Older people are being “written off” by the NHS and unnecessarily sent to nursing homes. |
Older people are being “written off” by the NHS and unnecessarily sent to nursing homes where they receive health care that is “probably worse than in prison”, a leading government health adviser has admitted. Prof David Oliver, the Department of Health’s key adviser on the elderly, said that the NHS was “failing to do basic things for older people”. He warned there was “endemic evidence of discriminatory attitudes from [NHS] staff”, which was leading to older people “systematically” getting a worse deal in hospitals across England than younger patients. In evidence to a House of Lords Committee, Prof Oliver, the Department of Health’s clinical director for older people services, said that major change was needed. Hospitals had failed to adapt to cope with people living longer, and while the NHS had enjoyed “fantastic success” at treating killer diseases, it was “palpably failing” to treat and care for those with long-term conditions, he said. A Scottish Borders patient suffered seizures after being denied medication for five days because the ward had run out. In another NHS Borders case, a stillborn baby was wrongly recorded as being alive and the parents sent a first birthday card a year later by the Child Smile oral health initiative. The report said the error was “disturbing” for the family. NHS Ayrshire and Arran reported the diagnosis of a lung tumour was delayed until after it was no longer operable, though it was present in an earlier scan. Another case in the area saw doctors remove a healthy organ from a patient after a GP did not forward scan results. Alex Neil, the Health Minister, said boards should learn from “adverse events” to improve patient safety. (Read by Emily Cheng. Emily Cheng is a journalist at the China Daily Website.) (Agencies) |
英國(guó)政府一位健康顧問近日承認(rèn),英國(guó)國(guó)家醫(yī)療服務(wù)體系(NHS)已經(jīng)“拋棄了”老年人,毫無(wú)必要地把他們送到養(yǎng)老院,但老年人在養(yǎng)老院中所受到的醫(yī)療保健服務(wù)“可能比在監(jiān)獄還糟糕”。 英國(guó)衛(wèi)生部老年問題首席顧問、大衛(wèi)-奧利弗教授說,NHS“沒能保證對(duì)老年人的最基本服務(wù)”。 他提醒說,“有證據(jù)表明,某些地區(qū)的NHS工作人員對(duì)老年人存在歧視”,導(dǎo)致英格蘭地區(qū)的老年人比年輕病人在醫(yī)院的待遇“成體系地”差得多。 奧利弗教授也是英國(guó)衛(wèi)生部老年服務(wù)臨床主管。他還告訴英國(guó)上議院委員會(huì),需要采取措施改變這一狀況。 他說,醫(yī)院沒能進(jìn)行調(diào)整,應(yīng)對(duì)人口老齡化。盡管NHS在治療致命疾病方面取得了“巨大的成就”,但“明顯沒能”治療和照顧那些慢性病患者。 由于病房人滿為患,蘇格蘭鮑德斯醫(yī)院拒絕為一名癲癇病人進(jìn)行藥物治療長(zhǎng)達(dá)五天之久。 來看看NHS體系下鮑德斯醫(yī)院的另一個(gè)例子。一名死嬰錯(cuò)誤地被醫(yī)院登記為活著,孩子一歲生辰時(shí),“微笑幼兒”口腔健康機(jī)構(gòu)還給它的父母寄去了一張周歲生日卡片。報(bào)道稱,這一錯(cuò)誤給這個(gè)家庭帶來了困擾。 英國(guó)埃爾郡和阿倫島的NHS體系曾報(bào)告說,有位肺部腫瘤患者的診斷做出的太遲,以至于已無(wú)法進(jìn)行手術(shù),而在早期掃描中就已經(jīng)可以看出了。 在另一起案例中,由于一名普通開業(yè)醫(yī)生沒有轉(zhuǎn)寄掃描結(jié)果,導(dǎo)致醫(yī)生摘除了一位病人的健康器官。 英國(guó)衛(wèi)生大臣亞歷克斯-尼爾說,管理者應(yīng)從“不良事件”中吸取教訓(xùn),改善病人的安全問題。 相關(guān)閱讀 英國(guó)《衛(wèi)報(bào)》將縮減印刷版 進(jìn)軍數(shù)字領(lǐng)域 (中國(guó)日?qǐng)?bào)網(wǎng)英語(yǔ)點(diǎn)津 Julie 編輯:陳丹妮) |
Vocabulary: endemic: 某地特有的;(尤指疾病)地方性的;風(fēng)土的 forward: (按新地址)轉(zhuǎn)寄;發(fā)送 |