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Found 1,332 results
  1. News Article
    A grieving family has welcomed new guidance to try to prevent a common surgical procedure from going wrong and causing deaths. Oesophageal intubation occurs when a breathing tube is placed into the oesophagus, the tube leading to the stomach, instead of the trachea, the tube leading to the windpipe. It can lead to brain damage or death if not spotted promptly. Glenda Logsdail died at Milton Keynes University Hospital in 2020 after a breathing tube was accidentally inserted into her oesophagus. The 60-year-old radiographer was being prepared for an appendicitis operation when the error occurred. Her family welcomed the guidance, saying in a statement: “We miss her terribly but we know that she’d be happy that something good will come from her tragic death and that nobody else will go through what we’ve had to go through as a family." Oesophageal intubation can occur for a number of reasons including technical difficulties, clinician inexperience, movement of the tube or “distorted anatomy”. The mistake is relatively common but usually detected quickly with no resulting harm. The new guidance, published in the journal Anaesthesia, recommends that exhaled carbon dioxide monitoring and pulse oximetry – which measures oxygen levels in the blood – should be available and used for all procedures that require a breathing tube. Experts from the UK and Australia also recommended the use of a video-laryngoscope – an intubation device fitted with a video camera to improve the view – when a breathing tube is being inserted. Read full story Source: The Independent,18 August 2022
  2. News Article
    The midwife leading a review into Nottingham's maternity services has urged families and staff to come forward with their experiences. Donna Ockenden was appointed in May to head the inquiry into the services at Queen's Medical Centre and City Hospital. It was launched after more than 100 families with experiences of maternity failings wrote to former Health Secretary Sajid Javid demanding the action. A much-criticised initial review was subsequently scrapped. Ms Ockenden, who uncovered 200 avoidable baby deaths at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust across two decades, said the review is now open to families, NHS workers and others who wish to contribute. "By September 1 we'll be ready to receive contact from families," she told Nottinghamshire Live. "In the mean time if there are either families or members of the NHS that want to get in touch they can use our new email. And also those who represent communities, whether that's safe communities or women's groups in Nottingham." People can contact the review through the email nottsreview@donnaockenden.com, which was launched last week. Ms Ockenden said that positive steps were being made in putting in place the "building blocks" for the review, which is due to start on 1 September 2022. Read full story Source: Nottinghamshire Live, 17 August 2022
  3. News Article
    Lamborghinis and ski trips to the Swiss Alps were among the incentives a pharmaceutical giant developed to market a surgical device that has ruined the lives of hundreds of Australian women. Documents obtained by the ABC show the extent to which Johnson and Johnson oversold its surgical mesh products, which are used to treat incontinence and prolapse after childbirth. They paint a picture of a company that tried to sell surgeons a jet-setting lifestyle where they could insert four devices "before lunch" and notch up $10,000 in surgeries in a single morning. The mesh devices have left at least 3,000 Australian women with serious side effects including chronic pain, infections and inability to have sex, and are the subject of both a Senate inquiry and a class action. New court documents released in the class action against Johnson and Johnson show that as early as 2009, concerns were raised inside the company that it was making "a huge mistake" by commercialising its latest brand of mesh, was "rushing to market", and opening up the use of the product to "unqualified surgeons". Lawyers from Shine, who are representing the women in the class action, claim the pharmaceutical giant did not investigate proper clinical trials on the possible complications of the mesh. Read full story Source: ABC News, 13 August 2022
  4. News Article
