Baby girl dies from whooping cough due to NHS failure

Baby girl died from whooping cough after doctors failed to test for disease until it was too late

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2182044/Baby-girl-dies-whooping-cough-just-days-parents-rush-doctors-cases-illness-soar.html#ixzz22NshwUCJ

-'Communication was terrible', say parents, who are demanding an inquiry
-'I was a first-time mum and I just felt I wasn't being taken seriously,' says mother
-Reported cases of whooping cough in England and Wales this year are already double what they were in 2011, according to HPA

        A baby died of whooping cough after doctors failed to diagnose it despite a nationwide campaign among GPs to raise awareness of the symptoms. Sarae Thompson-Haynes – who was just five weeks old – had been seen at two clinics and a hospital without being tested for the illness. She is one of five babies to have died as a result of whooping cough this year. The tragedy came two months after GPs were issued with a Health Protection Agency alert warning that cases had doubled in a year. Yesterday Sarae’s parents, Chelsea Thompson and Todd Haynes, said she might still be alive had tests happened more quickly. Their daughter was born on February 11. At a month old she developed a cough, so they took her to the Hawthorn Drive Surgery in Ipswich where, they say, doctors assured them she was fine.
      When her condition worsened that evening, her family took Sarae to a nearby out-of-hours GP service, Riverside Clinic. There, they say, a doctor again reassured them all was OK, giving them an inhaler for the baby. The parents claim neither clinic tested for whooping cough. The following day, after Sarae’s condition deteriorated further, Miss Thompson phoned NHS Direct and was advised to go to A&E. She took her daughter to Ipswich Hospital where doctors said she might have bronchitis. She was kept in but the parents say she again was not tested for whooping cough. Two days later, on March 18, Sarae experienced breathing difficulties and was transferred to Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, where tests were finally carried out. She was then referred to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, where she died on March 21. Test results – which came back after her death – revealed she had been suffering from whooping cough and had succumbed to related health issues.
      Miss Thompson, 21, said she felt let down by the NHS. ‘We are angry and devastated,’ she said. ‘When I found out she died of whooping cough, I did my own research and realised that there was a massive outbreak this year. ‘I also found out that GPs can test for it. Had they done tests earlier, there is a chance that my little girl would still be here today. They all treated me like a young mother who didn’t know what she was talking about.’  Miss Thompson, who lives in Ipswich with Mr Haynes, 23, is calling for pregnant women to be immunised against the infection. The couple plan to make formal complaints to the clinics and hospitals involved. The HPA says there have been 2,466 cases of whooping cough in the first six months of this year, already twice as many as the whole of last year.

THE COUGH THAT CAN BE FATAL TO INFANTS

The condition is an infection of the lining of the airways.

The main symptom is a hacking cough followed by a sharp intake of air which sounds like a 'whoop.'

Other symptoms include a runny nose, raised temperature, severe coughing fits and vomiting after coughing

The condition usually affects babies and young children. In rare cases it can be fatal

Children are vaccinated against the infection at two, three and four months of age.

It can be treated successfully with antibiotics and most people make a full recovery.

Reported cases of whooping cough in England and Wales this year are already double what they were in 2011, according to the Health Protection Agency.

     Sarae's cause of death, as recorded on the death certificate, was noted as cardiac failure and severe sepsis, as well as pertussis pneumonia. The Practice Manager of Hawthorn Drive GP surgery said: 'The whole team at the surgery offer their sympathies to the parents and family.  'Our duty to protect patient confidentiality means we cannot comment on individual cases but rest assured we at The Hawthorn Drive GP surgery are committed to offering the best level of care to all our patients.
    'We would urge the family to contact us if they need our support or help at this tragic time.' An Ipswich Hospital spokeswoman said: 'We are very saddened by baby Sarae's death. 'The family have not been in touch with us to date and we urge them to do so as soon as possible so that we can talk about and look into all the areas of concern.' Dr David Lee, Regional Medical Director for Harmoni, also added his condolences and said patient confidentiality prevented them commenting further.

