Education Freestyle

Cited: AP

After a nurse accidentally switched off his ventilator, a quadriplegic Englishman became brain-damaged. In fact, the act was caught on camera the patient had installed because he believed that the quality of his care was not what it should have been. Britons were shocked by video of nurse turning off quadriplegic’s life-support system. The National Health Service has apologized to his family.

The Englishman’s worst fears were realized when the camera recorded his nurse switching off his life-support system, apparently by accident. Merrett is now brain-damaged. The footage was released October 25 by the BBC shows nurse Violetta Aylward turning off Jamie Merrett’s ventilator in January 2009, then struggling to revive him. The broadcaster said it took 21 minutes for the machine to be restarted.

On October 25, that grainy footage was broadcast on national television, shocking Britons and adding to the catalog of medical horror stories that have left many here bemoaning the state of the nation’s vaunted National Health Service.

Merrett was injured in a traffic accident in 2002. Though paralyzed, he was able to speak and operate an electric wheelchair and a computer through voice-activated technology, the BBC reported.

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While being cared for at home in southwestern England, Merrett apparently grew concerned over possible slip-ups with his ventilator by nurses sent by his local health authority, part of the NHS, so he arranged to have a camera installed near his bed.

Days later, the camera caught a nurse, identified by the BBC as Violetta Aylward, turning off the life-support system while another caregiver cries: “What’ve you done?” The BBC said it took 21 minutes before paramedics were able to get all the equipment properly running again. Merrett’s sister says his mental age is now that of a child.

The local health authority said in a statement October 25 that it has taken measures to ensure “such an event will not occur again either for this patient or others.” It declined to go into further details about what happened to Merrett because “litigation is likely.”

His sister Karen Reynolds told the BBC that since his brain damage, his level of understanding had dropped to that of a young child.

“He has an existence but it’s nowhere near what it was before,” she said. “He is very brain-damaged compared to what he was before.”

The health authorities responsible for Merrett’s care have apologized for “the incident in January 2009 when the patient’s ventilator care was compromised.” In a statement, NHS Wiltshire Primary Care Trust said it had “put in place a series of actions to ensure that such an event will not occur again either for this patient or others.”

Aylward worked for an agency contracted by the health care trust. The Nursing and Midwifery Council said she has been suspended pending an investigation.

The incident comes as the British government prepares a major restructuring of the NHS, including granting doctors more power over spending decisions. Although the agency has been protected from funding cutbacks in the government’s stinging austerity program, critics say the changes will not improve care.

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My Take: It seems that America is not the only one with healthcare problems. I would say that in America, NJ house calls doctors better be careful, because this is going to influence home care patients around the world. I doubt that are Virginia dentist would have to worry, unless they make home visits.

Then again, in nurse practitioner primary care would not make that kind of dumb mistake. Only a person who is bored with their job or really doesn’t care about their patients would make that kind of mistake. Of course, someone like a Panama City Florida plastic surgeon would not make that mistake because it would be visible without a camera. That would mean that a South riding cosmetic dentist and a Mobile Alabama cosmetic surgeon would not have to worry.

However, it is very clear that America and England need to re-do their health care systems. They really need to put more regulations and to prevent this type of occurrence from ever happening again. But, that would be too simple, wouldn’t it?

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