Thursday 26 February 2009

Don't Worry, If The NHS Don't Kill You, The Care Home Will


Alan "The Ninja" Johnson practising his moves in case any care home resident should sneak up on him.

The NHS are achieving government set targets in bringing down waiting lists and patient numbers by "accidentally" killing 40,000 patients a year. There are a few spectacular failures, of course, resulting in huge payouts to those who survived and more fees for m'learned friends, naturally.

C Diff, MRSA, incompetence, paramedic ambulance crews deciding who lives and who dies, doctors ignoring patient notes and prescribing medicines to which the patient is known to be allergic, the odd keen bugger like Doctor Shipman getting caught for over-enthusiasm, more money being spent than ever before, and a service which is anecdotally rubbish despite the fiddled statistics. Otherwise why would you have people pulling their teeth out with pliers?

However, the government are still worried about the number of old people living far too long and costing far too much in pensions and social care and medical costs, even after forcing them to sell their homes to pay for care (not in Scotland, I believe).

So they are not too worried that they preside over an inspection system to police old people's homes which makes Ofsted's work in Child Care look exemplary despite at least one child "in care" being murdered each and every week.

Southern Cross Healthcare is a good example. 37,000 vulnerable old people in it's clutches, turnover £889 million, valued at £1.1 billion. Just managed to get shot of 8 pesky old residents at one home by not having any central heating working over the coldest spell in 28 years. And as a bonus they saved a goodly few quid on the gas bill.

The Penguin

2 comments:

Trident said...

This is a national scandal, my own Grandmother was dropped whilst being bathed in a care home in Norwich by one care assistant (there should be two for lifting). She died shortly afterwards and the home attempted to placate us with the old chestnut "she was very ill, and probably did not have long". No recriminations when you kill those who have been hidden away to die?

Anonymous said...

Clearly the only reason why they put so much effort into bullying us to eat healthy is so we'll live into a state of decrepitude that allows them to take our homes of us so we don't leave the asset to our undeserving descendants and the thieving greedy bastard taxman gets it instead.