    Pelvic mesh campaigner Kath Sansom has met with the health secretary Steve Barclay to discuss financial redress for those suffering complications from the procedure. The UK government decided last year not to provide compensation to women whose lives had been affected by vaginal mesh implants. But Kath Sansom, a Cambridgeshire mum and former journalist for this news outlet, has continued campaigning and says she will put pressure on the health secretary to revisit the issue. It also comes as the government revealed victims of the 1970s and 1980s blood scandal will receive compensation for the impact it has had on their lives. Ahead of her meeting with the Secretary of State for Health, she said: “We [mesh injured] deserve to be compensated based on the fact we are suffering lifelong damage from a health treatment that caused avoidable harm. “It is not our fault this happened to us and the State should take responsibility.” Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock issued a public apology when a public inquiry in 2020 revealed a shocking extent of patient failings and lack of regulation for mesh victims. “The State has apologised for the suffering of the mesh community, which is an acknowledgement of responsibility,” Kath added. Read full story Source: Cambs Times, 5 August 2022
  5. News Article
    Prescribing potentially harmful antipsychotic drugs to people with dementia has increased by more than 50% on average in care homes during the pandemic, new research suggests. It found that the number of people with dementia receiving these prescriptions had soared from 18% to 28% since 2018 – with prescription rates of over 50% in a third of care homes. Professor Clive Ballard, who was part of a national campaign in 2009 to reduce antipsychotic prescribing by half, said: “Covid-19 put tremendous pressure on care homes, and the majority of them must be applauded for maintaining relatively low antipsychotic prescribing levels amid incredibly difficult circumstances." “However, there were very significant rises in antipsychotic prescribing in one third of care homes and we urgently need to find ways to prioritise support to prevent people with dementia being exposed to significant harms.” Antipsychotic drugs are used to treat some of the more distressing behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia, such as agitation and psychotic episodes. They have only very limited, short-term benefits in treating psychiatric symptoms in people with dementia – but significantly increase the risk of serious side effects, including stroke, accelerated decline and death. Dr Richard Oakley, from the Alzheimer’s Society, added: “This study shows the shocking and dangerous scale of the use of antipsychotic drugs to treat people with dementia in care homes. “Alzheimer’s Society has been campaigning for a move away from the model of ‘medicate first’ and funded research into alternatives to antipsychotic prescriptions, focused on putting people living with dementia at the centre of their own care. “This drug-free, tailored care can help avoid the loss of lives associated with the harmful side effects of antipsychotic medications.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 4 August 2022
  6. News Article
    Hospitals must start using “smart” intravenous (IV) infusion technology to its full potential if they are to prevent dangerous drug errors, University of Manchester researchers have found. ‘Smart pumps’- which automatically calculate the dose and rate of different drugs before they are pumped into a vein - prevent potentially fatal errors by stopping the administration of the wrong rate. But according to the study published in BMJ Open Quality, though the technology probably saved the lives of 110 people in two Trusts over a year, it has largely failed to be adopted by hospitals. Though many IV pumps used in hospitals have a smart capability, most trusts do not utilise the functionality because they are difficult to configure and maintain. Smart pumps are usually configured by a pharmacist and checked by a consultant or senior nurse. Conventional pumps, however, are set by ward staff who calculate and input infusion rates themselves - increasing the risk of drug errors. The risks are illustrated by previous work from the Manchester team, who demonstrated that 1 in 10 IV drug administrations are associated with an error, and up to 1 in 10 of those were associated with harm. Read full story Source: University of Manchester, 1 August 2022
  7. News Article
    Almost 75 years since its foundation, the NHS is struggling with delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the “greatest workforce crisis” in its history. A report from MPs on the health committee this week showed 105,000 vacancies for doctors, nurses and midwives, as thousands quit owing to burnout, bullying, pension rules and low pay. Jeremy Hunt, the committee’s chairman, said that the “persistent understaffing in the NHS poses a serious risk to staff and patient safety”. Lawyers warned that the crisis risked increasing the number of negligence claims. Spending on claims by NHS Resolution rose to £2.5 billion in 2021-22 compared with £2.3 billion in the previous year, according to its annual report published last week. The bill increased despite initiatives to cut the number of cases going to court and foster greater collaboration with claimant lawyers. Claimant lawyers welcomed NHS Resolution’s more collaborative approach and desire to resolve cases sooner. They argued, however, that the defensive culture remained and suggested there should be a greater focus on patient safety and learning from mistakes. John McQuater, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, said that NHS Resolution’s denials and delays meant that injured patients had to turn to lawyers to find answers. He said that earlier investigation into patient safety incidents and earlier admissions of liability by NHS trusts would speed up the system, cutting costs and human misery. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 28 July 2022
