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.Chaos kills 'up to
1,200' in one hospital
Shock ... Stafford Hospital
myViewBy EMMA MORTON
Health Editor
CALCULATING managers obsessed with saving cash and hitting Government targets have brought shame upon the NHS once again.
Doctors and nurses repeatedly warned this strategy would kill. But they were ignored as bosses tried to claw their way out of debt.
Shockingly, the Trust was rewarded with Foundation status — ranking it as one of Britain’s best.
In an unprecedented move, Health Secretary Alan Johnson stepped in to order another probe.
Mr Johnson has done much to bring failing Trusts to book and invested millions in healthcare staff rather than managers.
Now he must ensure that the execs behind this horror pay for their deadly mistakes.
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By JANE SYMONS
Deputy Health Editor
Published: Today
UP TO 1,200 patients have died because of “appalling” standards at a hospital, a watchdog said yesterday.
Filthy wards, staff shortages and managers obsessed with targets led to the massive toll.
One man waited in A&E with a broken elbow tearing through his skin for more than four hours with no pain relief at Stafford Hospital.
Another waited for the same amount of time with severe abdominal pains — and died of a ruptured aneurysm before he was admitted.
Several patients were given penicillin despite being allergic to it.
Horrified ... Julie set up group after mum Bella died
Excrement was left on the floor for days and toilets were caked in blood.
Visiting relatives said they saw a cleaner use a cloth to wipe up faeces, then use the same cloth to clean their mother’s table and a drip.
One doctor was told to leave a heart attack patient to treat non-emergencies so the hospital would meet the target four-hour A&E wait.
Other A&E patients were moved after four hours to a “clinical decisions unit” — which often had no staff.
Full salary ... Martin Yeates
At times receptionists with no training were left to make decisions. Police are investigating one incident where a diabetic patient was not given insulin.
Filthy wards saw C.diff infections rise in late 2005 and early 2006 — but there was no mention of C.diff in board meetings.
One patient described his ward as “nothing more than a laboratory for C.diff and MRSA cultures.”
The Healthcare Commission said around 400 people may have died unnecessarily — but the toll could be 1,200.
Resuscitation trolleys ... drugs were out of date
Chairman Sir Ian Kennedy said: “There is no doubt that patients will have suffered and some of them will have died as a result.”
The Commission launched the probe in March last year after checks showed a high death rate. Mid Staffordshire Trust got Foundation status a month earlier as a mark of its “excellence”.
Investigators ruled there were failings at “virtually every stage” in emergency treatment.
Julie Bailey, 47, of Stafford, was so horrified she set up campaign group Cure the NHS after mum Bella, 86, died at the hospital.
She said: “What we saw will haunt us forever. Patients were drinking from flower vases, they were so thirsty. They were screaming because you could not get pain relief.”
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Chief exec Martin Yeates has been suspended on full pay of more than £150,000.
Yesterday new boss Eric Morton said reforms were now in place.
Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of the NHS, said there had been a “gross and terrible breach of trust”.
Health Secretary Alan Johnson blasted the “totally unacceptable failure”. He ordered independent probes into deaths if families demand them.
Katherine Murphy, of the Patients’ Association, said: “Money and greed have taken priority over patients’ lives.”
Dr Peter Carter, of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “Mid-Staffs were 120 nurses short of the number needed to provide a high standard of care because the Trust board were trying to save £10million.”
Horror list
AMONG the horrors revealed in the 170-page report were:
NURSES did not know how to work heart monitors— so they switched them off.
Slated ... equipment at Stafford Hospital
RESUSCITATION trolleys had drugs that were wrong or out-of-date.
A PATIENT in A&E with severe abdominal pain wasn’t seen by a surgical officer for four hours and died from a ruptured aneurysm.
SUPERBUGS were rife — with lethal C.diff soaring in 2005 to 2006. But it was never mentioned in board meetings.
EXCREMENT trodden into the floor on wards and left for days, with patients complaining toilets were covered in blood and urine.
Lethal ... C.diff
MEDICS gave heart-slowing drug lignocaine to a patient being resuscitated.
INFUSION pumps — the only two working in A&E — were found in a linen cupboard.
PAIN relief was not given to a patient with a smashed elbow poking through his skin, who waited in A&E for more than four hours.
POLICE are investigating one incident where a diabetic was not given insulin at the hospital.
MANY vital intravenous drips were also found to be faulty..
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