11^th August 2013 [blog No. 30]

Hello again, it’s me, Peggy

I wish to draw your attention to Lipitor and Statins in a complaint against the NHS by my husband.

Firstly though, I am sorry for the delay in getting back to you here but it was due initially to a virus unwittingly being downloaded onto my computer after some kind person sending it to me in an email. Then subsequently, due to me suffering a further fall, which was due to my on-going Right foot problem. It has gone untreated because it was no good me attending our local hospital (RDGH) where I allege I cannot obtain proper corrective treatment.

I wish to refer you to my Blog number 24 where I referred to Mr Giles at the RDGH in December 2008 where and when he did say that if he were to treat my Right foot problem he would want to amputate my foot, from just below the knee. Much to my great concern I see that Mr Giles (according to the RDGH clinical list) is working in paediatrics where I contend the patients are so young they are unable to argue their condition or to be aware of what is going-off.

As I said in my previous blog, covering-up mistakes in our NHS is now reported in the media on a daily basis, and Jeremy Hunt MP has a difficult task ahead of him in putting the NHS back on track, especially if he fails to address the matter of the cover-up culture in our NHS. Not just a cover-up culture by staff against fellow colleagues but the cover-up culture against the patient when the NHS has been found doing something wrong.

The so-called Patient Services Department (The old “PALS” Department) at the Rotherham District General Hospital are no pal of the patient and/or the patient’s relatives. They are there and paid for by the NHS to put further pressure on the patient and/or the patient’s relatives by way of leading them up the garden path to the NHS merry-go-round complaints procedure. It’s a trick.

My husband had cause to complain because he too could not obtain treatment from the RDGH for his urgent hernia repair. His operation was put-off in 2005 by the consultants saying his heart problem did not warrant any operation being undertaken.

When a fresh referral was made by our then GP Practice (Kiveton Park Primary Care Centre) in May of 2010 a letter dated 24^th May 2010 had been sent back to GP Dr Chasabingo by the Consultant General Surgeon Mr M M Lambertz. To our dismay my husband discovered a copy of the letter in his medical records when he asked to see his files at the RDGH.

We, my husband and I, found the letter very distasteful and in fact downright intolerable. See copy of the letter copied below here where Mr Lambertz refers to my husband as “fortunately he still being around to tell the tale and further refers to my husband as “and it is fit enough for repair”.

A further referral had been made by Mr Lambertz for my husband to see Cardiac Consultant Dr A Louis at the RDGH. At the consultation (which my husband sound recorded) Dr Louis prescribed my husband with Lipitor albeit his cholesterol readings for LDL and HDL were within the prescribed limits, and I had also advised Dr Louis myself that my husband was intolerable to Statins as Statins had made him very ill in the past. Dr Louis insisted that Lipitor was a different medication and insisted my husband try them.

Within the following three weeks my husband’s health went downhill, and he telephoned our GP Practice on Friday 3^rd September 2010 explaining his condition of how he was having trouble with headaches, muscle pain and from time to time difficulty with speaking. The GP advised him to stop taking the Lipitor tablets, and made an appointment for my husband to see a GP on the Monday following that weekend. When he attended the surgery the GP examined him and diagnosed him as having suffered a stroke.

Instead of the GP sending for a blue light he simply stopped my husband from driving forthwith, made a routine appointment for him to have blood tests done at the GP Practice over the next couple of days and made a routine referral to the RDGH for him to undergo a CT Scan which was done 10-days after the event of being diagnosed as having suffered a stroke! The consultant at the hospital’s stoke clinic confirmed that them doing a CT Scan so long after the event was useless in diagnosing him of having suffered from any possible stroke. The scan results came back negative just as the Stoke Consultant had envisaged.

I allege that by Dr Louis (Cardiac Consultant) at the RDGH prescribing my husband with Lipitor (Statins) when I had categorically advised him of my husband’s intolerance to Statins was a direct attempt at doing my husband harm!

When my husband went onto the internet researching Lipitor he discovered that Lipitor were reported as being the worst possible kind of Statin, and what my husband had suffered as a result of taking Lipitor was in fact a common serious adverse reaction. You just cannot trust these people.

My husband put his complaint to the Patient Services Department (the old “PALS”) together with sound recordings of the consultations and telephone calls but they came back with the same old story that they Consultants at the RDGH had done nothing untoward.

See copy of my husband’s letter dated 24^th November 2012 to our Local MP, The Rt. Hon Mr Kevin J Barron MP, requesting of Mr Baron that he put the matter of a complaint to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. See also copy of MP’s letter to the PHSO of the same date. It has to be said that in one other matter of complaint put to Ms Taylor by my husband over a Colonoscopy issue she did handle it professionally in that she managed to get a consultant to see my husband within 48-hours of him lodging his complaint.

Unfortunately, when he subsequently attended the Sheffield Hallamshire Hospital for his problem to be assessed again he realised that they had not undertaken a particular procedure when he had attended the RDGH on 9^th July 2012 albeit the RDGH say they have it recorded on at least three reports that they had done the procedure in question at the same time of his Colonoscopy. My husband had sound recorded the whole procedure at the RDGH on 9/7/2012 and again when he attended the Hallamshire Hospital where the missed procedure was undertaken to a Gold Standard.

The Ombudsman came back to my husband in a letter dated 13 May 2013 in what they have termed as being a “RESTRICTED” document (meaning I cannot display it here because they are gagging him) simply saying in a bog-standard format that they have found nothing untoward with the RDGH. That Merry-go-Round is continuing to go around.

Before I go I wish to refer you to my blog No. 28 (16^th June 2013) with regards to a former firm of Atteys Solicitors who had been acting on a proposed case of professional negligence against Gosschalks Solicitors of Hull.

I noted that Atteys Solicitors were disbanded totally by the SRA in March 2013 in a case where again the details are being kept from public knowledge as to why they have shut them down. Now, is that been transparent?

On the 9^th April 2013 I requested of the SRA that my Atteys Files be returned to me by the SRA Investigation Team but to-date, after several attempts at obtaining my case files, I am still being stone-walled by this SRA Quango. My husband last contacted them on my behalf on 24^th July 2013 where once again they (Jess) stone-walled him. She said that she would get back to us but to-date (some three weeks later) we have heard nothing from them.

This true story continues …….

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