The Healthcare Commission report on maternity wards is covered by most newspapers today:
The lives of new mothers and their babies are being put at risk by poor care on maternity wards, the Government's health watchdog has said.The Healthcare Commission criticised a chronic shortage of midwives, poor training, bad management and dirty environments.
Other failings included staff not having time to explain what was happening to worried parents, overcrowding on wards, faulty equipment and a lack of information for bereaved families.
Britain has one of the highest infant mortality rates in Europe, at 5.3 deaths per 1,000 births. Only Poland and the Slovak Republic are worse. Deaths in pregnancy and childbirth have risen from 30 in 1999 to 45 in 2003.
In the commission's most strongly-worded warning since it was created two years ago, chairman Sir Ian Kennedy said maternity services were not as "good or safe as they should be".He added: "Our work has shown that there is too much poor practice that needs to be rooted out."
The above is from the Daily Mail article, the rest of which is here.
This story adds to the evidence that extra money is not curing the NHS of its ills. The NHS does not need more money. It is needs to be replaced with a different system.
The Mail today also carries a story on a Premalatha Jeevagan, who died of a massive internal haemorrhage after a Caesarian birth at the Northwick Park Hospital In Harrow. According to the Mail report, the locum did not diagnose the problem. No senior obstetrician was on duty. A consultant was contacted at home but did not come straight away. He eventually came and performed an emergency operation but the woman died. Ten women have died at the hospital in the past three years.
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in NHS
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....Deaths in pregnancy and childbirth have risen from 30 in 1999 to 45 in 2003.....
Thats an absolute scandal, why do we not see this on the front page of the Sun?
Posted by: EU Serf at July 21, 2005 03:59 PM