year. In the U.S., it has been estimated that a staggering 2,216,000 hospitalized patients have serious adverse drug reactions (ADRs) each year, whilst 106,000 have fatal ADRs. This means that such reactions are between the fourth and sixth leading cause of death in that country. Meantime, the drug cartel spends billions of dollars every year disingenuously marketing its drugs to doctors under the guise of "continuing medical education", whilst, at the same time, omitting to mention that most of them cause a multitude of new diseases as a result of their known long-term side effects. And, of course, as if all this were not bad enough, the cartel is holding over six-billion people hostage by doing everything it can to eliminate the non-patentable natural alternatives to its products. To learn what you can do to fight back, visit the NT-2 website and support the call for a second ‘Nuremberg’ Tribunal.

Another shocking example of lack of compassion in a British hospital: - ordeal of World War Two hero

Dying World War Two hero 'stripped of human dignity' by hospital care, family say
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The family of Brigadier John Platt, who won the Distinguished Service Order for his leadership in one of the fiercest battles of the Italian campaign, told how he was discharged from Salisbury District Hospital, unable to feed himself.

They said he was in a confused state and incontinent, after a stay which left him "degraded and humiliated".

During his five-day spell in a mixed-sex observation ward, his hearing aid was crushed, his false teeth went missing and soiled pyjamas were piled up unwashed in a locker by his bedside, they said.

Knowing he was dying after losing the ability to swallow food, he asked to go home. But no ambulance was available so he was sent in a taxi on an hour-long journey to the care home where he died a few days later.

When his family later complained about the hygiene issues around the soiled pyjamas, the hospital wrote back to say that it was unfortunate that he had been "unable to avail himself" of its laundry service.

It has since apologised to Brig Platt's family for the "unacceptable" nature of his discharge in a taxi in late 2006 and vowed to learn lessons from his ordeal."

Further to lack of compassion in NHS hospital staff: two paramedics have been arrested by police for allegedly ignoring a dying disabled man.

Paramedics arrested after 'ignoring dying man'
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"They were detained after detectives were given a tape recording of them in the patient's house in which they were allegedly heard discussing not bothering to try to revive him.

The ambulance crew had been sent to Barry Baker's detached home after he dialled 999 saying he thought he was having a heart attack.

Ambulance controllers kept Mr Baker talking on the phone as they ordered the paramedic and ambulance technician to use their blue lights to get to him as quickly as possible.

However the 59-year-old, who lived alone, collapsed unconscious while talking on the phone, leaving the line open to the control centre as he lay on the floor.

Minutes later, dispatch centre staff heard their crew enter the house and allegedly make disparaging comments about its state.

A police source said the ambulancemen were then heard over the phone discussing Mr Baker and allegedly saying "words to the effect that he was not worth saving".

A police spokesman confirmed the arrests and said that a full scale investigation into the incident was being carried out by the force's Major Crime Team."

NHS hospitals are suffering from a deterioration in the level of compassion shown to patients by clinical staff, a health thinktank has warned.

NHS hospitals 'suffering from lack of compassion'
article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"Niall Dickson, chief executive of the King's Fund, blamed work pressures, shorter stays in hospital and the greater complexity of medical challenges for staff behaving in a less "feeling" way.

He said that compassion should be a key priority for the boards of every NHS hospital."

"Mr Dickson told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I have very little doubt that we've seen a deterioration in the level of compassion that is shown by staff to patients.

"The board of every hospital should be looking at this as one of their top priorities - what is it like for someone who's coming in to be treated, and how can we improve that experience?"

He added: "It's to do with staff facing very difficult situations - because patients are sicker and hospital stays are shorter - rather than them all turning into nasty people.

"If we can't get compassion into our healthcare, the system is failing. It's as fundamental as that.""

I certainly agree that there's a lack of compassion in hospitals. I was in hospital last year for 29 nights. I went in with a complicated fracture of the right humerus. My right hand was working OK and there was no pain from the fracture when I fell and broke the arm and rang for an ambulance, and no pain from the fracture when the ambulance men took me into the Northern General Hospital A and E department. The pain started when the splint (backslab) was put on the arm. This was because of the pressure and weight of the splint.

I explained to 'everyone' - doctors, nurses, etc - that I am a steroid victim and that therefore my skin and veins are very thin-walled and very delicate and painful, and that pressure is very damaging and painful to them and that the splint was causing me extreme pain and I needed to have the operation (fixing the pieces of broken bone together) done as soon as possible. - I'd been admitted to the hospital early on a Thursday morning. I was told the operation would be done on the following day, the Friday, the Saturday, the Sunday or - at the very latest - the Monday. - It was not done on any of these days. - In fact, it was almost a fortnight before the operation was done! - while I had had to endure increasing agony because of this awful wait. I was told that the delay was caused because emergencies had to be dealt with before me. - I believe my plight was an emergency. - Because of that excessive delay, serious, extremely painful and permanent damage was done to my right (dominant) hand. For months I was unable to move it at all. Ever since leaving the hospital I have had to have carers every day.

During the wait my hand became a mass of pins and needles and it swelled up really alarmingly - a large blue domed mound appeared on the back of my hand. It was so immensely swollen the pain was exquisite. The skin was extremely thin and overstretched and vulnerable and the veins too. In this highly vulnerable, oedematous state one morning a staff nurse who was to help me to get washed grabbed hold of the hand to pull it - into the sling, if I remember correctly. - GRABBED HOLD OF IT! - I screamed! - How could anyone do that? - How could anyone not realise the terrible agony and harm done by putting extra pressure on a delicate hand already so overstretched? - How could a staff nurse be so stupid/cruel as to do that?

He then started telling me off! - I believe this was for the benefit of anyone within earshot of the scream, to make it appear that he had not just caused me intense extra pain. - We were behind screens for privacy since I was getting washed, so no-one had seen his stupid action.

He should have given me time to ease my hand into the sling; the other nurses did. It was a difficult manoeuvre to accomplish. But he was still impatient and now tried again to save time BY GRABBING THE OTHER END OF MY ARM - THAT IS, THE UPPER ARM CONTAINING THE BROKEN BITS OF BONE - AND PUSHED FROM THAT SIDE TO GET MY ARM INTO THE SLING! - THE BITS OF BONE GROUND TOGETHER OF COURSE AND I INVOLUNTARILY SCREAMED AGAIN.

He went away in a temper after telling me off again and I was left for about 40 minutes, in great distress, with no clothes on though partly covered by a towel or something, having all the time with my delicate left hand to support the broken right arm in its heavy splint, unable to change position at all, unable to summon assistance by ringing the bell because the vulnerable badly broken arm was not supported by the sling and could not support itself, of course, because the bone was in bits... - He clearly had not told anyone of my plight so that I could be 'rescued'. It was just by chance that a nurse came into the ward and put her head round the screens to see why they were round my bed and was then able to help me.

That man should not be a nurse.