Interesting take on Sikhs in Canada

RIGHTSTUFF

In Canada we're used to Sikh on Sikh tribal,political,religious violence.When I read the naive comments about "peace-loving" Sikhs-I have to laugh-they are CONSTANTLY at war with each other.I guarantee you this will be ANOTHER case of Sikh political temple madness.This will be a case of one Sikh faction warring with another WITHIN one Temple.This hasn't happened often in the US but in Ontario and B.C. shootings murders,stabbings,SWORD FIGHTS between Sikhs have happened with alarming frequency.

http://www2.canada.com/vancouv...

http://www.thestar.com/news/ca...

http://alexgtsakumis.com/2010/...

http://www.globaltvbc.com/thre...

http://www.cjfe.org/resources/...

concern-and-shock-over-murder-tara-singh-hayer http://bc.ctvnews.ca/feud-blam...

Why the fck we import people KNOWN for tribal-religious-political discord,I'll never know.(Google the Golden temple Massacre in India)Just talk to someone from British Columbia about Sikh,GANGS,violence and Temple mayhem.

Other than that they make FINE citizens.

When people come to North America from SOME third world sh*tholes they must put away the old country bullsh*t-but they don't.They don't want to be plain old Canadians or Americans....they LOVE that hyphen.And they import their tribal hatreds and indoctrinate their kids.The Sikh KIDS mind you-of those PEACE LOVING SIKHS violently,murderously,run British Columbia's drug trade-don't take my word for it-GOOGLE it.

Not ONE person had better call me a racist for telling the DOCUMENTED AND SUPPORTED Truth.If you do you're no better than the Leftists you bitch about..

Get used to it.It's coming to a neighbourhood near you.

Wahabi Muslims want to kill all non-Muslims. Some Sikhs just kill EACH OTHER-except of course for collateral damage-US.Not to mention the Air India bombing.
the Golden Temple Massacre which resulted in Indira Ghandi getting offed by her two SIKH body guards who were later hung.

Olympic a celebration of everything the Left hates

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/9468596/The-Olympics-are-a-celebration-of-everything-the-Left-hates.html
 

Nicola Adams, left, celebrating her gold medal - Britain's first by a female boxer Photo: EPA


  By Janet Daley
       So tomorrow it’s back to reality. Will we wake up in a different country: one that is sadder, but somehow reassuringly familiar? I confess I was not, to put it mildly, an enthusiast for the idea of having the Games in London. This was primarily because, as a commuter, I was convinced that the city’s infrastructure – which breaks down roughly every 20 minutes under normal rush hour conditions – could not possibly cope with the pressure. What I had not anticipated was that the spectacularly effective campaign of advance warnings and threats to London’s travelling public would cause so much of its working population to abandon the capital. Thus the evacuation of traditionally depressive, harassed, exhausted Londoners made way for the arrival of a lot of rather sweet, smiley people who turned the city into a very jolly and, momentarily, carefree place.

      It was not just London, of course. It has become a truism to say that the mood of the nation has been transformed and that we must “learn the lessons” of the effect that the Olympic spirit has had on the populace. So what precisely is the essence of that spirit? What was it at the heart of this experience that generated so much bliss and communal good will? Have we, as everybody keeps saying, learnt something very important about the national character which will be worth hanging on to after the crowds have dispersed and the venues have been sold off? You bet we have. The Olympics were an unapologetic festival of competitiveness, pursuit of individual excellence, almost superhuman self-discipline, and uncompromising reward for merit. They were, in other words, a celebration of all those aspects of the human condition which the political fashion and educational ideology of the past 40 years has attempted to denigrate. And the country loved it. Indeed, it was ecstatically untroubled by the fact that some people – who were exceptionally talented and phenomenally dedicated – won, and some other people, with considerable courage and no dishonour, lost.
       Just a thought: I wonder if this is why, notwithstanding Ed Miliband’s effusion in our pages, the rest of the Labour front bench have been largely invisible during the events. Was there something about the unashamed glorification of personal achievement – of winning because you were the very best that it was possible to be – that made them feel uncomfortable? The Left generally has not known quite how to position itself in all this. There was some rather mean-minded bleating among the Left-wing commentariat about “elitism” when there turned out to be a disproportionate number of private school people among the winners – but why should this surprise anybody? Since the collapse of standards in state education there have been a disproportionate number of private school people succeeding in every walk of life. Which brings us to the “lessons to be learnt”. 

