Which Are Safer: Hospitals Or Roads?
Discussion
Our roads should be the most dangerous environment most people ever encounter, filled as they are with speedophiles racing their lethal weapons.
And most people are exposed to the roads every day, often for large parts of the day.
Our hospitals should be amongst the safest environments most people are ever subjected to, and most people do not enter a hospital from one year to the next. If they do in any one year they are usually in and out in no time these days.
A multicultural "English"person's home is his non oppresive, non threatening castle. Another environment that should be ultra safe.
But to quote conservative figures, around 5,000 people die in domestic accidents each year. Around 5,000 die in hospital accidents each year. Around 5,000 die from hospital aquired infections each year.
Around 20,000, at a conservative estimate, die unneccesarily in the NHS each year.
Around 20,000 die from hypothermia each winter.
But figures in the headlines today put deaths from reactions to prescribed drugs at 10,000, perhaps 20,000 pa.
And many researches put far higher values on the figures above.
So how many die in the car-nage on the roads?
A million a year? Half? 100,000 a year? 50? 10,000?
5,000 even?
No:
Around 3,500!
A figure comparable to the rail-road death toll when the levels of traffic are taken into account.
And don't forget the rail-roads are fenced off!
In fact, the alleged "speedophiles racing their lethal weapons" kill comparable numbers to cyclists per passenger mile!
Even more surprisingly, cyclists kill several times more cyclists than motorists do per vehicle mile!
Isn't it about time we stopped demonising our motorists, still probably the safest in the world?
And concentrated on the real causes of death on the roads:
The 85% of pedestrians who cause the accidents they die in.
The black clad cyclists riding the wrong way down a one way street without lights against the lights.
The road "safety" features that cause different categories of road user to fight over the same bit of road.
Or the ones that force motorists to look after their wallets rather than our children.
Better still:
Why don't we look after our own children and teach them to be safe on the roads?
That way they might survive to be better drivers!
And most people are exposed to the roads every day, often for large parts of the day.
Our hospitals should be amongst the safest environments most people are ever subjected to, and most people do not enter a hospital from one year to the next. If they do in any one year they are usually in and out in no time these days.
A multicultural "English"person's home is his non oppresive, non threatening castle. Another environment that should be ultra safe.
But to quote conservative figures, around 5,000 people die in domestic accidents each year. Around 5,000 die in hospital accidents each year. Around 5,000 die from hospital aquired infections each year.
Around 20,000, at a conservative estimate, die unneccesarily in the NHS each year.
Around 20,000 die from hypothermia each winter.
But figures in the headlines today put deaths from reactions to prescribed drugs at 10,000, perhaps 20,000 pa.
And many researches put far higher values on the figures above.
So how many die in the car-nage on the roads?
A million a year? Half? 100,000 a year? 50? 10,000?
5,000 even?
No:
Around 3,500!
A figure comparable to the rail-road death toll when the levels of traffic are taken into account.
And don't forget the rail-roads are fenced off!
In fact, the alleged "speedophiles racing their lethal weapons" kill comparable numbers to cyclists per passenger mile!
Even more surprisingly, cyclists kill several times more cyclists than motorists do per vehicle mile!
Isn't it about time we stopped demonising our motorists, still probably the safest in the world?
And concentrated on the real causes of death on the roads:
The 85% of pedestrians who cause the accidents they die in.
The black clad cyclists riding the wrong way down a one way street without lights against the lights.
The road "safety" features that cause different categories of road user to fight over the same bit of road.
Or the ones that force motorists to look after their wallets rather than our children.
Better still:
Why don't we look after our own children and teach them to be safe on the roads?
That way they might survive to be better drivers!
bogush said:
But figures in the headlines today put deaths from reactions to prescribed drugs at 10,000, perhaps 20,000 pa.
And many researches put far higher values on the figures above.
And reason? Computerised repeat prescriptions, rottweiler receptionists and not enough dosh invested in GP services. Plus there are some pretty naff GPs out there anyway!
Yet millions of our money is wasted on providing phoney statistics to show our Tone and crones in good light!
The real truth will out!
And top post - bogush!
