NHS Meltdown: A Baby Dies

This is worse than awful: A 54 day old baby was sexually abused and beaten to death by her father. Yet during her brief life 30 different health care workers cared for her, and somehow didn’t notice a thing. Plus, her mother is schizophrenic, which should have triggered a referral to social services—but didn’t. From the story:

A report has revealed that Jessica, whose mother was schizophrenic, spent nearly half her life in hospital. She was seen by 30 health workers and had also been seen at home on 10 separate occasions. Yet no one noticed what was happening, so the emergency child protection procedures that could have led to her being removed from her family were not triggered…

He had abused and sexually assaulted Jessica, who was born five weeks prematurely with a heart defect, from “the moment she left hospital”…At one stage he forced three fingers down his daughter’s throat and on other occasions held her arms and legs and twisted her as if he were wringing a cloth…

He said Jessica was last seen at the hospital a few days before she died, when she was admitted because she was twitching. Dr O’Malley said the doctor who saw her suspected she was being abused but did not include an “extensive account” of those suspicions in his notes because he felt his examinations of her ruled it out.

I read the UK papers every day and they are filled continually with stories of medical malfeasance and misfeasance, of filthy hospitals, personnel shortages, failed efforts at improvement, not to mention rationing and futile care impositions. The NHS is in chaos. Surely the time has come for the UK to try a different route.