Huge payouts for NHS cancer negligence

Bureaucracies don't disgorge easily so this reveals chronic negligence on a large scale

The NHS has paid out almost 100 pounds million in negligence claims due to medical errors in cancer treatment (David Rose writes).

The Government has admitted that over the past decade there were 1,179 clinical negligence claims relating to cancer treatment alone, leading to £47 million in compensation, with 50 million still outstanding.

Doctors failed to detect at least 935 cases of cancer in the past two years, while thousands more errors were made in chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment, figures obtained by the Conservatives show.

Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary said that the statistics showed the Government’s “failure to provide world-class cancer services”.

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Australia: Terrified rape victim refused help by disgusting "Health" bureaucrats

If these moral imbeciles are allowed to stay in their jobs it will be a grave reflection on the Leftist State government

Her trembling fingers pressed the buttons to dial 000. She screamed - the phone was dead. Outside the unlocked medical centre on the Torres Strait island of Mabuiag she could hear voices, laughter and wolf-whistles from her alleged attacker and his friends. In the dark of February 5, the 27-year-old ran to the telephone connection - it had been deliberately turned off. She reconnected it, dialled the emergency number and it diverted to Cairns police, a thousand kilometres away. She revealed how she had just been raped and that the alleged perpetrator was still outside her building with several of his drunken mates. He'd also stolen a bottle of vodka and she feared he would be back.

The police officer said he would immediately ring the community police officer on the island, but reported back to the victim that the local representative of the law had responded it was raining and he was not prepared to walk around to the crime scene in the rain, even though he was told the alleged perpetrator was still on the premises. Desperate and frightened, the young woman crouched at the top of the darkened steps, gripping a crayfish spear, determined, if necessary, to stab the intruder to death when he returned to continue his cowardly assault.

The community police officer, only identified as Patterson, later rang a neighbour of the surgery and he came over to be with the nurse. Patterson turned up at 6.30am, after the rain stopped. At 7.30am the victim rang her director of nursing on Thursday Island. The woman director told her the rape and burglary was unfortunate and that she should return to work at 9am. The nurse said she wanted to be flown out and was told she could catch the only commercial flight at 11am. She replied that could not be done because police were coming (two hours by boat) from Thursday Island to inspect the crime scene and take her statement. They arrived at 12.30pm.

The nurse was told the next day when she repeated her request to be flown home to Sydney that she would be brought only to Thursday Island, no accommodation provided, no medical attention organised and that any days away would be deducted from her pay or leave. It was made clear that Queensland Health did not consider the rape worthy of reporting and they were not prepared to help her. The nurse mistakenly thought that Queensland Health, with helicopters, doctors, nurses, crisis counsellors, the Royal Flying Doctor Service on call and a Medivac helicopter available at Thursday Island, 30 minutes flight away, would activate an immediate response. In fact, they cut off her pay from that day, and did not pay out her contract until last Friday after details were published in The Australian.

Queensland Health northern area general manager Ms Roxanne Ramsey explained that the nurse's treatment was the result of "a local breakdown in communications in organising for her to be taken from the island". [Crap, crap, crap]

What actually happened was that her boyfriend, who worked on Horn Island, had to fly in by helicopter on February 5, take her by boat the 40 minutes across Torres Strait to Badu Island where she received her first medical help and examination. He then had to pay $800 to charter a plane to get her to Thursday Island by which time the Queensland Nurses Union had arranged for the department to fly her to Sydney.

Just weeks before the rape, a drunk on a nearby island punched a window and broke his wrist, and the department quite happily organised a Medivac helicopter at $13,000 an hour, to have him flown to Cairns.

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Australia: Dangerous ambulance shortage in NSW too

AMBULANCE officers fear lives are being put at risk because there are not enough ambulances or crew members to respond to emergency calls. The NSW population has increased by almost half a million people since 2000 but the number of ambulances available to respond to triple 0 calls in that time has been cut by six, unions say. Response times are falling, with 10 per cent of Sydney ambulances not reaching patients in the 16-minute target.

"The public would expect that if you are having a heart attack the ambulance would be there in 10 minutes. Statistics show that reaching a patient in under five minutes doubles their chances of survival but get there after 10 minutes and the patient will not survive," Health and Safety Union Hunter president Peter Rumball said. "If we cannot get ambulances to people then their lives are being put at risk," he said.

The union says NSW needs another 200 ambulances and 2000 crew members to meet the increased demand. Union figures - disputed by the NSW Ambulance Service - show that in 2000 NSW had 852 general purpose ambulances; eight years later that figure had dropped to 844 despite the population increasing by more than 400,000. In the past two years the demand for emergency "life threatening" responses by ambulances increased by 19.4 per cent.

The Ambulance Service said the number of ambulances had jumped from 834 in 2002/03 to 876 in 2006/07, with more in action thanks to a leasing deal.

The union said ambulance staff on the Central Coast were so stretched that ambulances were often dispatched from the Hunter or Sydney to deal with emergencies. Last week an ambulance from Wahroonga was sent to an emergency on the Central Coast. On Friday the union will take the Ambulance Service to the Industrial Relations Commission to help win overworked staff the right for a meal break. Ambulance stations at Cessnock and Nelson Bay still have single officer crews, which are also the subject of a forthcoming action at the commission.

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