Tens Of Thousands Of Fat Patients Dying In Hospitals
SCARE story of the day is that half a million patients are starving on hosptial wards. How many of those are fat – because this Government hates the fat? As for the news we are told, the Sun screams:
50,000 DIE STARVING ON WARDS EACH YEAR
The Tories call it “horrific”. A report finds that 2,656 patients had died as “a direct result of malnutrition” in the past 10 years.
The report’s authors call it the “tip of the iceberg”. So the facts are:
Stephen O’Brien [shaldow health minsiter] said figures obtained by his party showed the number of patients discharged in a state of malnourishment increased by 18 per cent last year, compared to the previous highest year-on-year increase (the year before) of 13 per cent. Nearly 30,000 more people were discharged from hospital with malnutrition than in the previous year, he said.
Since Labour came to power in 1997/98, the number of people discharged from hospital in a malnourished state had gone up by 146 per cent, O’Brien added, and in 2008/09 a record 10,443 patients were more malnourished leaving hospital than they had been when they went in.
So that’s half a million each year, then.
Such are the facts. But the Sun does not name the reports authors, who are the Nutrition Action Plan Delivery Board. And their main aim is to:
To raise awareness of the link between nutrition and good health and that malnutrition can be prevented.
Job done – albeit without the facts. In other news:
Staff at a London hospital have been warned not to send obese patients to its first floor waiting room amid fears the building will not take their weight.
Patients at Ealing Hospital who weigh 30 stone or more are instead being fast-tracked to ground floor wards because management are worried they are too heavy for the admissions ward upstairs.
Give them water…
Posted: 26th, February 2010 | In: Reviews Comments (3) | TrackBack | Permalink
