Electrical problem triggers global safety alert on 2,000 Philips machines
Two thousand ventilators being used in UK hospitals are at risk of suddenly shutting down due to electrical faults that have led to a global safety alert.
Hospitals have been ordered to source replacement ventilators after Philips Respironics said its breathing support devices could suddenly stop working, in some cases without activating a warning alarm.
Continue reading...Watchdog expresses concern over safety of mothers and babies days after damning Shrewsbury report
Hospital inspectors have uncovered repeated maternity failings and expressed serious concern about the safety of mothers and babies in Sheffield just days after a damning report warned there had been hundreds of avoidable baby deaths in Shrewsbury.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) found Sheffield teaching hospitals NHS foundation trust, one of the largest NHS trusts in England, had failed to make the required improvements to services when it visited in October and November, despite receiving previous warnings from the watchdog.
Continue reading...Five-year investigation to conclude mothers forced to suffer traumatic births because of targets for ‘normal’ births
Three hundred babies died or were left brain-damaged due to inadequate care at an NHS trust, according to reports.
The Sunday Times has reported that a five-year investigation will conclude next week that mothers were denied caesarean sections and forced to suffer traumatic births due to an alleged preoccupation with hitting “normal” birth targets.
The inquiry, which analysed the experiences of 1,500 families at Shrewsbury and Telford hospital trust between 2000 and 2019, found that at least 12 mothers died while giving birth, and some families lost more than one child in separate incidents, the newspaper reported.
Donna Ockenden, an expert midwife who led the inquiry with the input of more than 90 midwives and doctors, said her team had been “shocked and saddened” by the scale of the tragedy.
The Ockenden report is expected to reveal that hundreds of babies were stillborn, died shortly after birth or were left permanently brain-damaged while many had fractured skulls or broken bones, or were left with life-changing disabilities.
Continue reading...Hospitals in southern England worst affected, with Devon recording highest ever numbers of Covid patients
Rising numbers of people entering hospital with Covid are leading to other patients becoming infected, staff absences, delayed operations and long waits in emergency departments, experts have said.
In recent weeks, Covid infection levels have been rising in the UK and hospitalisations are also increasing.
Continue reading...The state’s two publicly funded home-birth programs are suspended, with some expectant mothers not told until weeks before due dates
Expectant mothers are having planned home births cancelled within weeks of their due dates, with Victoria’s ambulance crisis putting intense strain on the state’s maternity services.
Victoria has just two publicly funded home-birth programs at Sunshine and Casey hospitals – both of which are now temporarily suspended. Assisted home births require ambulances to be available in case of any complications during the procedure.
Continue reading...Downdraft toppled 87-year-old on footpath near Derriford hospital helipad and injured one other woman
An 87-year-old woman has died after being blown over by a helicopter landing at a hospital, police have confirmed.
Devon and Cornwall police said two people were thought to have been injured as the helicopter landed at a helipad at Derriford hospital in Plymouth on Friday.
Continue reading...Ambika Mod, who plays stressed junior doctor, reacts to criticism that BBC drama disrespects women
It is the TV drama that has divided its viewers. Hailed by some as a brutally accurate depiction of the realities of working in an NHS maternity unit, This Is Going to Hurt has been denounced by others as misogynistic and insulting to women giving birth.
Now the actor who plays an exhausted and stressed female junior doctor in the show has rejected criticism of the BBC series set on an NHS obstetrics and gynaecology ward.
Continue reading...Two years of the pandemic have meant drops in essential screening and detection, while cancer patients undergo treatments alone and isolate to avoid Covid risks
When Claire Simpson turned 50 in early 2020, she received a letter telling her to get a mammogram. Then the pandemic hit, and Victoria went into lockdown.
“Like many people, I put it off until we were coming out of that lockdown, but by then it was September and I couldn’t get an appointment until December,” she says.
Continue reading...My drinking and drug use pushed me over the edge into a complete breakdown. Then a stint in rehab made me question how much we really understand about addiction
I’m lying in bed when I hear the commotion. I peer through the doorway of my room, and right outside, the new guy is getting in Ruiz’s face. There’s a phone right outside the door, one of those sturdy metal payphones like one you’d see on a street corner, and Ruiz, a gentle older man with shoulders stooped by the demoralisation of his nth relapse and hospitalisation, is just trying to talk to his family. But the new guy has been manic and pacing since he arrived a few hours ago, and he won’t take no for an answer.
I watch the new guy stalk the other way across the doorway, muttering to himself, menacing even in retreat. Then a warning shout echoes from much too far in the distance, and he appears once again – flying, near horizontal – to tackle Ruiz, dragging him off the phone.
Continue reading...Minister says lower severity of Omicron variant ‘opens the window for us to look at it’
Downing Street appears likely to drop its policy of dismissing frontline NHS and care staff in England who refuse Covid vaccinations, a minister has strongly indicated, after nursing and care organisations called for this to happen.
A decision would be made “in the course of the next few days”, according to Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury. He said the lower severity of the Omicron variant of Covid did “open a space” for the policy to be reversed.
Continue reading...Students and teachers in NSW will be required to take rapid Covid tests twice a week when school resumes; Victoria mandates third vaccine dose for teachers and staff, masks for year three and above; NSW records 34 Covid deaths, Victoria 14 and Queensland 10; ACT reports 694 cases and no deaths, SA 2,062 cases. Follow live
A search and rescue operation will resume for a fisherman missing since the early hours of Saturday after he was thrown from a boat along with another man and a dog on Sydney’s North Harbour, AAP reports.
