Five million drug errors kill or seriously harm Britons every year. Be safe. Save the NHS. Insist on Homeopathy.

This is the headline of WDDTY News yesterday (24th June 2020). The article says this has been discovered by "a shocking new report". The problem with this, however, is that shocking as this may be, it is certainly not 'new'. It is the 'every year' of the title that is pertinent here. This is just the latest report (which politicians, government, mainstream media, and the conventional medical establishment will go out of their way to ignore. So what is the latest evidence on an on-going story?

               "Researchers have identified 237 million medication errors that happen every year in England, and 2 percent of these—4.74 million—do serious harm to the patient, and a further 86 million errors are 'clinically significant', say researchers from the University of Manchester. Serious harm ranges from life-threatening adverse reactions to death."

This is NOT shocking. It is routine. It happens every year. Researchers study it year by year and come up with the same conclusion. Yet nothing changes. I wrote this in March 2018, the result of another WDDTY News report. 

               "22,000 people die every year in England as a result of medical errors. How many more die from pharmaceutical drugs that are NOT given in error?"


In this piece I asked whether patient harm is caused by 'drug errors', or by the operation of a system of medicine that is inherently dangerous. And if these are the 'errors' that have been admitted, how much more harm is being caused by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines that go unreported and unrecognised.

So I ask the same questions again!

I also ask about the ongoing silence, the apparent unwillingness of the conventional medical establishment to do anything about it.

The Precautionary Principle?
It is not applied to conventional medicine, who can continue harming patients, year by year, without anything changing to protect patients.

First do no harm?
This is part of the Hippocratic Oath that all doctors sign up to, but which is simply ignored, year by year, by doctors who continue to prescribe the same dangerous pharmaceutical drugs.

               "Around 80% of deaths from the errors are the result of gastrointestinal bleeds from NSAIDs (non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs) such as aspirin and the blood-thinning agent, warfarin."

The research found similar rates of 'error' being reported in the USA, and in other European countries. The problem is, apparently, has even been acknowledged by the World Health Organization (WHO). And it costs the UK'S NHS about £98m a year.

Yet, year by year, nothing is done. In any other industry there would be a major investigation, patients would be warned, and the practices that kill and harm millions of patient would have been banned.

And it's always the same drugs that are found to be causing the harm - NSAIDs; antiplatelet drugs, anti-epilepsy drugs, diabetes drugs; diuretics, inhaled corticosteroids (inhalers); and heart drugs, such as beta blockers.

And this year, next year, and every year, these drugs will continue to seriously harm, and kill patients until in time, more researchers will discover that drug 'errors' are killing and seriously harming patients - in yet another new and shocking report.

The solution will have to be a personal decision, as conventional medicine will not change.
We will ALL have to refuse to take these dangerous pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines; we must start saying 'No' to doctors. We have to insist on safe and effective medicine, and look for safer natural therapies, like homeopathy.

Be Safe. Save the NHS. Insist on Homeopathy.

MEDICAL MISTAKES & ERRORS. What is happening at the NHS Trust in Shrewsbury and Telford is old news. It has been happening for decades

• The piece that follows was written in 2008, and published in my E-Book, 'The Failure of Conventional Medicine'.
• Since that time there has been regular reports of 'medical mistakes' and 'medical errors' within the NHS, and around the world.
• These mistakes and errors cause serious illness and disease and death.

The most recent health scandal concerns what has been happening at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust, where there is now an ongoing investigation into more than 600 cases of newborn children and mothers dying, or left injured.

Further, we are being told that this may be just the tip of the iceberg, and that the scandal has been going on for decades, and that the failure "might be more widespread in the NHS".

Yet are these really just mistakes and errors?

Or the consequence of operating a medical system 

that is INHERENTLY dangerous?

A failed system of medicine

So this is what I wrote 11 years ago, about the same kind of 'mistakes' and 'errors' that are currently hitting the headlines .....

