Monday, December 6, 2010

Carry On Up the Khyber

From the Daily Mail:
A mother has died of stomach cancer after her GP and ten doctors failed to diagnose the disease.
Angela Skeffington had reported classic stomach cancer symptoms since April but was not given a specialist CT scan until late August, when the disease was finally spotted.

But by then the cancer had spread to her liver and lymph nodes and Mrs Skeffington, 44, from Birmingham was told she only had weeks to live.

The former warehouse worker had previously been misdiagnosed with anorexia, depression and period pain.

Tragic: Angela Skeffington, 44, has died from stomach cancer after ten doctors and her GP failed to diagnose the disease

Her angry relatives have now attacked the NHS for failing to diagnose the cancer earlier.

Her sister Christine Layton, 45, from Rugeley, West Midlands, said: 'Doctors tried giving Angela chemotherapy, but it was too late by then and didn't work.

'I know survival rates are not always very long, but my sister could still be here today if the doctors had listened to her.

'She may not have had a lifetime, but they could have given her more time with her children and grandchildren.'

For five months, the grandmother-of-five claimed she complained of stabbing pains to the stomach, blood in her vomit and stools, plus a loss of appetite to her GP, Dr Atta Shah at the Khyber Surgery in Saltley, Birmingham, along with a further ten doctors during 12 visits to Heartlands Hospital A&E...
The Khyber Surgery, eh? Think I would have given that one, you should pardon the expression, a pass. (Sorry.) Unlike, say, something called "the Goldstein Clinic" (a name I just made up), it doesn't exactly inspire a great deal of confidence in its state-of-the-artness.

Update: Meanwhile, in another Mecca of socialized medicine....

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