Archive for Health
24 April, 2008 at 1:13 pm
· Filed under Health, Neighbourhood ·Tagged headache, thunderstorm, weather
There’s a cracking thunderstorm over London at the moment. Which explains something about last night.
Around 5pm I started to feel quite headachey and became increasingly nauseous and light-headed. I sent my apologies to canvassing for once, took Syndol, sipped tea on the sofa, tried to watch the news but couldn’t – and ended up going to bed very early.
My Dad also gets sick headaches in the run up to a thunderstorm and I’m sure we’re not the only ones. But a bit like PMT, it’s only afterwards you realise why you felt so awful at the time….
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2 March, 2008 at 5:28 pm
· Filed under Family & friends, Health ·Tagged bereavement, Harefield, Mortishire
I am very sorry to learn of the death of John Mortishire. I blogged about John last year in the context of transplants and the national donor register. John’s sister Rachel is married to one of my cousins; and John’s parents have stayed with my parents on some of their visits to John at Harefield. Our thoughts and prayers are with them and particularly John’s wife Jane.
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7 December, 2007 at 7:24 pm
· Filed under Campaigns, Consumer, Health ·Tagged Barts, birth, Health, maternity, NHS
Shocking news about the decline in maternity services at Barts and the London Hospital. Generations of Islington and Finsbury kids were born at Barts, until the decision was taken to close its maternity and A&E services. The Tories closed Barts as a local community hospital for Islington, and Labour failed to restore it, breaking the promises Chris Smith MP made to local voters. Although the hospital serves parts of Islington, the maternity services are now over on the Royal London site in Tower Hamlets. We were told this was the best way to ensure modern high quality care for the 21st century.
The recent HealthCare Commission report shows the opposite. The report is based on responses from 26,000 women who gave birth in January and February 2007, making it the largest survey ever of maternity experience across the country. Women who gave birth at Barts & the London spoke of filthy wards, uncaring staff and the degrading practice of being put into stirrups to give birth; the hospital was rated the worst in the country for care throughout labour
Women in labour are not sick; providing a basic decent service should be simple in a well-funded health service. Instead, there is a shortage of midwives while billions of pounds have been wasted on bureaucracy. The cost of the new NHS computer system has already doubled - to an estimated £12.4bn. Many IT experts doubt that such a huge, centralised system can actually work. The Government has imposed private providers on parts of the NHS, at the same time as well-loved community hospitals are threatened with closure. Meanwhile health professionals face constant change for change’s sake, while local communities have no real say over the priorities for services in our area.
The Islington Gazette headline says it all: New mums rate Bart’s worst for labour care. Or is that lack of Labour care? It is time for the Labour government to stop letting down patients. They must live up to the promises they made; invest in essential health services; cut bureaucracy and waste; and listen to local people’s priorities for our NHS. Those are the demands of our SOS for the NHS campaign. Then perhaps women giving birth will have the clean, safe, respectful service they deserve.
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27 November, 2007 at 12:38 pm
· Filed under Health ·Tagged food, hygiene, meat
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7 November, 2007 at 7:48 am
· Filed under Campaigns, Health ·Tagged ambulance, epilepsy, Foxsmith, Health, Islington, Jean Murphy, Kayleigh, NHS, paramedic, politics
Last night I met again with Jean Murphy and supporters. In July last year, Jean’s 15-year old daughter Kayleigh died following an epileptic fit. Jean called 999, and while Kayleigh was suffering, three different ambulances were dispatched. The first did not have a paramedic on board - only paramedics can administer the particular anti-convulsant drug Kayleigh needed; a second ambulance stopped to assist at a road traffic accident; the third had no paramedic either. By the time Kayleigh got to hospital it was too late; and this bright, bubbly, community-minded girl died.
Jean Murphy is a remarkable woman. She is determined that some good will come from Kayleigh’s death and her own unbearable loss. Jean is campaigning for all emergency ambulances to carry paramedics. She has my full support. Thousands of people have signed her petition. Now we need to keep up the profile of the campaign, and to keep pressure on the Government.
My fellow Lib Dem, Islington councillor Greg Foxsmith, has been supporting Jean in her campaign. Last night the Council’s Overview Committee received a report on the current performance of the London Ambulance Service (LAS) and the lessons learned from Kayleigh’s death.
