Panorama: The British NHS and treatment of elderly patients. A disgrace.

[bennywhale]

I haven't been as angry watching that as i've been in a long time.

Power and people don't mix.

The degrading manner in which those poor souls were being treated was so horrific i honestly nearly cried.

Anyone have any experiences of elderly relatives and this treatment?

Being institutionalised like this and at the complete mercy of these people seems worse than jail.

[getmeouttahere]

1. How would you say it compares to....

no care or treatment at all, because you have no money, or your prescriptions cost more than you get in your social security check. Just want to get an idea of the level of pain we're talking about, as it relates to the U.S. "system."

[bennywhale]

2. Well considering i'm talking about the NHS it doesn't compare because

its a free national health service for us.

my point was the complete lack of dignity these people had in their dying days and the nature of power and institutions.

people sitting in their own shit for hours, people not being allowed to go to the toilet when desperate, one old lady (90s) dying of cancer was deaf and fairly blind and therefore ignored all day when all she wanted was a drink of water. She eventually got one gulped the lot down and then asked to die, an old man with a broken back being bullied, and nurses refusing to move him, patients food being put before them when incapable of feeding themselves but still hungry, and removed when cold.

General abuse of some of the most vulnerable people in society who have donated (indeed created) this institution (the largest in the world) and in their dying days have had it abuse them.

So pretty miserable

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. This happens in the private system of the U.S. as well

In the last months of her life, my grandmother was in a private nursing home where she broke her hip and the underpaid, undertrained staff insisted that she was faking and tried to get her to walk.

Fortunately, my mother visited every day and insisted that they call a doctor, who confirmed that my grandmother had a broken hip.

The next place had food that looked as if it had been scraped out of a garbage pail.

Fortunately, my grandmother's sister had some connections and got her into a wonderful place run by a charitable foundation.

Too many of the private nursing homes in the U.S. are run by money-hungry vultures who take Medicaid money from the state, hire untrained minimum wage workers, and have sweetheart deals with the state inspectors, who warn them when inspections are about to happen.

[bennywhale]

4. I suppose thats worse because of why its happening. In the NHS it is

poorly trained and some quite nasty staff in positions of power. these types of people can be removed. Its when its endemic in the system that its the problem. the Tories privatised the cleaning and catering of the NHS.

Guess what they've both gone to shit. Thousands appear to be dying from MRSA superbug in hospitals due to bad cleaning, and the food is cheap processed muck.

When you intrduce profit margians into someones health and life you are asking for something nasty.