A new study has revealed that more than 33,000 people have died needlessly in the past decade, as a result of poor care following a heart attack under government-run healthcare in the UK.

The study analyzed almost 400,000 cases of non-ST elevation heart attacks, in 247 hospitals across England and Wales, in the decade leading up to 2013. They checked if each patient received the 13 treatments recommended in international guidelines post-heart attack, including scans, medical advice and certain drugs.

The Daily Mail reports that in a whopping 87 percent of the cases, patients failed to receive one or more of these vital interventions. For example, drugs such as aspirin that prevent clotting can reduce the risk of another heart attack, while scans such as ECGs can check electrical activity in the heart and uncover hidden problems. Moreover, in many instances, doctors did not give patients valuable advice about changing their lifestyles to cut their risk of another heart attack, such as quitting smoking, embarking on a sound fitness training regimen, and making dietary improvements.

The researchers estimate that around 33,000 deaths could have been prevented if everyone had received the treatments and investigations that applied to their cases. This equates to around one avoidable death each month in each hospital during the ten years studied. The researchers believe that the true number could actually be even higher – possibly double that estimate.

Doctors call on NHS to improve

The researchers stated, “We clearly show that, across a modern healthcare system such as in the UK, there are substantial opportunities to improve outcomes through relatively simple measures.”

Doctors say that this is unacceptable, and many of them are calling for the NHS to change its ways urgently, since these deaths could easily be avoided. The British Heart Foundation’s Professor Peter Weissberg said, “This study shows that many people in the UK are receiving sub-optimal care after a heart attack and that lives are being lost as a consequence. Hospitals need to apply the lessons learnt from this research.”

Every three minutes, someone suffers a heart attack in the UK. Almost 200 people who are still of working age die every week of a heart attack in the country. Although some improvements have been made in treatment recently, the NHS still has a long way to go.

Poor end-of-life care

Meanwhile, a review by the Care Quality Commission discovered that thousands of UK patients who are dying from diseases other than cancer are not receiving proper end-of-life care. They found that elderly people suffering from dementia and other illnesses are often marginalized by staff that reserve the best care for those with cancer.

They found that 40 percent of hospitals were rated as either “inadequate” or “requires improvement” when it comes to end-of-life care. This came just six weeks after a report by the Royal College of Physicians revealed that hospitals were neglecting terminally ill patients, and denying them pain relief, food and water.

Government-run healthcare is failing people

The NHS was once considered a prime example of successful, government-run, socialized healthcare, but it has now deteriorated into a system that routinely starves and kills patients. An official survey found that ten percent of people rated their relatives’ care during the last three months of life as “poor,” with almost a quarter of families questioned saying their loved one was not given adequate water and food during their last days of life. Family members of those who died in hospitals rated the care given as worse than those who died in other places.

The UK is just one of several countries that is demonstrating every day why government-run healthcare programs simply don’t work, and patients are paying the price with their health, and even their lives.

Sources include:

DailyMail.co.uk
DailyMail.co.uk
DailyMail.co.uk
NaturalNews.com
NaturalNews.com
Science.NaturalNews.com

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