wrighty Posted November 23, 2012 Share Posted November 23, 2012 I cant believe we only have one 'proper' hospital on the island. Surely we need atleast one more? As expected, I've been watching this thread with interest. All the comments, except the one above, have been either reasonable or understandable, due to personal experience etc. I'll try to shed some objectivity on the matter, but will obviously declare an interest as being one of the hospital's consultants. Elective colorectal surgery has been temporarily suspended. This is because there has been a recent 'blip' in the complication rates. As far as I know it's nothing to do with a pending legal case as has been suggested, it is simply as a result of the hospital's normal incident reporting mechanism for adverse events that this was picked up and acted upon appropriately. All surgeons have complications. In fact, in the UK, it is likely that the best surgeons have the highest complication rate - because they get referred, and take on, the sickest most complicated patients. If a surgeon doesn't have complications he or she is probably not working hard enough. Secondly, complications are multi-factorial. Surgery is a team sport. An apparent spike in complications doesn't mean you suddenly have a rogue surgeon, it could be due to all sorts of reasons including surgeon factors, anaesthetics, after-care... There is also the effect of statistical clustering. If a standard complication rate is for example 5%, and you do a hundred operations in a year, the average is one every 2 months or so. If you get 5 complications in a couple of weeks is it because you're doing something wrong, or is it that you've 'won the lottery' by getting your complications all at once? Until these things are investigated, no-one knows. The safest thing for a responsible organisation to do is to suspend whatever it is that seems to be going wrong, find out why, and take it from there. As our medical director is quoted as saying, patient safety is paramount. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dilligaf Posted November 23, 2012 Share Posted November 23, 2012 elective surgeryOr as we call it in Douglas North, 'Bill Henderson's lobotomy'. Who are the WE. I think you need to grow up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave1978 Posted November 23, 2012 Share Posted November 23, 2012 I cant believe we only have one 'proper' hospital on the island. Surely we need atleast one more? As expected, I've been watching this thread with interest. All the comments, except the one above, have been either reasonable or understandable, due to personal experience etc. I'll try to shed some objectivity on the matter, but will obviously declare an interest as being one of the hospital's consultants. Elective colorectal surgery has been temporarily suspended. This is because there has been a recent 'blip' in the complication rates. As far as I know it's nothing to do with a pending legal case as has been suggested, it is simply as a result of the hospital's normal incident reporting mechanism for adverse events that this was picked up and acted upon appropriately. All surgeons have complications. In fact, in the UK, it is likely that the best surgeons have the highest complication rate - because they get referred, and take on, the sickest most complicated patients. If a surgeon doesn't have complications he or she is probably not working hard enough. Secondly, complications are multi-factorial. Surgery is a team sport. An apparent spike in complications doesn't mean you suddenly have a rogue surgeon, it could be due to all sorts of reasons including surgeon factors, anaesthetics, after-care... There is also the effect of statistical clustering. If a standard complication rate is for example 5%, and you do a hundred operations in a year, the average is one every 2 months or so. If you get 5 complications in a couple of weeks is it because you're doing something wrong, or is it that you've 'won the lottery' by getting your complications all at once? Until these things are investigated, no-one knows. The safest thing for a responsible organisation to do is to suspend whatever it is that seems to be going wrong, find out why, and take it from there. As our medical director is quoted as saying, patient safety is paramount. Geez, I know where to cast my hook. I know the island is ten years behind but i thought sarcasm (and maybe an appreciation there of) had managed to swim here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cissolt Posted November 23, 2012 Share Posted November 23, 2012 I appreciate that accidents do happen, but is it a coincedence that one of the surgeons involved has suddenly announced they are going on 'holiday' on the very day the news article was published? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave1978 Posted November 23, 2012 Share Posted November 23, 2012 which surgeon? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2thumbs Posted November 23, 2012 Share Posted November 23, 2012 I cant believe we only have one 'proper' hospital on the island. Surely we need atleast one more? As expected, I've been watching this thread with interest. All the comments, except the one above, have been either reasonable or understandable, due to personal experience etc. I'll try to shed some objectivity on the matter, but will obviously declare an interest as being one of the hospital's consultants. Elective colorectal surgery has been temporarily suspended. This is because there has been a recent 'blip' in the complication rates. As far as I know it's nothing to do with a pending legal case as has been suggested, it is simply as a result of the hospital's normal incident reporting mechanism for adverse events that this was picked up and acted upon appropriately. All surgeons have complications. In fact, in the UK, it is likely that the best surgeons have the highest complication rate - because they get referred, and take on, the sickest most complicated patients. If a surgeon doesn't have complications he or she is probably not working hard enough. Secondly, complications are multi-factorial. Surgery is