  8. News Article
    The NHS has broken its “fundamental promise” to the public that life-saving emergency care will be available when they need it, a top NHS doctor has said, as ambulances continue to lose tens of thousands of hours waiting outside hospitals. Katherine Henderson, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said that what she described as the fundamental promise of the NHS to provide an ambulance in a real emergency has been “broken”. Her comments come as the West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) University NHS Trust predicted it would lose 48,000 ambulance hours waiting outside A&E departments in July. This would make it the worst month on record. In papers published on Thursday, WMAS said the impact of handover delays means that patients are waiting longer than needed for an emergency response, including patients in category one, which includes those needing immediate life-saving care. It added: “This means that patients who are immediately time-critical medical emergencies do not get the response they need and may suffer significant harm or death.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 26 July 2022
  9. News Article
    Maternity failings continue to account for the majority of billions of pounds spent by the NHS on clinical negligence claims, as an NHS body warns of the “devastating” consequences of poor care. Two-thirds of the £13bn spent by the NHS in 2021-21 in respect of negligence claims was related to maternity care, according to new data. A report released by NHS Resolution said it was “a stark reminder that although the NHS remains one of the safest healthcare systems in the world within which to give birth, avoidable errors within maternity can have devastating consequences for the child, mother and wider family, as well as the NHS staff involved.” According to the figures, 1,243 maternity-related negligence claims were reported to the NHS in 2021-22, up from 1,571 in the previous year. The data also shows that 200 claims relating to cerebral palsy or brain damage were received in 2021-22 – a decrease from the previous year, in which there were 250. The organisation said that the growth in obstetrics claims over the past three years was due to trusts reporting cases of cerebral palsy and brain damage earlier through its early notification scheme, which was launched in 2017. Read full story Source: The Independent, 24 July 2022
  10. News Article
    A nurse who recorded she had given medication to care home residents when in fact she had delegated the task to unqualified staff has been struck off. Adelaide Maloane was working a night shift at Somerleigh Court in Dorchester, Dorset, in August 2019 when the incident took place. Ms Maloane delegated giving 16 medicines to residents to an unqualified healthcare assistant at the home. The Nursing and Midwifery Council said Ms Maloane had "failed to acknowledge the seriousness of her misconduct and dishonesty and the implications of her actions for residents, colleagues and the reputation of the nursing profession". Read full story Source: BBC News, 21 July 2022
  11. News Article
    A new patient medical records system at a Spokane Veterans Affairs hospital in the US has caused nearly 150 cases of patient harm, according to a federal watchdog agency. An inspection by the VA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that a new Cerner electronic health record (EHR) system, now owned by Oracle, failed to deliver more than 11,000 orders for specialty care, lab work and other services at Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center, the first VA facility to roll out the new technology. The OIG review found that the new EHR sent thousands of orders for medical care to an undetectable location, or unknown queue, instead of the intended care or service location, effectively causing the orders to disappear without letting clinicians know they weren't delivered. The intent of the unknown queue is to capture orders entered by providers that the new EHR cannot deliver to the intended location because the orders were not recognized as a “match” by the system, according to the VA watchdog. From facility go-live in October 2020 through June 2021, the new EHR failed to deliver more than 11,000 orders for requested clinical services. Those lost orders, often called referrals, resulted in delayed care and what a VA patient safety team classified as dozens of cases of "moderate harm" and one case of "major harm." The clinical reviewers conducted 1,286 facility event assessments and identified and classified 149 adverse events for patients. Read full story Source: Fierce Healthcare, 20 July 2022