     "It has been estimated that between 5-10% of patients admitted to hospital are infected with hospital-acquired diseases, such as MRSA (360 deaths in 2005 in England alone) and Clostridium Difficile (1,300 death in 2004). The problem, according to the NHS is that health professionals needed to do more to address hygiene to improve patient safety - thereby ignoring the troublesome fact that whilst these infections can be spread by bad hygiene their actual cause is the overuse of antibiotics - conventional medicine's most miraculous miracle drug!

It is the same throughout the world. On 25 October 2006 the BBC reported that in Italy it has been estimated that as many as 90 people die in hospital every day “due to medical malpractice and organisational errors”. Note that the deaths are not caused by ‘medicine’ - but by malpractice, and error. The calculation of 33,000 annual deaths is more than the number of people killed on the roads in Italy, which means that there are an awful lot of ‘errors’ and ‘malpractice’ going on!

Celia Hall, Medical Editor, Daily Telegraph.
"One NHS patient in 10 'is harmed in hospital'"
6 July 2006. This article said that nearly a million patient safety incidents or 'near misses' in a single year were recorded in NHS trusts, drawing attention to the effectiveness of the Patient Safety Agency. It estimated that in 2004-05 there were 974,000 patient safety incidents in England and Wales and MPs believe that 22% of mistakes go unreported.

In the same Daily Telegraph article the charity, Peter Walsh, the chief executive of 'Action against Medical Accidents' (AvMA) called for stronger sanctions.

               "We hope the report will give an injection of urgency into work to improve patient safety. Whilst there has been welcome progress we want to see more teeth given to existing guidelines and safety alerts. It should be compulsory for NHS providers to implement them".
Sarah Bosely
Guardian
11 August 2006This outlined 40,000 NHS drug errors logged in a year, the figures having been collated by the National Patient Safety Agency. The article said that the statistics inevitably underestimated the problem 'since not all errors are reported'.

Jerome Burne
Daily Mail
12 September 2006
              "In the UK, 10,000 people are killed every year by adverse drug reactions which happens when the prescription drug supposed to be curing you kills or harms you instead. That is more than the number who die from cervical cancer, taking illegal drugs, cancer of the mouth and passive smoking combined. It's actually more dangerous to visit your doctor than it is to drive your car - in 2004, traffic accidents were responsible for some 3,221 deaths. Yet a further 40,000 people each year are made sick enough by drugs they are taking to be admitted to hospital".
 

WDDTY e-news
Doctor Error: It’s rife, especially among the newborns
7 February 2008 

"It's an urban myth - and one that happens to be true - that the death rate plummets when doctors go on strike. Patients in hospital are especially vulnerable to the doctor's ministrations, and it's even worse for the newborn baby who hasn't yet made it home. A new study into newborns that needed 'hospital' care - usually because of low birth rate or premature birth - has revealed the extent of doctor error or doctor-induced (iatrogenic) problems. Researchers monitored the progress of 388 babies who had been admitted to a neo-natal unit in Southern France from January to September 2005; in that time, researchers witness 267 doctor errors, and nearly 30% of these were serious. Two babies died as a direct result of the errors".
(Source: The Lancet, 2008; 371: 404-10).

WDDTY reported on research (published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, 2006; 166: 1410-6) that studied the progress of 7,054 patients admitted to a veterans' hospital between 2003 and 2004. Of these, 792 patients suffered a heart attack while in the hospital (about 11%) and that they were twice as likely to die from the attack.

As the article says, this means that up to 2,690,000 people could be harmed by medical ‘mishaps’ every year. This represents around 4.5% of the entire population. It goes on to say that in the USA, where twice as much is spent on pharmaceutical drugs, the problem could be affecting up to 13,450,000 people every year. Government officials were said to be 'shocked' to hear that nobody knows how many of the reported 'blunders' ended in death. Apparently, only 1 in 4 hospitals 'own up' to the patient when something goes wrong; the rest presumably blame the patient illness on admission. Just 1 in 25 drug reactions is ever reported.

Edward Leigh, chairman of the Commons Public Accounts committee said that 1 in 10 people admitted to a hospital in Britain every year will suffer a mishap or accident that will harm him, and that this is based on known, reported accidents. Apparently, the committee members discovered that the situation is not getting better, that doctors and hospital staff are not learning from mistakes, but repeating them every year, that guidelines are being consistently ignored, and safety recommendations are not being implemented.

