Young women dies - dismissed as a 'time waster' by hospital staff

[Highmoon]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c302e83vrv5o

These news stories seem more and more frequent. This time the young woman had her parents with her and she was still dismissed as a time waster. This makes me so mad. This could so easily be any of our daughters.

I noticed Mumsnet is featuring a petition on medical misogyny. I spotted this on the same day, proving how much a change is needed.

The main thing that needs to change is the NHS as a monopoly provider. Patients need a choice of providers, as in France, Germany, Switzerland and most other countries with a functioning system. Why wouldn’t I be willing to be pay more to a hospital where I get a private en suite room (or even a hospital that is cleaned adequately and doesn’t stink)? Co-pay is essential to get more money into the system. I baulk at the idea of paying more tax even if hypothecated for the NHS because it does nothing to address the structural problems - waste, inefficiency, morale, productivity, etc.

I question the benefit of GP’s most of the time tbh. They have limited equipment or access to tests, their clinical decisions can be reversed by others (and are often wrong - being largely based on experience and “spidey senses”) and they only really operate to ration care. Much of their work does not even require a clinician, as we can see from the number of nurses, paramedics and PA’s who are now doing lots of it. Most reasonably competent adults can be trusted to refer themselves to the correct speciality - as I have done in both France and Switzerland - and it makes zero sense that patients have to wait for successive appointments with clinicians whose purpose is just to kick the can to the next one. That is likely to be a huge factor in our poor survival rates relative to just about every comparable country.

We also need the option of private hospitals for everything, not just low-risk elective stuff.

Signed. Shared.

I was told I "could not possibly be in labour" for days until I bled out and me and the baby both nearly died. We're here, but only just. We both have life long complications.

Because then no-one would be a doctor if they thought that they could end up in jail.

Would you be a doctor knowing that if you made a mistake when you are over-worked and under-resourced that you could go to prison?

I remember my ds being in paeds as a two week old. The dr kept asking me how many mls of milk he'd had, I was breastfeeding. Even the nurses were rolling their eyes at his repeated asking of a question i obviously couldn't answer.

I've always 'under presented' when in Labour too so get a look and 'we'll quickly check you and probably send you home again'. Then they're shocked to discover I'm in established Labour.

As a teen I was repeatedly fobbed off re heavy periods. Until I ended up so anaemic I needed a blood transfusion. Then they kept asking if I was pregnant and miscarrying sigh.

It already happens in plenty of places eg the UAE. No shortage of doctors there - on the contrary, there are hordes of ex-NHS doctors hoping for a bit of tax-free wedge.

There is, in any event, a happy medium between “fuck the patients over because there will be zero consequences and it’s not like they can go elsewhere” and jail.

Why not just do better?

But the UAE doctors are not over-worked or under-resourced are they?

I had this with dd2.

They gave me a chart to fill in as they wanted me to record each 'feed' and volume as if it was a discrete episode. She was a really poorly, breathless baby with a temp so just bobbed on and off almost constantly. They nearly drove me to tears with their lack of understanding of the breastfeeding diad.

Charges can be brought. I know a dr who at the coroners court proceedings were stopped and relatives of the deceased were given the option of asking the police to proceed with a manslaughter charge against the doctor. They declined after a conversation and the inquest continued.

This is so awful and upsetting but sadly not surprising. Poor young woman and her family. I can’t imagine how scared they all were, looking for help and being dismissed so having no where to go.

Obviously very mild compared but I was so angry the other day. I needed a GP appointment, not life and death but somewhat urgent. I rang and rang and sent an online request, couldn’t get through most of the time, was told to call back at 8am the next day. I called at 8am everyday but was something like 43rd in the queue. No reply to my online request. Eventually I spoke to someone after almost two weeks and she told me the only appointments available are in 6 weeks time. Had to accept that. Ex DH told me he had stomach cramps one day, he was exercising, eating and working as normal. Rang GP at 11am the next day, got through and was given an appointment for an hour later the same day. Seen on time and given antibiotics (no idea what for as no diagnosis, was told just incase it’s an infection, to cover all bases. He was also offered pain medication) and booked for a scan to take place a week later. My poor dd has a chronic painful medical condition and had to wait months for a scan and still doesn’t have any proper treatment. It’s infuriating

Erm, I would say no doctor works in optimum conditions 100% of the time, nor is it realistic to expect that.

DH is a senior consultant in the NHS and the above applies equally to him. “Overwork” is something most of us experience, and somehow we also largely manage not to be negligent or callous towards the vulnerable.

Always excuses, it’s never the clinician’s fault, and somehow “we need to improve because this is unacceptable” is never the first thing spouted in response to yet another “never” (arf) event.

Interesting and heartbreaking. DD had such an awful time in hospital following surgery for a complex break that we ended up staying with her 24/7 and sleeping on the floor beside her because staff treated her so badly. She was utterly traumatised by the experience and I think a lot was because she was a young woman.

Genuine mistakes happen, that's why they have indemnity insurance and unions. Being overworked and short staffed is no excuse for being incompetent, rude, dishonest, dismissive, failing to seek second or senior advice, listening to patients, relatives and nurses, accepting you could be wrong, mocking patients, undermining juniors and nurses who may well have years more experience in that particular speciality.