To give credit where it’s due, the LAS is one of the best-performing Ambulance trusts in the country. I’ve met some of the ambulance crews; they are undoubtedly resourceful, brave and dedicated. And the service has introduced new policies since Kayleigh’s death - for example, better information on which crews are carrying paramedics - which may reduce the chance of similar tragedies in future. Another issue is whether non-paramedic ambulance crew should be allowed to administer the kind of powerful drugs which would have saved Kayleigh. The problem is that these drugs can have severe side-effects, so currently only the paramedics can treat patients with them. Which is why Jean is calling for all emergency ambulances to have a paramedic on board.
Responses are still coming in from my NHS survey, sent to thousands of residents across the Islington South & Finsbury constituency. One of the questions simply states: Some ambulances do not carry paramedics. Do you think all ambulance crews should include paramedics? Overwhelmingly, the answer is yes.
Islington residents back Jean’s campaign. The question is, will the Government?
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26 October, 2007 at 7:10 pm
· Filed under Family & friends, Health ·Tagged , breast cancer, ginger, Health, red hair
Like many people, including my colleagues at SirsiDynix, I’m wearing pink today as part of Wear It Pink and breast cancer awareness month. My mother-in-law died from breast cancer, developed in her forties, and diagnosed too late to save her. A generation on, women’s chances after detection are much better, but early detection remains vital. Women over 50 are covered by the NHS breast cancer screening programme; but younger women are not included. So being breast aware and checking your breast health is vital. And for any men still reading, that applies to you too.
A few years ago, I’d have been hard-pressed to find any pink in my wardrobe. Growing up with ginger hair, pink was a no-no, but my coppernob has mellowed over the years. Gingernuts are in the news again today; apparently new research has found that Neanderthals shared the DNA characteristics of redheads, or, as Sky puts it, Shock Discovery: Cavemen Were Ginger. My parents are busy tracing the family history; it could take some time.
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2 October, 2007 at 10:50 pm
· Filed under Campaigns, Family & friends, Health
No season of any medical drama - be it Casualty, Scrubs, Gray’s Anatomy or House - is complete without a transplant plot. After all, this is the very stuff of drama: deadlines and risk, life and death, loss and salvation. It makes for a great story. Earlier this year John Mortishire, a family friend (his sister is married to one of my cousins) had a lung transplant after living with cystic fibrosis. It hasn’t just saved his life; it’s transformed his quality of life. But for every happy ending there are thousands more people waiting.The best way to address the shortage of donor organs has been under debate for a while. Should we have presumed consent instead of explicit informed consent? Is it fair for us to expect the bereaved to make decisions for us after our death? Is it right for other families to face bereavement, because we have failed to make our wishes clear?If more people choose to join the NHS Organ Donor Register now, then these dilemmas could be avoided. Some people claim religious objections but as a Christian I have no such qualms. My church endorses the idea of organ donation as a gift freely given. More likely people just don’t get round to it or don’t make it clear. I’ve filled in donor cards in the past and then lost them. I hate paperwork, but it’s now easier than ever to sign up to the Register. You can do it by phoning 0845 6060400 or online.
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22 September, 2007 at 6:31 pm
· Filed under Campaigns, Health, Liberal Democrats
Earlier today I visited one of my supporters who is a fulltime carer. She’s a wonderful woman, always positive about life, although hers is now dominated by the needs of her husband, who has Alzheimer’s. She so rarely complains about anything, that when she does, you take notice.
Last week her husband had a hospital appointment; she got him ready and they waited an hour for the ambulance. When the ambulance came, they had a seat for her husband only; but of course he could not go without her. So the appointment had to be rescheduled, the ambulance time was wasted - and all through a lack of care for the people who need it most.
One in eight adults in Britain is already a carer; over the next 30 years, the numbers will rise to one in five. There are so many carers I know here in Islington, through church, community groups and among my neighbours - the woman of an age to deserve care herself, who looks after her learning-disabled son; the man who uses his rare time off from caring for his partner to look after his elderly father; the mother of two sons with care needs, who is a powerful advocate for other carers.
Carers don’t clock on and off - it’s a state of being, not a job. It’s all-consuming in the way that politics or another passion can be, yet it’s rarely by choice: carers end up being carers by extension from being wives, mothers, daughters, husbands. They don’t do it for the money - and just as well. The national carers’ benefit works on the basis of £45 for a notional 35 hour week. That’s £1.26 an hour: maximum devotion for less than the minimum wage. I’m glad that Lib Dem conference last week committed us to review the Carer’s Allowance as part of our wider anti-poverty strategy. But what does it say about ten years of a Labour government, that carers are valued so little?
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