The men, aged 25 and 49, launched their 3.5-metre runabout from Northbridge about 9pm on Friday before running into rough seas and capsizing about 3am on Saturday.
Continue reading...When the writer retrained in medicine, she never imagined she’d be working through a pandemic. She describes how she has coped with the everyday tragedy by putting her experience into words
In February 2020, when the novelist and doctor Roopa Farooki first sat down to write her latest book, coronavirus was “something that was kind of buzzing around” in the background. “Those of us going to work every day in a hospital, we weren’t really aware of it; we were just blindly doing our job, day by day, patient by patient. Knowing there was this thing happening, but it was insidious. There was a clue here or there, but we weren’t absolutely sure how far it would affect us, or how far it would change us.”
Farooki’s sister Kiron had just died of breast cancer. Kiron was 48, a solicitor and a mother. She had previously been unwell, but the cancer had gone into remission. “We thought she had beaten this thing,” says Farooki. Her sister was straight-talking, fierce in her love, prone to doling out advice whether Farooki wanted to hear it or not. “She was super-amazing at everything she did.” To process it all, Farooki did what she has done since she was a little girl: she wrote about it. “Before she passed away, she saw that I was thinking about her and writing about it. She wasn’t angry about it. But you always worry when you write about someone that you’re twisting yourself into someone else’s tragedy.”
Continue reading...Support, which includes 40 army doctors, shows ministers can no longer ignore scale of understaffing, union leaders say
The armed forces are being deployed to help hospitals in London deal with a surge in Covid patients because the Omicron variant is leaving so many staff sick and unable to work.
Of the 200 military personnel involved, 40 are doctors who will help NHS staff look after patients. The other 160 personnel, who have no medical training, will check in patients, ensure stocks are maintained and would also be “conducting basic checks”, the Ministry of Defence said.
Continue reading...A hospital doctor in Yorkshire explains how Omicron is testing northern hospitals’ resources, with staff juggling beds to control infection and dealing with a huge influx of patients
“Hospitals in the north of England are incredibly busy now, in particular because of Omicron. At the hospital where I work we’ve gone from 26 Covid inpatients on Boxing Day to 104 now.
Unlike previous waves of Covid, only four people are being cared for in ICU, whereas in previous waves we were maxed out at 20 people in ICU. That’s good from the patients’ point of view. But it does stress the rest of the system, including the bit of the system I work in – acute medicine.
Continue reading...At least six trusts in have issued alerts as fears grow vital care will be compromised by workforce absence
Multiple NHS trusts across England have declared “critical incidents” amid soaring staff absences caused by Covid-19, with health leaders saying many parts of the service are now “in a state of crisis”.
Boris Johnson on Monday ruled out the introduction of new curbs “for now” but said he recognised that the pressure on the NHS and its hospitals, was “going to be considerable in the course of the next couple of weeks, and maybe more”.
Continue reading...PM rejects claim relative lack of restrictions in England is a gamble but says it would be ‘absolute folly’ to believe threat has passed
The NHS will face significant pressure in the coming weeks from the nationwide spread of the Omicron variant, Boris Johnson has said, while rejecting the idea that England’s relatively limited Covid restrictions amounted to a gamble.
Speaking to reporters on a visit to Buckinghamshire, the prime minister also had strong words for Conservative MPs and others seeking a swift relaxation of the rules, saying it would be “absolute folly” to believe the threat had passed.
Continue reading...Coroner will investigate if Kim Sampson, 29, and Samantha Mulcahy, 32, contracted virus from surgeon during C-sections
A coroner will investigate the deaths of two women from herpes following childbirth, amid fears they contracted the virus from their surgeon.
Kim Sampson, 29, and Samantha Mulcahy, 32, died weeks apart after their babies were delivered by caesarean section at different hospitals in Kent.
Continue reading...Official data also shows 98,515 cases on Monday, but experts say figures may not reflect true trends
Covid cases in England reached a new high of 113,628 on Christmas Day and 1,281 people were admitted to hospital – the highest daily figure since mid-February.
Official data on new Covid cases, which was delayed over the festive period, also showed 98,515 new confirmed cases reported in England on Monday. Data for Boxing Day from England and Wales combined revealed 108,893 daily cases reported.
Continue reading...Omicron cases are soaring, experts want curbs and Boris Johnson is dithering. Sound familiar?
That old adage of Marx insists that historical events occur first as tragedy, then as farce. The government’s handling of the pandemic in the UK long ago undermined that progression: tragedy and farce have, since the very beginning of the crisis, always been a double act.
The clashing tone of current events feels like a dispiriting festive repeat of all-too-familiar dramas. A week that began with the exposed scandal of Downing Street lockdown parties, and ended with chief civil servant Simon Case stepping down as investigator of those scandals, because of a party in his own office, was also yet another week in which the alarming progress of the virus outpaced government rhetoric and claimed another thousand lives.
Continue reading...Patients travelling long distances to find surgery cancelled as lack of anaesthetics shuts operating theatres in half of hospitals
Almost half of Malawi’s district hospitals have closed their operating theatres due to a dire shortage of anaesthetics.
Maternity care has been affected by a lack of drugs, said doctors. Surgery, including caesareans, has been cancelled and patients needing emergency care have been moved hundreds of miles around the country.
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