GPs too slow to save girl, five, from swine flu, say family

A FIVE-YEAR-OLD girl suffering from swine flu died after doctors took two weeks to diagnose her illness, according to her family.

Nida Qureshi, from Slough, was seen by three GPs and a hospital doctor who told her parents she may have had tonsillitis. By the time doctors discovered she had the H1N1 virus, Nida was on a life support machine. She died eight days later on 11 November at St Mary's hospital in Paddington.

The girl's uncle said her parents Zubair, 28, and Raheela, 30, who is pregnant with their second child, believe Nida may have lived if swine flu had been diagnosed earlier. Jawaid Qureshi, said: "Her mum, a child carer, and dad are very angry. Nobody picked it up - it's just devastating. We asked lots of questions and got no answers." Mr Qureshi said Nida, who he described as a "bright girl who loved school" did not have any underlying health problems but this has not been confirmed.

Nida also had a lung infection as well as swine flu.

This is number six in our occasional series of people dying from swine flu after being misdiagnosed.

Source: Evening Standard.

Liver cancer drug 'too expensive'

A drug that can prolong the lives of patients with advanced liver cancer has been rejected for use in the NHS in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) said the cost of Nexavar - about £3,000 a month - was "simply too high".

But Macmillan Cancer Support said the decision was "a scandal".

More than 3,000 people are diagnosed with liver cancer every year in the UK and their prognosis is generally poor.

Only about 20% of patients are alive one year after diagnosis, dropping to just 5% after five years.

'Disappointed'

Campaigner Kate Spall, who won the right to have two months of treatment for her mother, Pamela Northcott, in 2007, said it had prolonged her life by four-and-a-half "precious" months.

It had allowed her 58-year-old mother, from Dyserth in Denbighshire, "closure" and "peace", she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"The problem in Mum's case is it took a year for me to fight for the treatment, so we'll never know how well she could have done," she said.

"We had extra time, which was very precious to us all, her symptoms were helped greatly. And, more importantly, for Mum it was a case of getting some closure and peace.

"The psychological feeling when a group of people decide that you cannot have a treatment that can help you is really devastating."

Mother death hospital prosecuted

A hospital in Swindon is to be prosecuted on health and safety charges over the death of a nurse shortly after she gave birth. Mayra Cabrera, a 30-year-old theatre nurse, had a drug used in epidurals pumped into her arm at the Great Western Hospital on 11 May, 2004. She died of a heart attack after giving birth to her son, Zac, who survived.

The Health and Safety Executive has told the hospital it is prosecuting over alleged "safety breaches". Sue Rowley, director of nursing at the Great Western Hospital NHS Trust, said: "The Trust have been summoned to appear at the magistrates court at a future date. We regret the additional distress this case causes Mayra's family and friends and we will minimise this as much as possible by seeking a swift resolution to the case."

The whole exercise seems like tokenism at its worst, but hey.

Source: BBC.

1,800 Deaths A Year Linked To Dementia Drug

Up to 1,800 elderly dementia patients are dying each year from wrongly prescribed anti-psychotic drugs, a Government report has found.

Only around 36,000 of the 180,000 people currently on the drugs in the UK need them, the report said, leaving 144,000 people taking them unnecessarily.

Anti-psychotic medicines are licensed to treat people with schizophrenia and are used off-licence for dementia patients in care homes and hospitals.

In his review, Sube Banerjee, professor of mental health and ageing at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, said the rate of use of anti-psychotic drugs could be cut to one third of its current level with appropriate action.

Hospital slated over cobwebs, dusty floors and dirty toilets

A SCOTTISH hospital has been told to make improvements in its infection control after inspectors found dusty floors, dirty toilets and other areas of concern.

The report said: "In the outpatient reception area, the inspection team found evidence of poor cleanliness in all the inspected public toilets with these areas being generally dusty, dirty under the paper towel holder and in the sink areas.

"The carpet within the outpatients department was heavily stained in several public areas."

In ward six, the report said there were several areas of concern: "The floors were dusty particularly in the corner areas, there was no domestic waste bin in the patient toilets, cobwebs were present in a number of high spaces and a dirty toilet seat and bowl were observed."

The inspectors also found that the patient day room was being used to store equipment, while a patient bathroom was being used as a staff toilet.

They said furniture in the day room was "of an unsatisfactory standard and in need of repair".

Source: The Scotsman

The Human Cost of Government Controlled Health Care

Government targets increase superbug risks, say NHS infection chiefs

While rates of MRSA and Clostridium difficile are falling, after scandals over major outbreaks, other potentially fatal infections which receive less attention appear to be soaring, the Commons public accounts committee will say.

Around 300,000 infections are diagnosed in English hospitals every year – but many more potentially fatal bugs may be going undetected, because of a lack of surveillance, research has found.

A voluntary scheme charting all bloodstream infections found numbers increased by 30 per cent between 2003 and 2007, in what the committee's chairman Edward Leigh described as a "rising tide" of infections threatening all hospital patients.

The report is expected to show increasing numbers of cases of E-coli, linked to surgical site infections and urinary tract problems, and in cases of the bacterial infection Klebsiella.

The Sunday Telegraph has established that the NHS' most senior doctors and scientists responsible for infection control believe their efforts are being hindered by Government waiting targets.

An anonymous survey of 170 NHS directors of infection control found that 59 per cent had experienced a clash between their efforts to block the spread of disease and rules which say new patients must be found a bed within four hours.