I emailed a question to my consultant, Matt, yesterday-and I received a rather curt email back, telling me not to mention gentamicin, since the Barts Trust lawyers have informed him that he is not to discuss anything about the 2010 situation. And this started me thinking...
It's two and a half years since the incompetent doctors at Barts ignored my wishes to have them stop gentamicin-and two and a half years since I have been crippled and my life has been destroyed. And I can honestly say that the small recovery has been very, very tough.
I know I make fun of the Brits-my theory is, if they can dish it out, they should be able to take it!! But one thing that I find amazing is the reluctance to stand up and fight for compensation when they have been the victims of medical negligence, incompetence, malpractice-and general arrogant stupidity. Most of them will complain, but few will fight. If they don't fight, this problem (and it is a big one) will carry on forever.
The law in this country states that, unless a victim of malpractice is seeing a doctor privately, the patient can only sue the hospital, not the doctors. So, inept doctors who make the most inexcusable mistakes are allowed to hide behind the hospitals and the NHS, and all that happens is these charlatans continue to cripple (and, in some cases, kill) innocent people. People can apply for Legal Aid-and I'm not sure how that operates, or even if the government is still providing it. No win, no fee is a fairly recent concept here-but cases of malpractice can carry on for five years, so I wonder how dedicated these lawyers are, if they know they are in for a very long haul.
The other alternative is to pay privately for legal assistance; this is hideously expensive as well as time-consuming-but it is the way I chose to take this case to court. And Barts can (and probably will) waste as much time as they can, knowing that, if they wait long enough, I will deplete my savings and have to quit.
Is this fair? No-but, once again, it is one of the cornerstones of life: life is unfair.
I made a formal complaint to the General Medical Council about six months after the whole disaster happened; I got someone to write it out for me, since I was unable to write anything myself. And I still haven't heard anything. No surprises there; they all look after each other, I think. And, by the way, the incidents of malpractice in this country are shocking. Unless people go public (and sometimes even that does no good), all these cases are hidden.
I remember reading an interview with the anthropologist Margaret Mead (I'm going back to childhood, so I'm not absolutely quoting this). She was asked if she really believed that small groups of people could change the world. She replied that they are the only ones who can.
I sat all night thinking about that-and I think that the laws must be changed, and that all the victims of negligence and malpractice should rightly receive justice-if not financially, then certainly morally. And I figured out a way to make sure this happens: it is called people power.
I am not the person to witter, twitter, tweet, facebook, or any of that stuff - but I can email. And I set up a special email account just for this online moral crusade to change laws and to make the culprits accountable. The address is: limerabbit4justice@yahoo.co.uk
If everyone who reads this blog sends all the information I am about to give you to ten people in their address list-or posts it online, on facebook or another social networking site-and those ten people involve ten more people...and so on...we can, literally, change the world.
If every one of those people sends an email to the General Medical Council (www.gmc-uk.org), atttention of Fitness to Practise, and asks why there has been no investigation into the following doctors-whose incompetence crippled a patient and ruined her life in 2010-even though she complained, the council did nothing- and quote the doctors' names and medical license numbers, and also sends copies to the media, they will force the hands of the medical council and Barts Trust. When the spotlight of shame blasts onto Barts, it will also highlight all the other hospitals in this country, and will highlight incompetence and malpractice on a massive scale. The government will be forced to step in, really investigate (rather than cover up, which is their usual practice), and these people will never be able to treat unsuspecting patients this way. Why? Because the world will be watching. And something will have to be seen to be changed. And the people involved will never do this to anyone else again; they will never be able to hide behind the skirts of the hospitals and the NHS. And people will receive the compensation they deserve.
Philip Bright is now crippling people in Bristol; his license number is: 6103350
Sofia Grigoriadou is still at Barts and the London in London. Her number is: 4282352
Hilary Longhurst is still at Barts and the London. Her license number is: 2981570
If everyone demands a thorough investigation-rather than the whitewash from all guilty parties-we can truly make history.
Copies of the email to the GMC (www.gmc-uk.org) should go to the media: news@dailymail.co.uk - news.desk@express.co.uk - mirrornews@mirror.co.uk - Peter Horrocks@bbc.co.uk - news@channel4.com
If you include my limerabbit4justice@yahoo.co.uk, I can then track all the replies. If anyone who writes drops me an email to tell me, I can do the numbers, and I will either email back (or not, if the sender wants to remain anonymous) or post our continuing success on this blog.
The only way to change the world is to do it by people power. If everyone emails the GMC and demands to know why an investigation into this travesty has never been performed, and copies in all the media-well, one email from one person (me) can be ignored. 100-or 500- or many hundreds - nobody can ignore that. And, knowing the media in this country, they will be falling all over themselves to find out what is happening and get the story of the year (possibly the decade).
If we succeed beyone our wildest dreams-and we can, if everyone contributes, if everyone sees the chance to change laws in every country, not only this one! - the incompetent doctors in this country will be stopped, and the hospitals that encourage them can lose all their government funding if they don't take reasonable action. And there is a knock-on effect: every victim of malpractice, incompetence, medical negligence and nauseating arrogance in every country (the U.S.A., all of Europe) will have justice. This practice of using a lethal drug like Gentamicin will stop, too-because Schering in New Jersey has been making this for fifty years, and its crippling effects are widely known by the medical establishment-but it is cheap, and drugs that do a better job are more expensive. We can stop that practice. We can. But we all need to step in and take action.
If we succeed, we have changed the world for the better, and we have made a path for people to force governments to change their laws-so we have helped people who are unable to help themselves.
If we fall flat-then we have given it our best shot. We are doing NOTHING illegal (I checked)-and what we are doing is moral and ethical, and that is more than we can say for a lot of the doctors out there.
And the best part for all of you who are jumping up and down and ready to make a difference: nobody knows who you are. Nobody - unless you tell someone! If anybody gets shot at, it will be me-and what the hell, I'm used to being in the firing line.
Let's put an end to this disgraceful injustice-injustice that is taking place in every country, not only in this one.
Let's change the world. Somebody has to-so it might as well be us!!!!!!!
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