  12. News Article
    Patients are at risk of a missed cancer diagnosis due to a reliance on paper records, an NHS trust has admitted after a man died due to his tumour being overlooked. Michael Lane, 50, from Shrewsbury, was “failed” by Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust, his family has said after his cancer scan result was misplaced leaving him with a growing kidney tumour for 10 years. The trust is yet to fully launch an electronic record system a year after an investigation into Mr Lane’s death warned other patients were at risk due to the gap in paper records. Mr Lane went into Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital for a scan following a referral for suspected cancer in 2011. The radiographer flagged a small tumour but the scan was overlooked, placed within his paper records and never reported as being a concern. In an investigation report carried out by the trust in May 2021, seen by The Independent, the hospital admitted that had his tumour been seen and operated on earlier he may have survived. The report also admitted there were ongoing risks within the trust due to gaps in its electronic records system. It said: “The implementation of an IT solution will not prevent sad cases such as that of Mr Lane where the scan report that was missed took place before the widespread availability of such systems, however, it is clear that until we have an electronic requesting and sign-off system we remain at risk of new cases of missed results and harm occurring as a result of the ongoing reliance of paper-based results.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 17 July 2022
  13. News Article
    Serious incidents causing patient harm have increased steeply compared to previous years at an ambulance service whose nursing director still expects will “fail” next month under mounting service pressures. There were 98 patient harm incidents at West Midlands Ambulance Service in June, official data obtained by HSJ suggests, up from 49 in the same month last year. The figures show that from April-June this year, 262 harm incidents have been logged – a 240% on 77 in the same period in 2019 and a 71% on 153 last year. Nursing director Mark Docherty, who previously warned the service was facing a “Titanic moment” and would “all fail” around a specific date of 17 August, said much of the increase can be attributed to worsening hospital handover delays. More than 700 people at one time waited for ambulances “that were not going to turn up” on Monday, according to Mr Docherty, who described the situation as a “really dangerous place to be”. Mr Docherty explained how the harm incidents, including deaths, resulted from growing delays: ”You can’t underplay the risk. If you’ve got 750 patients like we did on Monday waiting, none of those patients have been assessed. “Sadly, amongst them there will have been patients with stroke who won’t be treated because they’ve waited too long." Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 15 July 2022
  14. News Article
    The NHS have duped thousands of women into believing the most common incontinence mesh operation is safe, by not adding loss of sex life into its risk figures, campaigners say. The move keeps figures low so surgeons can reassure women that it is a safe day case operation. The discovery is buried in a report from five years ago, and when questioned on it, the MHRA, tasked with making sure implants are safe for patients, passed the buck and blamed the report authors. The revelation comes after a debate in Westminster, where health minister Jackie Doyle Price said there was not enough evidence to suspend the plastic implants and quoted a risk of 1-3%. However, those figures were blown out of the water just weeks before the debate in a landmark study using the NHS’s own hospital re-admission figures which show TVT mesh tape risk is at least 10%. Campaigners say even that is not a reflection of the true scale of the mesh disaster because it does not take into account women going to doctors for pain medication or those suffering in silence. Read full story Source: Cambs Times, 31 October 201t
  15. News Article
    Ambulance services are under intense pressure, with record numbers of callouts and the most urgent, category-one, calls last month. BBC Two's Newsnight programme spent from 08:00 to 20:00 on Monday at six hospitals with the longest delays handing patients over from paramedics to accident and emergency staff. This should take 15 minutes or less - but crews often wait many hours and sometimes whole 12-hour shifts, with ambulances queuing outside unable to respond to other emergency calls. At Royal Cornwall, 25 ambulances were queuing by the afternoon, three for at least 10-and-a-half hours, at Derriford, in Plymouth, 20 were queuing up to 11 hours in an overflow car park and the longest wait at Heartlands was more than five hours. "We're right on the fringe of collapse right now," a paramedic who has worked in emergency care for more than a decade said. "People are phoning and being told that they're not going to get an ambulance for six or nine hours. And that's happening routinely - that is happening pretty much every shift." "It would be wrong to say that there are times when I haven't shed a tear... for the people we haven't been able to help because it's been too late," the paramedic said. "They may have died anyway but there are definitely cases that I've been to where we should have been to them sooner and less harm would have come to them." Read full story Source: BBC News, 15 July 2022
