Leslie Ash got £5m compensation, not £500,000!

[mumemma]

Looks like the papers got it wrong yesterday.....

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7192605.stm

Haven't read the whole thread.

If it's 5 mil for loss of earnings, they obv haven't seen her in Quadrophenia.

OUt of the article this bit

'"As a direct result, the trust updated its guidelines and provided nurses with additional training on monitoring infection." '

really annoys me....it's not effing more training that is necessarily needed ...more nurses need to be employed...that is one of the major reasons why infections are spreading so readily...nurses are overworked and have to run about the ward like bluearsed flies, without time to always go through the protocols before every patient...

Think this is an absolute joke - young men and women go to war and get less than that for having both legs blown off and serious brain damage!

The amount she got is also more than all of the people who have sued for MRSA related probems have got together.

That is what I find amazing!

I think she should return some of the money to the hospitals tbh. There is no way she would have earned £5m in the rest of her life. Her star had waned imo.

1. Ms. Ash did not have MRSA. She had MSSA which is meth sensitive staph areous. Everyone who has contributed to this thread has this bug colonized on their body. Most people are colonized with it. So did Leslie probably prior to her admission to hospital

1. The problems she is having as a result of having epidural analgesia is the result of an abcess and spinal pressure. Not sepsis.

Superbugs are the result of overcrowding in hospitals and the overuse of antibiotics. Even if you could force the clinical staff to wash their hands every 2 minutes you will still have a horrific problem with superbugs.

overuse of antibiotics is a huge factor yes. But hospitals simply are not clean enough, and they haven't been for a long time.

It's the usual problem...there are to many managers and penpushers and to few actual Caring staff and cleaning staff, etc...

Also, another part of the above statement really pisses me off...because a lot of Doctors are wonderful germ and disease spreaders....because they deem to think that rules don't apply to them...maybe the germs etc...are meant to run away when seeing the white coat, lol...

good point about the over use of AB's etc...

you should see the look on consultants faces if you ask them to wash their hands before examining you...

You cannot clean wards properly when they are at 98% bed occupancy. It cannot be done and more than I could build a rocket ship and go to the moon using legos and superglue.

They need more staff. They need more beds. They need to have hospitals that are better designed to meet the needs of the 21st century.

Gordon Brown is going to spend millions on a deep cleaning program. They are going to shut one ward at a time and deep clean it when they already have no where near enough beds to get everyone admitted and not rush them out.

Within a week of those "deep cleaned" wards opening they will be back to being superbug infested.

If they want to clean the wards properly then they are going to need to refuse admissions. You wouldn't believe how overcrowded they are. They can't clean them.

Sometimes they will discharge a patient and try to get a new patient into that room 60 seconds later. If the one nurse who is on her own says "hold up we need to clean out that room as soon as I stabilize my other patient who I cannot leave right now" the bed manager hangs up and sends the new patient up into the unclean room.

Then they breathe a sigh of relief that they did not breach their waiting times in A&E. Breaching targets leads to fines which means that these underfunded-money starved trusts become even less able to hire staff, cleaners etc.

It is a viscious cycle.

'Then they breathe a sigh of relief that they did not breach their waiting times in A&E. Breaching targets leads to fines which means that these underfunded-money starved trusts become even less able to hire staff, cleaners etc.'

That is so utterly stupid isn't it?
Why on earth is that being done?

It really does bug me that it is all about targets.

Just treat the patients, make them better not worse, and get more doctors and nurses and less suits!

makes me so bloody

Sorry to triple post but the point I am trying to make is this:

Imagine I went into your house, and piled all of your belongings, everything you own into you your lounge and told you that you could not under any circumstances move any of it out. Then I piled as many people into that space as I could.

Then I gave you 4 hours a day to clean it out but while you are responsible for cleaning it you are also responsible for preparing and serving breakfast and lunch doing tea rounds for those people in your overcrowded lounge. You must accomplish your mission in 4 hours.

This is the deal for the 2 domestics we had on the large ward I worked on as a staff nurse. 2 domestics /4hours a day. Oh and then we had one for a couple of hours in the evening who did sorted supper and teas as well as tried to clean in a short space of time.

It's fucktarded. If they close the wards down even just one at a time they are done. For every patient we discharge there are 10 waiting for a bed. They even call the nurses on the ward and order them to get people moved out anyway they can to get new ones in.

i agree with you AnneMayer. It still makes me

this government by target is so FUBAR it's amazing it's still going on.

A few little green eyed monsters on this thread....!
She got a horrid illness, why should she not get compensation, which is dictated as loss of/potential loss of income due to the amount of money she had earned not whether she is a good actress or not...!

difference between envy and a sense of injustice and inequality.

time4me - have you tried Action against medical accidents? AVMA. AVMA has a team of caseworkers who can provide free and confidential advice following a medical accident. This includes advice on your rights; medical information or explanations; help in getting the issues investigated; assessment of potential for obtaining compensation; referral to an appropriate solicitor for your individual case etc. HTH

Very little difference between them.

I can think of a lot of patients at my hospital who have suffered HORRIBLY (and staff with post traumatic stress disorder) who deserve a pay out as well. Are they going to get it?

The problem with this is that it will set a precedent. If they gave pay outs to everyone who has suffered and lost earnings as a result of the NHS than that's it. I have a disabled kid as a result of an overworked midwife and I have worked many many many completely unpaid overtime hours for them as a staff nurse.

I really do think that this government wants to put an end to the NHS and they are taking a very indirect approach to pull it off. They are starving the hospitals of money, and creating more and more expensive and difficult hoops for them to jump through. People say that they are giving the money to the PCT's who then withold it from acute care. They are gagging doctors and nurses.

The 39 bed medical/surgical/care of the elderly ward has less staff on any given day than my sister's 10 chair hair salon does. Most of the staff that we do have on duty are not RN's. A health care assistant is nothing like a nurse. Sorry if that offends anyone but I was an HCA before I became a nurse.

Total FUBAR.

I think they are going to let it get so bad that people will feel that they have no choice but to go private.

I'm all doom and gloom though.

That was supposed to say "the 39 bed ward that I worked on....

I don't think it's right to begrudge her a payout for the hospital's mistake. I feel bad for her. I think the issue is that others in similar sittuations are not receiving the same compensation but that's not her fault either.
Maybe your anger would be better spent trying to help future victims with their cases somehow

What an absurd thing to say Pavlov the Cat.