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5 February 2010
Medical blunders at the local hospitals, costing the taxpayer more than £11m in two years, make for an emotive headline. And so they should.
Even more so in a week when there were justified concerns that orthopaedic operations - the likes of hip and knee replacements - could be switched from Eastbourne to the Conquest at Hastings, to save money.
"Helping us deliver change in a tougher financial period" was said to be the short-term objective. In the longer term, we're told this was about "assessing the optimal organisational model for sustainability of two acute hospitals".
Chilling words to anyone in need of care within the NHS and no comfort when every penny counts so much that such a huge sum has been paid out by the East Sussex trust for medical negligence.
But the debate needs perspective. Our world can never be perfect and in hospitals, as in any walk of life, there will be mistakes. Tragically, though, the most serious of them in the health service can rob a patient if not of their life, certainly the ability to lead it in anything like a normal way.
And set against the damages paid to victims who in some cases are never again able to care for themselves, 11m is not such an incredible sum.
Litigation is part and parcel of modern life. Whilst the validity of some claims may be questionable, others certainly are not. That is for the courts and lawyers to decide.
The number of claims rose by a third last year and that has to be cause for concern, along with the huge sums paid out in claimants' legal fees and solicitors' charges. But let's remember that behind every case is often a destroyed life - if not the patient's then that of a doctor who innocently got it wrong. And a health trust already facing a hopeless task of balancing the books and ticking the boxes.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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