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View Full Version : Another Obamacare Horror Story From the UK



red states rule
12-10-2012, 04:09 AM
Here is another example of the great healthcare system the Brits have and a story that will NOT be reported by the Obama worshiping liberal media here in the US. I cannot begin to think what this poor women went through as she watched her husband die and the hospital did NOTHING
Ann Clwyd has said her biggest regret is that she didn't "stand in the hospital corridor and scream" in protest at the "almost callous lack of care" with which nurses treated her husband as he lay dying in the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.
Clwyd, the Labour MP for Cynon Valley since 1984 and Tony Blair's former human rights envoy to Iraq, told the Guardian she fears a "normalisation of cruelty" is now rife among NHS (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/nhs) nurses. She said she had chosen to speak out because this had become "commonplace".
Describing how her 6'2'' husband lay crushed "like a battery hen" against the bars of his hospital bed with an oxygen mask so small it cut into his face and pumped cold air into his infected eye, Clwyd said nurses treated the dying man with "coldness, resentment, indifference and even contempt".
Owen Roberts died on Tuesday, 23rd October from hospital-acquired pneumonia. The former television director and producer had multiple sclerosis for 30 years and had been in a wheelchair for the previous two years. He had been in the flagship hospital for ten days.
"I have had nightmares about what happened," said Clwyd, speaking to the Guardian after initially making the claims on BBC Radio 4's World at One (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qptc).
Clwyd said that on the Friday before Roberts died, she asked if he could have a bigger oxygen mask. "I was just ignored," she said. "I had to put my own Lypsyl on his lips because they became so chapped …by the cold air the mask pumped out and there were no nurses around. It was us, not the nurses, who put a pillow between him and the bars of the bed because the bed was too small and he was jammed so tightly against the bars.
"It was us again who covered him with a towel because he was cold and we couldn't get more than two thin blankets to cover him with. And it was us who put socks on his feet because they hung over the end of the too-short bed .
"I can't believe anybody calling themselves a nurse could fail to give someone who is very ill that kind of attention but it was completely missing," Clwyd added. Nobody should have to die in conditions like I saw my husband die in. I have tried in the past to get Bills through parliament on the welfare of battery hens. My husband died like a battery hen." http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/dec/04/ann-clwyd-husband-died-hen

red states rule
12-11-2012, 03:29 AM
I wonder what will be done to make sure this does not happen again
Here is a BBC report (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20643259), which includes Clwyd directly addressing Prime Minister David Cameron about the situation during a session of Parliament (skip to about 20 seconds):
Clwyd explained for the BBC that she was ill herself during her husband’s initial days in the hospital, and though she phoned every morning, was not able to be with him. Clwyd was repeatedly assured by the staff that everything was fine, however, and the nurses even told her they saw no reason why her husband shouldn’t be home shortly.
Needless to say, Clwyd was surprised when the hospital called to inform her that her aging husband had contracted pneumonia in the hospital. When she arrived, she said his cramped ward was so cold she had to cover her husband with towels since her requests for more blankets were unfulfilled. Roberts’ bare feet were reportedly hanging off the end of the bed. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/u-k-politician-gives-gut-wrenching-account-of-husbands-final-treatment-by-nhs-normalization-of-cruelty/