Chalk A Few More Deaths Up To The NHS

A vulnerable patient starved to death in an NHS hospital after 26 days without proper nourishment.

Martin Ryan, 43, had suffered a stroke which left him unable to swallow. But a 'total breakdown in communication' meant he was never fitted with a feeding tube. Mr Ryan, who had Down's syndrome, died in hospital in Kingston-upon-Thames. An internal inquiry by the hospital found that doctors had thought nurses were feeding him through a tube in his nose. By the time they found out this was not happening, he was too weak for an operation to insert a tube into his stomach. He died in agony five days later.

Source: Dick Puddlecote