Hussein wants everybody to get healthcare, and to that end he is willing to tax you to death, no matter how much money you make, in contravention of his promises- but then, who really believes this serial liar ever tells the truth?
All of this trouble for healthcare just like the VA- oh joy! There are some who tout the VA as a much improved healthcare facility, and that the level of care has improved so much that it rivals private care. Oh really?
For patients with prostate cancer, it is a common surgical procedure: a doctor implants dozens of radioactive seeds to attack the disease. But when Dr. Gary D. Kao treated one patient at the veterans’ hospital in Philadelphia, his aim was more than a little off.
Most of the seeds, 40 in all, landed in the patient’s healthy bladder, not the prostate.
It was a serious mistake, and under federal rules, regulators investigated. But Dr. Kao, with their consent, made his mistake all but disappear.
He simply rewrote his surgical plan to match the number of seeds in the prostate, investigators said.
The revision may have made Dr. Kao look better, but it did nothing for the patient, who had to undergo a second implant. It failed, too, resulting in an unintended dose to the rectum. Regulators knew nothing of this second mistake because no one reported it.
nytimes.com
This is just one example of a VA mistake, and I am not saying all VA doctors or procedures are so horribly flawed, but there are enough of them to fill a portfolio, even just at this one hospital.
Two years later, in 2005, Dr. Kao rewrote another surgical plan after putting half the seeds in the wrong organ. Once again, regulators did not object.
Had the government responded more aggressively, it might have uncovered a rogue cancer unit at the hospital, one that operated with virtually no outside scrutiny and botched 92 of 116 cancer treatments over a span of more than six years — and then kept quiet about it, according to interviews with investigators, government officials and public records.
The team continued implants for a year even though the equipment that measured whether patients received the proper radiation dose was broken. The radiation safety committee at the Veterans Affairs hospital knew of this problem but took no action, records show.
nytimes.com
One has to wonder- the hospital did nothing to correct the damage, nor did they discipline the Doctor- they didn’t even fix the machine that would have regulated the radiation dosage. That’s malpractice on a grand scale, but then they are the government and they are here to help, right?
The 92 implant errors resulted from a systemwide failure in which none of the safeguards that were supposed to protect veterans from poor medical care worked, an examination by The New York Times has found.
Peer review, a staple of every good hospital, in which colleagues examine one another’s work, did not exist in the unit. The V.A.’s radiation safety program; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which regulates the use of all nuclear materials; and the Joint Commission, a group that accredited the hospital, all failed to intervene; either their inspections had been limited or they had not acted decisively upon finding problems.
Over all, the implant program lacked a “safety culture,” the nuclear commission found. Dr. Kao and other members of his team, the commission said, were not properly supervised or trained in what constitutes a substandard implant and the need to report it. Dr. Kao declined to comment for this article.
Virtually none of the substandard implants in Philadelphia were reported to the nuclear commission, meaning errors went uninvestigated for weeks, months and sometimes years. During that time, many patients did not know that their cancer treatments were flawed.
nytimes.com
There should have been a peer review, but this being a government- run facility, the “peer review” was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
But the chief regulator is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Serious accidents involving radioactive materials must be reported to that agency, which has the power to investigate and levy fines. Congress receives an annual list of those accidents.
After learning of Dr. Kao’s error, V.A. officials thought that because he had revised his surgical plan while still in the operating room, the mistake did not exist. The nuclear commission agreed, on the ground that doctors needed freedom to revise their surgical plan depending on what they found during surgery.
Yet this case did not involve a new diagnostic interpretation: it was an implant mistake, causing the patient to return for another procedure.
nytimes.com
It constantly amazes me when left wing morons claim that government really works well, and that government healthcare will improve our lives. How? By implanting radioactive pellets everywhere but where they might actually do some good? By cutting off the wrong appendage? All of you people who might be concerned about that should know that the government is rarely able to be sued- it likes to wrap itself in the flag of “Immunity” from lawsuits, and I am sure that this would continue to be the case as we go forward.
But I guess that all the C- med students have to practice somewhere, I just think that our service men and women deserve more from our government than that.
Heck, the rest of us deserve more than this, come to think of it.
Just say no to government healthcare.
[tip]If you enjoy what you read consider signing up to receive email notification of new posts. There are several options in the sidebar and I am sure you can find one that suits you. If you prefer, consider adding this site to your favorite feed reader. If you receive emails and wish to stop them follow the instructions included in the email.[/tip]