A frosty end to life |
Liz Kershaw is a BBC disc jockey. Britain's National Health Service has failed her family three times. Once again, the victims are seniors.
Not even the family of media personalities are immune from the horrors of British ageism.
From the Mirror:
"If you are old and frail you have no voice," said Liz, 53. Her grandad Wallace, 87, became malnourished and dehydrated at a care home in the late 1980s. But to Liz's horror, on admission to hospital, doctors refused to feed him. "The nursing home made him frail, but it was NHS ageism that finished him off," she said. "Withholding food is done to accelerate death. A loved one starving to death for three weeks – you can’t imagine."Removing a wedding ring with a bolt cutter? Was the tool sterilized?
Four years later his wife Norah, 88, was taken to the same hospital, and within two days became bloated from an overdose of fluids. The wedding ring she had not removed in 60 years was cut off with bolt cutters. "To the staff, they were just old people in beds," she said. "I found she had bed sores down to the bone."
Liz believes NHS ageism hastened the death of her father Jack when his treatment was delayed for weeks and he had a heart attack. And she said: "It doesn't cost a penny to be respectful and kind."
Britain has had government-run health care, which the liberals call single-payer for over sixty years.
Technorati tags: politics news health universal health care health care reform obamacare uk nhs socialism medical elderly gerontology seniors
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