 SO HOW LONG MUST WE CONTINUE TO ENDURE THESE STORIES?

WHEN WILL WE RECOGNISE WHAT SHOULD BE NOW OBVIOUS?

CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE IS INHERENTLY UNSAFE

IF WE WANT SAFE MEDICINE....

.... WE HAVE TO RETURN TO NATURAL MEDICINE

MEDICAL ERRORS. Are they bankrupting the UK's National Health Service? Or are we wrong to blame the doctors?

                "Victims of NHS blunders should receive smaller compensation payouts or the “staggering” costs of Britain’s negligence bills will bankrupt the health service, the Justice Secretary has been told. Health service leaders have written to the Government, calling for cuts to payments for patients who suffer devastating injuries as a result of medical errors."

Sometimes I read a news bulletin on health and I cannot believe what I am reading! So I have to re-read it in order to decide whether I have got it right first time. The Daily Telegraph recently published a series of articles on 'medical blunders' and the cost to the NHS in Britain. (If you live outside Britain, continue reading - this applies to any health service anywhere in the world which is dominated by conventional medicine).

So why is it being suggested that victims of medical blunders receive less compensation when they suffer 'devastating injuries'? It is, according to this Telegraph article (1st February 2018), because it is bankrupting the NHS.

               "The controversial demand follows years of rising negligence payments, with current liability now at £65bn - a rise from £29 billion in 2014/15."

This is an extraordinary figure. The total cost of the NHS each year is currently in the region of £110 to £120 billion, so these compensation charges now represents 50% of the NHS's annual budget, and this is all money that has to be taken out of the health budget, and so is not available for spending on patient treatment and care. So what is the solution being offered?

1. The NHS is calling for a change in the way compensation bills are calculated under the existing law.
2. This will mean that patients who have sustained 'devastating injuries' will receive less money.

On the following day the Telegraph published an article by Peter Walsh, "Cutting compensation for those maimed by the NHS would be 'hideously unfair' " which stated that the previous article "is a stark reminder of how desperate our NHS is for more investment". Stark indeed, perhaps even desperate, with such a prodigious rise over the last 3 years.

               "It is ignorant and uncaring to suggest that people who have been harmed or have lost loved ones as a result of NHS negligence should forfeit the compensation they need."

               "We also need to remember that avoidable harm, in fact negligent harm has been caused to these patients and the sum awarded to them is based on an assessment of their actual needs as approved by the courts. It is not some kind of windfall."

Yet even this misses the real point. Conventional medicine causes harm because it is, it always has been, and it always will be AN INHERENTLY DANGEROUS FORM OF MEDICAL TREATMENT. 

• Pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, on which conventional medicine is totally dependent, are dangerous, even when they are properly prescribed.
• They are also largely ineffective, and this leads to the need for other inherently dangerous interventions, such as surgery (most surgery would be unnecessary if the drug).

Walsh goes on to outline the reasons for the NHS approaching bankruptcy, and he comes out with the usual culprits - an ageing population - cuts to social care budgets - staff shortages - and lifestyle factors.

Not a single word about the fact that it is the conventional medical system that has produced this level of patient harm and injury.

This is typical of the failure of the mainstream media to do their job -  to investigate and identify where the problems actually exist in health provision. And whilst journalists are content merely to parrot conventional medical mantras (that older people and patient life styles are to blame) there is no chance that the real reason underlying our health problem will ever be identified.

It is also typical of the pharmaceutical industry, the underlying cause of most, if not all the mayhem being caused to patients within the British NHS. They want to be protected from any blame, and the cost of putting right the damage they have cause to patients. 

• In the USA the pharmaceutical industry is protected from prosecution for vaccine damage by the Federal Government.
• In Britain, the pharmaceutical industry is protected from paying compensation to its victims by the NHS, via the central government.

It is the failure of conventional medicine that we are witnessing here, but which national governments and the ineffectual mainstream media are refusing to recognise. 

We now need to recognise that pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines are not only (i) ineffective and (ii) dangerous for patients, they are also (iii) extraordinarily expensive.