Off His Trolley

Here's a post from the blog site archive which shows that the top banana at the RCN, Dr Peter Carter, is off his trolley when he says that staff shortages are to blame for all the mistakes and errors in the NHS.

Now 25 years ago that wasn't the case and if you ask me, it's a load of old baloney in 2014 as well.

Off Your Trolley (16 February 2014)

Many years ago I worked at Stobhill Hospital in Glasgow - in the operating theatres.

One day a woman came in for a routine gynaecological operation - but came back out of the operating theatre with a broken nose and two black eyes - would you believe.

She was the victim of an unfortunate, but entirely preventable accident - caused by the canvas stretcher giving way as she was lifted from the operating table - on to a patient trolley.

At worst the patient should have just fallen a few inches on to the trolley - in which case she wouldn't have been injured at all.

But for some reason the trolley was not up against the operating theatre table - as it should have been.

So the poor woman fell through a gap - which shouldn't have been there - and landed right on her head on the hard floor.

I recalled this event when I was reading something recently about negligence claims against the NHS - someone was making a foolish point about 'ambulance chasing' lawyers costing the NHS money.

Now I don't approve of people taking up injury claims when nothing has really happened to them - car whiplash claims being a prime example

But the vast majority of cases against the NHS are because someone has suffered harm - due to the negligence of another person - normally an NHS member of staff.

I remember the incident involving the woman with the broken nose really well - it was a really big scandal at the time - and all the staff were warned not to say anything.

But I went along to the ward and spoke to the family - because they had not been told the truth - in fact they were told a load of baloney - about something falling inadvertently on her face.

I was the NUPE union rep and the time and I saw no reason to be afraid - or join a conspiracy to keep this patient and her family in the dark. 

So I stood up and said so - which caused a big stink at the time with the hospital management - who were all for brushing the incident under the carpet.

Quite how they planned to do that - I could never understand.

Because how could anyone explain - sensibly at least - the reasons for a routine gynaecological operation resulting in the patient waking up - with a broken nose and two black eyes.

I offered to act as witness - if the woman needed one.

But of course the hospital settled the whole affair out of court - as they were bound to do because the patient was injured through no fault of her own.

Needless to say the proper safety procedures were followed more closely after that - trolleys were kept up against the operating table with their breaks on - and the canvas stretchers were carefully checked for tears and holes.

Which is what should have happened in the first place - in which case no one would have been injured - and the NHS would have saved itself money.