  16. News Article
    A jury ordered Becton, Dickinson and Co to pay $255,000 to a man who sued the company, alleging he had been injured by its hernia repair surgical mesh, according to a court filing. The verdict in Columbus, Ohio federal court comes in the second bellwether trial in a multidistrict litigation over the company's hernia mesh products, which were sold by C.R. Bard Inc before its 2017 acquisition by Becton Dickinson. The first bellwether trial last year ended with a verdict in favour of the company. More than 16,000 cases have been consolidated before Chief U.S. District Judge Edmund Sargus in Columbus, in the third-largest pending MDL nationwide. Plaintiffs claim that the mesh products caused infections, pain, inflammation and other problems. The verdict came in a case brought by Antonio Milanesi, who had Bard's Ventralex mesh implanted during a hernia repair in 2007, and his wife, Alicia Morz De Milanesi. They claimed that Milanesi developed an infection and bowel abscess because of the mesh, requiring a second surgery in 2017. Like other plaintiffs in the MDL, the Milanesis say the mesh products are defectively designed because their polypropylene material degrades when in implanted in human tissue. Read full story Source: Reuters, 16 April 2022
  17. News Article
    Physicians must continue to offer abortions in cases of medical emergencies without exception, Joe Biden’s administration said on Monday, as it insisted federal law would overrule any total state bans on abortion. In a letter to healthcare providers, the president’s health and human services secretary, Xavier Becerra, said the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) protects providers from any purported state restrictions should they be required to perform emergency abortions. “Under the law, no matter where you live, women have the right to emergency care – including abortion care,” Becerra said. “Today, in no uncertain terms, we are reinforcing that we expect providers to continue offering these services, and that federal law preempts state abortion bans when needed for emergency care.” Becerra said medical emergencies include ectopic pregnancies, complications arising from miscarriages, and pre-eclampsia, NBC News reported. Becerra said in his letter to medical providers: “If a physician believes that a pregnant patient presenting at an emergency department, including certain labor and delivery departments, is experiencing an emergency medical condition as defined by EMTALA, and that abortion is the stabilizing treatment necessary to resolve that condition, the physician must provide that treatment. “And when a state law prohibits abortion and does not include an exception for the life and health of the pregnant person – or draws the exception more narrowly than EMTALA’s emergency medical condition definition – that state law is preempted.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 12 July 2022
  18. News Article
    More than one fifth of complaints about Irish hospitals were deemed ‘high severity' including one from a person who claimed their mother should not have died and another who alleged a patient was turned away from an A&E even though she was at risk of self-harming. An analysis of 641 complaints about HSE hospitals between October and December 2019 by NUI Galway and the HSE separated them into high severity (22%), medium severity (56%) and low severity (also 22%). Among those complaints highlighted as potentially linked to ‘catastrophic harm’ was this: “My mother would still be alive if this had not happened." However the largest number were about hospital systems at 392 — including complaints about waiting lists. “I was left on a waiting list for surgery for years,” at least one person wrote. The analysis also found 322 complaints centred around patients’ arrival into hospitals including emergency departments (ED). “She was turned away instead of admitted even though she was at risk of self-harming,” one person wrote. Some 92 complaints related to staff not listening to patients, including new parents who said: "While our newborn son was on the ward they took too long to notice his difficulty breathing and transfer him to the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit)." Read full story Source: Irish Examiner, 11 July 2022
  19. News Article