      David Cameron has got characteristically bogged down in a squabble with the teaching unions over whose fault it is that sport has declined so much in state schools. Accusations about the Government selling off playing fields and abandoning targets for mandatory PE have been flung across the barricades only to be countered with evidence of the teachers’ refusal to supervise out-of-hours activities. It was all hugely unedifying and utterly beside the point. The “lesson to be learnt” is much bigger than the availability of sports facilities, although that – and the attitude of teachers towards competitive sport – certainly does come into it. What is at stake here is the transcendent question of what constitutes social virtue. The prevailing, quite explicit, theme disseminated by political and educational ideologues for more than a generation has been that no one should be encouraged to perform markedly better (or be rewarded for achieving more) than anyone else: that being an exceptional talent or a successful competitor was inherently unfair to those without the same advantages even if the “advantages” were your own character and motivation. 

       It followed that acknowledging such differentials of attainment was a form of civic crime, being divisive and likely to reinforce the inequality that had led to such disparities of outcome in the first place. This is what the absurd Labour slogan “excellence for everyone” was all about: no one may excel unless everyone else can – which neatly undermines the meaning of the word “excel”. Yes, the opportunity to participate in sport – specifically competitive sport – is important. It is especially vital for adolescent boys, who need a healthy, rule-governed outlet for their natural aggression. But it is all kinds of excellence and individual accomplishment that need to be celebrated once again. The prohibition on competition, or clear acknowledgement of superior ability, in primary school classrooms has been a horrendous handicap to the academic performance of boys for whom winning – coming “top of the class” as it was once known – is a major motivation. There has been much comment on the contrast between the Britain of the 2012 Games and the nihilistic violence which was parading across our television screens (or, if you were particularly unlucky, outside your front door) last year at this time. 

     Which is the real Britain, everybody wants to know: the mob of rioting delinquents or the wholesome, well-behaved crowds of the past fortnight? The answer, of course is both. (Maybe the “lesson to be learnt” from the one is relevant to the other: when young men grow up without acceptable outlets for aggressive impulses, they are likely to go to the bad.) However, there is a decision to be made about which of those two countries we will embrace and which we will repudiate. The riots were the final fruition of unchecked delinquency. In truth, the failure to control them was just a logical extension of the long history of self-inflicted failure to get to grips with lawlessness and anti-social behaviour.

By significant contrast, when the golden post box commemorating Jessica Ennis’s Olympic triumph was vandalised within 24 hours of its dedication in her home city of Sheffield, the civic authorities painted out the graffiti immediately. That was how New York’s police defeated their epidemic of graffiti: by scrubbing it off as soon as it appeared. It was one of the ways that they took their city back. Sheffield, inspired by the Olympic spirit, decided not to let the hooligans win. Is it too much to expect that the rest of the country might do the same?

The Olympics are a celebration of everything the Left hates

The prohibition on competition in primary schools has been a horrendous handicap to the academic performance of boys for whom winning is a major motivation

Jobcentre Pluse Benefit Scandal

   

    

The Government’s failure to crack down on Britain’s benefits cheats has been exposed in a damning TV documentary. The programme shows one young man filling in his Jobseeker’s claim form by copying down his weekly shopping list. Another submits a CV and application letter as evidence that he was trying to seek work, yet both clearly state he does not want a job. In both cases, the claims were passed.

Joe Paxton, 25, uses a hidden camera to show a Jobcentre Plus adviser in Shropshire rubber-stamping his claim for Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA), having failed to spot that it was a simply a list of food items. Claimants over 25 can receive up to £71.