a team sport. An apparent spike in complications doesn't mean you suddenly have a rogue surgeon, it could be due to all sorts of reasons including surgeon factors, anaesthetics, after-care... There is also the effect of statistical clustering. If a standard complication rate is for example 5%, and you do a hundred operations in a year, the average is one every 2 months or so. If you get 5 complications in a couple of weeks is it because you're doing something wrong, or is it that you've 'won the lottery' by getting your complications all at once? Until these things are investigated, no-one knows. The safest thing for a responsible organisation to do is to suspend whatever it is that seems to be going wrong, find out why, and take it from there. As our medical director is quoted as saying, patient safety is paramount. They must be operating on quite a few hundred of the most sickest and complicated patients all coincidently clustered right here on the rock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wrighty Posted November 23, 2012 Share Posted November 23, 2012 I appreciate that accidents do happen, but is it a coincedence that one of the surgeons involved has suddenly announced they are going on 'holiday' on the very day the news article was published? I think it probably is a coincidence - many of the overseas doctors go away for a month or so at a time either around Christmas or in the summer. I'm pretty sure that no-one has been suspended, or put on 'gardening leave' in connection with this announcement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave1978 Posted November 23, 2012 Share Posted November 23, 2012 ---------- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GD4ELI Posted November 23, 2012 Share Posted November 23, 2012 They must be operating on quite a few hundred of the most sickest and complicated patients all coincidently clustered right here on the rock. As was explained, the stats can come and bite you on the behind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2thumbs Posted November 23, 2012 Share Posted November 23, 2012 They must be operating on quite a few hundred of the most sickest and complicated patients all coincidently clustered right here on the rock. As was explained, the stats can come and bite you on the behind. Or stab you in the gut! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2thumbs Posted November 23, 2012 Share Posted November 23, 2012 I wonder where the public comments on IoM News have gone? There were 4 - now they are gone? The readers comments related to other articles are still visible,so it does make you wonder why the 4 comments related to the Bowel surgery article below have been made invisible to the readers. Bowel surgery suspended pending safety review By Adrian Darbyshire Published on Thursday 22 November 2012 14:36 SCHEDULED bowel surgery at Noble’s Hospital has been temporarily suspended following higher than expected complication rates in patients. Medical director Stephen Upsdell said this type of surgery was often high risk and it was not uncommon for a healthcare organisation to take such steps as part of good patient safety. He said: ‘The decision to suspend a service is never one that is taken lightly, however safety is always paramount and our overriding consideration. We have temporarily suspended colorectal surgery whilst we investigate practices and procedures. Our investigations are likely to include an external review.’ Patients requiring elective colorectal surgery within the next few weeks will be referred to an NHS Trust in the UK and their surgery will be performed as planned. Only a relatively small number of patients will be affected. Emergency colorectal surgery will continue to be performed on-island at Noble’s Hospital. They do say a little bit of sugar helps the medicine go down. Makes you question who is applying the sugar coating in this case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolley Posted November 24, 2012 Share Posted November 24, 2012 Are we any worse than hospitals in the UK? They all have their detractors who talk of bad experiences. Some have a shocking reputation. Some people here talk as though they kill everyone they touch - God help anyone going in there, etc. - which is clearly far from the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aquarius Posted November 24, 2012 Share Posted November 24, 2012 Obviously death in hospital is inevitable. Surely the question is whether any of the deaths are preventable, whether training/professional development of the medics is taking place, whether they actually have the abilities they say they have, and whether the deaths that do happen are looked at and reported honestly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julian Ass-blancmange Posted November 24, 2012 Share Posted November 24, 2012 We at yessir-leaks are already conducting an extensive probe into your colorectal area. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slow Hand Luke Posted November 24, 2012 Share Posted November 24, 2012 I dont think the doctors are doing anything other than their best and as humans they will make mistakes like we all do, it is the nurses that I have had most of my problems with. The nurses here are very different to the ones I experienced in a UK hospital. The ones in the UK could not be more helpful and kind, the ones here, I will just say, not so helpful. They seem to have the typical IOM public sector attitude. I have grown up with this and a short stay in a UK hospital was a real eye opener. I was not a patient, one of our children was and even as someone "camping" with my wife in the ward we could not have expected better care for ourselves, never mind our child, than if we had been in a 4 star hotel. Nothing was too much trouble for them, they were always busy but they did not spend all day gossiping around the central ward desk, so they had plenty of time to do proper nursing. It was also done in a manner that they seemed to enjoy the job, not done with a grunt. SHL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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