Agree with the points you raise!
cks, but I have to say I'm pretty much with him on this one. 
Having twice spent a night in casualty due to analyphalaytic shock (extreme life threatening swelling in the throat) I can say from experience that the hospital and my GP were very casual about the situation. I was told allergy testing was not necessary although it was not known what had triggered the reaction. I later found out - by process of elimination - that it was aspirin.
The scary thing was that on the first occasion I drove myself the 10 miles to hospital as I was alone at home and not thinking clearly and couldn't call an ambulance as I was unable to talk as the swelling was pressing on my vocal cords. Even worse that after 8 hours on a steroid drip I was allowed to drive home as no one enquired as to how I arrived at hospital.
I rarely take any prescription drugs now - I also have an allergy to antibiotics and penicillin. I endured 3 weeks with a tooth abscess rather than risk a bad reation.
The scary thing was that on the first occasion I drove myself the 10 miles to hospital as I was alone at home and not thinking clearly and couldn't call an ambulance as I was unable to talk as the swelling was pressing on my vocal cords. Even worse that after 8 hours on a steroid drip I was allowed to drive home as no one enquired as to how I arrived at hospital.
I rarely take any prescription drugs now - I also have an allergy to antibiotics and penicillin. I endured 3 weeks with a tooth abscess rather than risk a bad reation.
Tafia said:Tafia (and anyone who might have tried to email me recently):
.....Recall the info I sent you.....
Hiccough with my email forwarding address.
Pistonheads email facility should be working again now.
Tafia said:Are they not counted if they are sent home?
And that does not include those quickly sent home to die following the charmingly named, "adverse event".
And is this standard practice?!?!
bogush said:
Tafia said:
And that does not include those quickly sent home to die following the charmingly named, "adverse event".
Are they not counted if they are sent home?
And is this standard practice?!?!
My information is that those sent home to die do not count towards iatrogenic deaths, though I can not give you an official source for this.
If you look here:
www.alkalizeforhealth.net/Ldoctordeath.htm
you will see that in the US, doctors are the third leading cause of premature deaths.
No reason to think it is any better here.
So in UK, 4000 plus killed in their own homes, 56000 killed by NHS staff, 120,000 killed by tobacco etc etc.
Makes the so-called "carnage" on our roads seem quite a minor cause of premature death, does it not?
Tafia said:
Recall the info I sent you researched by Dr Mark Porter which confirmed that third party accidental deaths within the NHS exceed 54,000 per annum.
And that does not include those quickly sent home to die following the charmingly named, "adverse event"
Dr Mark Porter said:
Your Life In Their Hands
Articles written by Dr Mark Porter, reproduced from his weekly column in Radio Times.
Medical errors have always made headlines but few people realise the sheer scale of the problem - accurate figures are difficult to come by but both British and American studies suggest that around 1 in 25 patients in hospital is harmed as a direct result of medical error. Most of these, thankfully, will be minor, but around a third of mishaps result in some form of long term disability or death. Translate these fractions into hard figures and the scale of the problem quickly becomes apparent. There are approximately 10 million hospital admissions in the UK every year which means, assuming a universal 4% risk of medical mishap, that as many as 400,000 people could be injured in some way by their doctors or nurses - 56,000 of whom will be killed.
A risk that compares poorly with other activities perceived as dangerous - .... Hospitals, on the other hand, don't scare most people but maybe they should! Data from the States suggest that patients admitted to a typical acute care hospital have a 1 in 200 chance of being killed as the result of a medical or nursing cock up - and there is nothing to suggest that things are any better here, indeed they may well be worse......
From:
Your life in their hands from the Radio Times article 30 September - 6 October 2000
From:
www.surgerydoor.co.uk/level2/Radio%20times%20archives/docmistake.shtml
See here for a table of probabilities from
www.safespeed.org.uk/risky-business.pdf :
www.network54.com/Forum/thread?forumid=96157&messageid=1088802973&lp=1088959907
www.safespeed.org.uk/risky-business.pdf :
www.network54.com/Forum/thread?forumid=96157&messageid=1088802973&lp=1088959907
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