    Mr Paxton, who was working undercover with television reporter Morland Sanders, said: ‘I’m supposed to write a list of 14 things I’ve done each week to find work but no one ever bothers to check it, so it was no surprise when I submitted my shopping list instead and they didn’t even notice.’ He graduated in 2009 from Aberystwyth University, where he read genetics, but has been signing on ever since. He says he is becoming increasingly disillusioned with the system. ‘We do all that is asked of us but what is the point if they are just going to ignore it?’ says Mr Paxton. ‘This shows just how easy it is to stay on benefits if you want to and begs the question how seriously staff actually take their role in finding people like me work.’ In order to obtain JSA, claimants must enter into an agreement with an employment officer to highlight the attempts they have made to find work each week. The terms can vary from centre to centre.
     But the system’s potential for farce is further highlighted by 30-year-old unemployed events manager Alay Paun. Under the terms of his agreement, he has to apply for three jobs each week and then show his adviser, via his mobile phone, copies of what he sent. However, working with Sanders, he altered the copies to say he didn’t want the job because he preferred to stay on benefits and changed the last line of his CV so it read: ‘Please don’t give me the job, I don’t want it.’ Yet the adviser at his Jobcentre in Dalston, North-East London, didn’t spot the glaring anomalies.

 
'Farce': The programme shows Joe Paxton writing a shopping list out on his claim form for Jobseeker's Allowance - the claim was passed     ‘She scrolled through my emails on my mobile and my claim was passed for another week, within five minutes of me walking in,’ says the Sussex University graduate, who had been out of work for five months when the film was made. In April this year, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg praised Jobcentres, claiming that they offered the unemployed the chance to either ‘earn or learn’. But with more than 2½ million unemployed in Britain and a further 500,000 school and university leavers about to flood the job market, the documentary casts serious doubt on their effectiveness. The cost of people working cash-in-hand while still fraudulently claiming benefits runs to more than £226 million a year and Jobcentre Plus staff are seen as the first line of defence. Yet when Mr Paun goes into the Jobcentre to sign on wearing paint-splattered overalls and looking like a professional decorator, his adviser readily accepts that he’s painting his bedroom.

'Satisfied': Ruth Owen, the chief operating officer of Jobcentre Plus, said she was satisfied staff were doing enough to get people into work

      Martin Archer, who worked as a Jobcentre Plus adviser until last year, admits: ‘Filling out a fraud referral form can take time, so unless you’ve got a very supportive manager and unless you’ve not got a busy diary, you’re going to be tempted to just let it go under the carpet. When I was there, not enough fraud referrals were being done.’ Mr Archer adds that if he were out of work and keen to find a job, he wouldn’t start at the Jobcentre. He said claimants were often penalised for using their initiative, meaning many of those who had, for instance, secured unpaid work experience would have their benefits stopped.
‘There is no guidance on this. You do get to this ludicrous situation where somebody has found themselves a great opportunity, and the Jobcentre just doesn’t know how to process it. Most of my colleagues would err on the side of caution and they would classify internships as work.
    Ruth Owen, chief operating officer for Jobcentre Plus, claims there is plenty of help available for Britain’s unemployed but admits: ‘I am disappointed we haven’t picked up the silly mistakes that Joe and Alay highlighted. But I am satisfied that Jobcentre Plus is getting people into work and ensuring they meet their responsibilities.’ She appears baffled when asked why 127 jobs based in Jobcentre Plus itself are advertised on neither the centres’ terminals nor their own website. She later said that Jobcentre staff knew about them and could pass the information on to claimants. But says Channel 4 Dispatches reporter Sanders: ‘Jobcentre Plus seems ill-equipped to do what it was set up for, which is to find people jobs.
    ‘From our discussions with Joe, Alay and many other job-seekers, if you want to, it is still all too easy to cheat the system.’

Benefit cheats' bonanza: Jobcentre Plus staff pay out even though claimants' documents are just shopping lists and letters saying 'don't give me a job'

A Channel 4 documentary shows Jobcentre advisers failing to notice deliberately farcical entries on claim forms for Jobseeker's Allowance
   One jobseeker featured on the programme says 'no-one bothers' to check his forms

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2187039/Benefit-cheats-bonanza-Jobcentre-Plus-staff-pay-claimants-documents-just-shopping-lists-letters-saying-dont-job.html