Clinton & Obama have some good ideas but socialized medicine is not one of them.

Just four stone when she diedAdam Derbyshire 30/ 1/2008

AN emaciated woman who suffered from dementia died weighing just over four stone, an inquest heard.

Margaret Wilson, 85, had been a resident at Thorncliffe Grange care home in Denton for three years.
Her son David, of Charnwood Avenue, Denton arranged for her to go into the care home in Windmill Lane after dementia slowly took hold.

He said: "I felt the care at the home was generally okay but I was always told she was eating fine."

Care home manager Sarah Hitchcock claimed Mrs Wilson weighed 31kg the day before her death.

An autopsy carried out four days later found she weighed 26kg, but it is unclear if post-mortem changes affected the reading.

Ms Hitchcock said: "She was frail and underweight and had a high risk of falling. She needed constant monitoring and was a poor eater. As time went on she became less mobile and slept for long periods.
"
Her son rarely came to see her."

Hitting back, Mr Wilson said: "I often popped in to visit her for half an hour and left without seeing any members of staff, so they were not even aware I had been in the building.
"Secondly, I was never informed she wasn’t eating. Whenever I asked I was told she ate two meals a day."

Mrs Wilson was taken to Tameside Hospital on 13 February last year after struggling for breath.
She was given oxygen and discharged but died four days later.

Dr Paul Dickens, pathologist, said: "She was extremely thin and emaciated. She had deep bed sores on her buttocks.

"Her intestinal walls were also very thin, which is one of the last things to happen to people with poor nutrition.

"It is common for people with dementia to have little or no appetite. The brain cells die off and the nerve pathways are damaged, including those which regulate hunger.

"However, the main cause of death was heart disease."

Assistant deputy coroner Chris Welton said: "I am concerned to note how thin she was and the extent of the malnutrition.

"We have been told dementia is often accompanied by a poor appetite, but I am uneasy that she was so emaciated when the autopsy was carried out."

Verdict: natural causes

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With other countries such as Canada and Great Britain that have adopted socialized medicine the quality of care has diminished greatly. The government makes all decisions as to what the patient gets and doesn't get-including life sustaining treatments; therefore your life is in the government's hands and we've seen how they've ruined a bustling economy so you can imagine what they'll do when lives are in the balance-THE SAME DAMN THING.

Citizens of these United States must realize that you are a number, a vote and that's it-in their eyes and they DO NOT CARE IF YOU LIVE OR DIE-you're just a another poor unfortunate statistic.

The medical landscape at present needs a lot of repair and the hospitals, not the nursing homes, who are often punished in a more severe manner, have to be reckoned with. The people have to write their legislators-Senators and Representatives and insist that all medical errors-whether properly reported to the individual state's Department of Public or not-have to be made public and included in the Freedom of Information Act, so that the public knows if hospitals are doing the job or not and what they have to protect themselves against when entering a hospital for a simple procedure and winding up being improperly medicated, contract MRSA or a pressure or even be operated on the wrong side of the brain by an inept surgical staff.

This is not to say that all hospitals are doing this, but a large percentage are and we as the patients must know what is going to be done to correct it.

Mr. Edward Comfort of the National Decubitus Foundation has written to many, many of the hospitals across this land and all the monitoring groups also but to no avail, everyone wants to keep these errors a dirty little secret from the public and it's about time the 79 million baby boomers in this country, which represents over 25% of the population to stand up, demand results, information and the right to know what they are in for when entering a medical facility.

All patients must realize also, that socialized medicine will put an enormous burden on the hospitals as we will also be entitling illegal aliens to receive free medical care and that will take away from the care that all legal citizens, who were born and raised here.

Let's smarten up now before it's too late.

Mr. Comfort, his board of directors, which includes my wife and I can't fight this battle alone, we need your support to make hospitals safe and laws that will not just fine the hospitals as they act as the buffer for the real culprits-the physicians and nurses who do not provide the care that they should. The burden also lies with the administrators and risk managers of hospitals to impose stronger language and methods to get these safety matters addressed.

No one should die accidentally, be treated as a statistic-rather than a living person that loved and was loved.

We all have a purpose, whether it be a father, mother, daughter, son, friend, neighbor and we all should be protected.

God Bless all of you and the National Decubitus Foundation, it's board of directors and my wife and I hope that all of you will gather the strength to end just another example of the medical lobby dictating what can be released and what can't, so the precious campaign contributions can keep flowing the the pawns in Washington and the various state governments.

We all pay a hefty price for healthcare in this county and we should get the best care-not just what they damn well feel like giving us.

I'm almost positive that most of you would not put the decision as to whether a loved one or yourself should die in the hands of politicians and the government. Help to keep them out of this or just purchase more body bags in bulk.

Sincerely,
George Mandell