    The Scottish government has signed a contract to allow NHS patients to visit a US expert for mesh removal surgery. Patients can book appointments with Dr Dionysios Veronikis in Missouri with their travel and accommodation costs paid for by the NHS. The cost of each procedure is estimated to be £16,000 to £23,000. Transvaginal implant use was stopped in Scotland after hundreds of women were left with painful, life-changing side effects. NHS National Services Scotland said it would work with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and local health boards to take forward arrangements for those who wish to travel to the US for the procedure. Health Secretary Humza Yousaf said: "I fully understand that women want mesh removal surgery undertaken by surgeons who enjoy their full confidence and a range of measures are now in place to ensure this happens. "I am determined to ensure that those with mesh complications get the treatment they want and need." Read full story Source: BBC News, 12 July 2022
  20. News Article
    Health Minister Robin Swann has announced plans to improve the review process for serious adverse incidents (SAI) in Northern Ireland's health and social care system. The reviews take place after unintended incidents of harm and ensure improvements are made. The Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) was commissioned to examine the system's effectiveness. It found the process was not "sufficiently robust". In the RQIA report, the independent body found that "neither the SAI review process nor its implementation is sufficiently robust to consistently enable an understanding of what factors, both systems and people, have led to a patient or service user coming to harm". It added: "The reality is that similar situations, where events leading to harm have been inadequately investigated and examples of recognised good practice have not been followed, have been and are likely to be repeated in current practice." It identified failures in the SAI procedure, including failures to: Answer patient and family questions. Determine where safety breaches have occurred. Achieve a systemic understanding of those safety breaches. Design recommendations and action plans to reduce the opportunity for the same or similar safety breaches in future. Read full story Source: BBC News, 7 July 2022
  21. News Article
    Louisiana is fighting to become a leader in the race to criminalise doctors who allegedly provide abortions, since the US supreme court ended federal abortion protections. In doing so, the state may also become an example of how abortion bans could worsen maternal health in America, as criminal penalties across the US redefine where and how doctors are willing to practice. In turn, that is likely to worsen a leading reason some states are more dangerous places to give birth – lack of hospitals, birthing centres and obstetricians. “It should be no surprise that in a lot of the states where there’s a [trigger ban], there’s a strong correlation [with maternity care deserts],” said Stacey Stewart, president and chief executive of the March of Dimes, an organization that advocates for maternal and infant health and is strictly neutral on abortion. Many of the same states hostile to abortion have also pursued intersecting policies that can worsen health overall for residents, such as refusal to expand a public health health insurance program for the poor, called Medicaid. Now, the severe criminal penalties and extraordinary civil liability doctors are exposed to under such anti-abortion statutes could become fundamental to how and where healthcare providers decide to practice. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 8 July 2022
  22. News Article
    There are plans for a major overhaul of how people are rescued from car wrecks amid growing evidence that current methods where people wait to be cut free may be harmful. Last year there were 127,967 casualties and 1,560 deaths in England caused by motor vehicle collisions. During the same period, more than 7,000 patients needed to helped out of the vehicle through a process known as extrication, where rescue crews use “Jaws of Life” and other tools to pry apart the wreckage, and then carefully lift people out. “Since at least the 1980s, firefighters have been trained with movement minimisation as the absolute paradigm,” said Dr Tim Nutbeam, an NHS emergency medicine consultant, and medical lead for the Devon air ambulance. “They’ve been told that one millimetre of movement could turn someone into a wheelchair user, so will often disassemble the car around the patient, to avoid movement of the neck.” Yet, doing so takes time – 30 minutes on average – and if that person has another serious injury, such as a head, chest, or abdominal injury, every minute counts. Nutbeam began researching the issue and discovered that trapped patients were almost twice as likely to die as those who were rapidly freed from the wreckage. Further, that the prevalence of spinal injuries among such patients was, in fact, extremely low – just 0.7% – and in around half of these cases, they had other serious injuries needing urgent medical attention. “Our absolute focus on movement minimisation works for maybe 0.3% of patients, but it extends the entrapment time for 99.7% of them,” Nutbeam said. “Potentially hundreds of people in this country have died as a result of extended entrapment times, and if you multiply that worldwide, it’s many, many people.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 6 July 2022
