There is an extraordinary report in the
Daily Expresstoday. It starts off:
More than 60,000 hospital patients die unnecessarily every year from blood clots, a report warned yesterday.
The authority for this is apparently Dr Anders Cohen, "a leading authority on DVT and clots". He "insisted most of the deaths were avoidable". The use of the word 'most' makes me wonder whether he is making the more modest, but still astonishing, assertion that over 30,000 people die unnecessarily each year from DVT.
The Express report continues,
The Department of Health recognizes that about 20,000 patients a year die from hospital thrombosis. But the study is expected to show the real death toll is three times higher."If patients were given blood-thinning drugs before and after surgery, or during their stay in hospital, we wouldn't have such a large-scale loss of life," added Dr Cohen, a vascular surgeon.
"Everyone concentates their minds on travel DVT, but the real danger is much closer to home." Doctors have known for years that patients are at risk of clots in hospital because they are lying around in bed.
"Young, fit people are dying from clots in hospitals as well as those with known risk factors," said Dr Cohen, whose study will be published soon.
I have no doubt that there are indeed many unnecessary deaths from DVT in Britain. A close relative of mine had a major hip operation and was not, as far as I know, given any blood-thinning drugs either before or after the operation. Later, I noticed that her legs were swollen. I asked the doctor to visit. As I remember it was not, initially, easy to get the swollen legs taken seriously. I think it was only after I contacted the surgeon who had done the operation directly that the local doctor swung into action. It was then found that she did indeed have DVT. Treatment then swung into action quite fast and effectively.
The disturbing thing was that it did not seem to be part of the 'protocol' of dealing with patients who had had operations to watch out for DVT or try to prevent it occurring in the first place.
It would be good to know at what hospital Dr Cohen works and under what aegis his report will be published. If anyone knows, I would be grateful to hear.
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in NHS
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James:
I would exercise a little caution as to condemning the NHS outright on this subject. After some searching I think the report is from VITAE:
I cannot find any evidence of the report being published in a medical journal yet, if/when it does then one will be able to see the relative merits of NHS outcomes/prevention/treatment. Until then, caution might be advisable.
Posted by: Thersites at November 2, 2005 08:20 PM