Me too. Ambulance refused to take me as diagnosed panic attack. My daughter drove me to A&E where we sat overnight waiting for tropanin bloods, when the results came back I was having a heart attack they put me in a wheelchair & hurriedly admitted me to the heart ward. Further tests showed I’d had 3 SCAD heart attacks. No one listens to women.
My daughter now has endometriosis & her entire medical journey is a battle. Why should she have to be warrior when she’s not very well?
Hopd you’re recovered dazedbutstillhere 💐

I've had bowel obstruction surgery as a youngish woman and had some similar experiences.

Only after the first episode did they take it seriously and do the right checks. I can see how this could have happened which is scary.

Even when telling the surgeons it's a bowel obstruction they were still saying something about a UTI even though I've no history of UTI infections and had been vomiting bile.

It's rubbish that she couldn't have been saved as it's possible to do emergency surgery. Which I had at 1am and 9am on a Saturday in my late diagnosed cases. I survived but only just

There is a huge difference between a mistake and repeated cruelty and lack of care.

Declining to order even basic tests is not a mistake.

it is negligence.

I once went to a&e after waking up unable to breathe, crying and vomiting with really sharp pain between my ribs. I had a temperature and low oxygen.

They gave me morphine which made me more sick and took me for a chest xray. A stroppy fenale Dr told me the xray was clear and my pain must he a pulled muscle. She sent me home but dh had to carry me out as I couldn't stand up properly due to the pain and breathing difficulty. No one helped us as we struggled out, clearly thinking I was being dramatic and silly.

It was only a couple of hours before the gp opened so I sat through it and rang them first thing. A GP called me back and said they couldn't help me as it was a pulled muscle (they could see my notes). I explained I had a temp and felt really unwell. He reluctantly said he would prescribe antibiotics for dh to collect. But clearly felt the hospital was right and I was wrong and being dramatic.

I then got a phone call from the hospital to say my chest xrays had been reviewed and showed pneumonia! I had to go back for a ct scan after more xrays showed the infection wasn't properly treated. When I was followed up by a consultant he was paradoxical that my original xrays and results showed I had a severe infection.

I will never forget how they all treated me and how the GP took his lead from the hospital. Who were wrong.

I have zero faith at all.

A (male) friend of mine died recently after doctors did not recognise sepsis when he presented to A and E. They paid his widow a lot of money.

i believe the current estimates are that about sixteen thousand people a year are dying due to lack of resources/overcrowding in a and e.

so I would expect a lot of people to have stories like this.

The poor girl. Absolutely awful.

I think the problem is the NHS tends to view everyone as a massive inconvenience from the off. That and there's a real culture of disbelief when it comes to other people's experiences/pain.

SNAP!
I saw three GPs over 3 months and fobbed off with the same advice. I was late 30s and knew my normal cycle pains.

An A&E Dr was the first one to do a physical examination and I had a grapefruit sized mass removed as an emergency.
I went back to my GP to have my stitches removed. And pointed out the consequences of their assumptions nearly resulted in my death from an ectopic pregnancy.

'I do sometime try to put the patients view when DH mentions something that’s happened at work, but he is so jaded by the level of demand and the rudeness and entitlement he gets from a majority of his patients, that he tends to see it as an attack'

I completely get why you do that, but I completely get his point of view as well. I cannot overstate the brutalising effect of working in a system that just doesn't care about anyone, whether that's patients or it's own staff.

I work for the NHS and work with many different teams and people are absolutely on their knees. I hear a lot of conversations that don't sound caring in the slightest. Jaded doesn't begin to cover it. A lot of these staff (though certainly not all!) are decent people who really do want to do their best, but it is just impossible to provide decent care with ridiculous inefficient processes and systems, and nowhere near enough staff. I did 17 years in a frontline clinical role myself and ended up with absolutely nothing left to give - totally burned out. It's horrendous

I don't say any of this to minimise any of the many examples of appalling care, or total absence of care, that have been shared on this thread. Not for a moment. Just to add a slightly different take on the perspective that the system is indeed broken, for staff as well as patients

Horrific ☹️

It makes me so angry. Why do these people just not care, and not do their jobs properly? I feel like it may be because they are just so stretched nowadays but also that somehow a culture of “good enough” rather than excellence has taken hold nowadays.

We were taught to do our duty and do our absolute best at school, our children seem to be taught not to jeopardise their mental health above all things. I never even knew the concept of mental health until about 15 years ago. Mental illness, yes, but that did not apply to most people.

Only the actions of a nurse who said “what is worrying you the most?” As I was about to be discharged saved me. Two hours later I had an emergency bowel resection.

Yet couriers, taxi drivers, bus drivers, and lorry drivers manage to work under that kind of sword of damocles. You can be sent to prison for making a mistake that kills someone whilst driving.

My daughter developed type 1 diabetes during covid. She lost lots of weight, her periods stopped, she had multiple infections over the course of several months. She didn't see a doctor face to face in all that time - she had phone appointments with doctors and saw nurses and radiographers for all the tests she had relating to individual symptoms, but nobody stepped back and looked at the big picture. I think they assumed the start of an eating disorder, because they kept telling her not to lose any more weight. She collapsed with severe DKA and was critically ill before she got a diagnosis. The hospital, once they knew her history, were not openly critical of the GPs, definitely raised their eyebrow. She was in hospital for 2 weeks, and when she was discharged and contacted the GP for follow up blood tests (she had very low cell counts and the hospital specified testing in their discharge letter), they initially refused, firstly because they said it wasn't in the letter (it was) and then because of a shortage of tubes (which I know there was at the time, but...).