  23. News Article
    Thalidomide survivors living in Scotland will receive lifelong financial support, the Scottish government has announced. Health Secretary Humza Yousaf said he hoped the commitment to provide grants would reassure those affected. There are 50 known survivors of the banned pregnancy drug living in Scotland, most now in their 60s. They are among thousands born with limb deformities after their mothers took thalidomide while pregnant. The drug was commonly used to treat morning sickness from 1958 to 1961. In 2013 the Scottish government committed £14.2m to help survivors over a 10-year period, with the money going on health and living costs. Ministers have now extended that agreement, with grants to be allocated to survivors on a needs basis, as assessed by the Thalidomide Trust. Mr Yousaf said: "This funding is used to give thalidomide survivors as much assistance as they need to maintain their independence. It has been a vital support in helping people adapt their homes and manage their pain. "I hope this lifelong commitment to continue this support will reassure recipients and help them deal with any challenges they face." Read full story Source: BBC News, 4 July 2022
  24. News Article
    Women who underwent damaging surgery in Irish hospitals have accused health authorities of dragging them into a "nightmare" of "gaslighting, ignorance and disrespect". Having had vaginal mesh implants, the women told an Oireachtas committee that they were "maimed" and then led on "a fool's errand" when they sought support from the HSE. The Health Committee heard from members of Mesh Ireland and Mesh Survivors Ireland who represent around 750 women. While the HSE said that it would be "extremely difficult" to provide accurate figures, it estimates that around 10,000 women had this surgery in Ireland. More than one in ten have suffered complications, Dr Cliona Murphy, Clinical Lead for the National Women and Infants Health Programme, revealed. Mary McLaughlin, Mesh Ireland, said that at one point, "I lay in bed 16 hours a day", because of the pain she was in. She demanded dignity and respect for survivors in the face of this "global scandal". The women are calling for access to a US-based expert in complete mesh removal, to mirror schemes in Scotland and the Canadian state of Quebec. Read full story Source: RTE, 29 March 2022
  25. News Article
    Women continue to file vaginal mesh lawsuits against Boston Scientific and other manufacturers, years after most products were removed from the market due to an alarming number of complications and health risks associated with the designs. In a complaint (PDF) filed last month in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Tanya Davis indicates that problems with Boston Scientific Obtryx II mesh placed in her body only four years ago has left her with severe injuries, including pelvic pain and dyspareunia, abdominal pain, urinary problems, prolapse and incontinence. The lawsuit names Boston Scientific Corporation as the defendant. Transvaginal mesh products like the Obtryx II have been marketed and sold by Boston Scientific Corporation and a number of different companies over the past decade, for treatment of pelvic organ prolapse or female stress urinary incontinence. Most of the products were introduced under a controversial FDA “fast track” approval process, which allowed manufacturers to introduce new products based on the design of prior mesh, without conducting thorough research to evaluate the safety or effectiveness of the specific designs. Following widespread reports of vaginal mesh complications, including infections, erosion of the mesh into the vagina and organ perforation, the FDA required manufacturers to conduct post-marketing research and most companies decided to withdraw their products. According to the lawsuit, Davis received an Obtryx II System in May 2018, to treat her urinary incontinence. However, after experiencing painful and debilitating complications, Davis had vaginal mesh explanted in May 2020; just two years after it was implanted. “Neither Plaintiff nor her physicians and/or healthcare providers were warned that the Obtryx II was unreasonable dangerous or of the risks of the product, outlined herein, even when used exactly as intended and instructed by Defendant,” the lawsuit indicates. “To the contrary, Defendant promoted and sold the type of product implanted in the Plaintiff and thousands of women like Plaintiff, to healthcare providers as a safe alternative to other procedures that did incorporate Defendant’s products.” Read full story Source: About Lawsuits, 10 May 2022
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