Category Archives: Health
Men left in agony by surgical mesh implants
Mario Spacagna is eternally grateful for the surgery that removed his kidney tumour. But he fears he will pay the physical costs of his survival for the rest of his life as a result of a secondary operation following the successful cancer surgery. ‘I am in constant pain, day and night,’ explains the 75-year-old from […]
The great NHS cover‑up: opiate syringes may have killed thousands
Thousands of elderly patients may have died prematurely because of cheap, faulty syringe pumps in a scandal described as “one of the biggest cover-ups” in NHS history, The Sunday Times reveals today. A whistleblower on the government inquiry into hundreds of deaths at Gosport War Memorial Hospital, Hampshire, said decision makers on the panel had […]
Cheap, faulty and pumping death straight into the veins
In a police interview room in the market town of Fareham, near Portsmouth, two detective constables sat opposite Dr Jane Barton and turned on the tape. The date was April 6, 2006. Operation Rochester had begun. Barton had faced questions about her behaviour for years. Why did she prescribe toxic painkillers when her patients were […]
Nurse who took her own life, Anne Grigg-Booth, is another victim of Graseby syringe scandal, says son
A nurse who killed herself after being accused of murdering her patients was the innocent victim of the Graseby syringe scandal, her son said yesterday. Will Booth was 19 when his mother, Anne Grigg-Booth, took her own life, unable to cope with the trauma of being accused of killing at least three of her patients. […]
Gosport GP Jane Barton ‘responsible for hundreds of hospital deaths’
A retired GP will be found responsible this week for the deaths of hundreds of her patients, The Sunday Times understands. Dr Jane Barton, 69, is accused of prescribing fatal overdoses of opiate painkillers to her elderly patients while working at Gosport War Memorial Hospital near Portsmouth in the 1990s. A government panel has examined […]
Reckoning looms for ‘Dr Opiate’, Gosport GP Jane Barton, after 27 years and 833 deaths
They are the words of warmth that became the kiss of death: “Please make comfortable.” As a GP at a hospital in Hampshire, Jane Barton would scribble the phrase on medical notes after prescribing painkillers for elderly patients in her care. Those on the receiving end were supposed to be in extreme discomfort and on […]
Opiate death relatives speak: ‘I wish I’d trusted my instincts and got him out’
Elsie Devine, 88 Died at Gosport War Memorial Hospital in 1999. Opiate drugs were partly to blame, an inquest found. Her daughter and granddaughter, Ann and Bridget Reeves, have been at the forefront of a 20-year campaign for justice. “My seven-stone grandmother, who did not have dementia and was recovering from a kidney infection, was […]
10 million lives could be lost to superbugs
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/10-million-lives-could-lost-superbugs-far-have-got-race-beat/ Scientists have made a breakthrough in the antibiotic resistance battle – the urgency has never been greater, says Lois Rogers British scientists claim they have beaten more than a dozen rival teams around the world in the race towards a new synthetic antibiotic. They hope that the agent – an improved version of a […]
Why scarlet fever is making a comeback
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/scarlet-fever-victorian-diseases-returning-uk/ Antibiotics halted its spread last century, but now the disease is back with a vengeance. Lois Rogers looks at what’s causing the spike When Sarah Allen took her sickly, feverish toddler to the doctor, his red rash, high temperature and strangely coated tongue were dismissed as a virus that happened to coincide with a […]
Australian flu threatens Britain
http://subscriber.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/australian-flu-prevent-virus-symptoms-look/ The super-charged Australian flu virus sweeping Britain has been busy claiming alarming numbers of victims and creating an NHS crisis on a new scale. In what is now shaping up to be the country’s worst flu crisis in 20 years, 85 people have died so far this winter. In the first week of the […]