The Welsh Assembly have just announced that hospital parking in Wales is to be free. Where I work, and in just about every other hospital in England and Scotland, you have to pay money to the hospital if you want to visit a loved one, or even if you need to attend the hospital as a patient. [Read more →]
Colin Norris has just been convicted of the murder of four women at hospitals in Leeds. His chosen weapon appears to have been insulin, a drug which is used to control levels of sugar in the bloodstream. In large overdoses it quickly causes coma, followed by death, unless sugar (glucose) is administered intravenously, and quickly. [Read more →]
You might have heard about the lottery winner who had to be within half an hour of a hospital at all times because of his medical condition – an aneurysm. An aneurysm is caused by a weakening in the internal wall of an artery, which allows the artery to bulge alarmingly under the pressure of blood inside. Eventually they can burst. If the aneurysm is on an artery inside your brain (as many as a third of us walk around with these potential widow-makers inside our heads I’m afraid) the result is a brain haemorrhage. If the aneurysm is situated on your abdominal aorta (the main artery that carries blood away from the heart and down towards the pelvis), then the result of rupture is usually immediately fatal. A thoracic aortic aneurysm is higher up, and more difficult to operate on. This story had me a bit confused.