Hi Will. I was hoping you would give us your professional opinion on this. I realise you can't rely on media reports but understand this is a frail old man weighing under 10 stone. Now I'm convinced that 2 properly trained paramedics would be quite cabable of lifting him safely without injury to either him or themselves. If they can't do this they're not suitable for the job. IMHO
The health authority were apparently aware of what had happened so why send them in the first place if they were not allowed to help? From the report, the carer helped him up on her own.
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I don't blame the paramedics, they were simply following the rules. Not sure I blame the health authority either. I suspect they're more frightened of being sued for something or other & make rules to cover themselves. That's the shame of it & the "caring" society we live in. I'm scared of gettting old.

PS, I'm sure your Mum would have ignored the rules & done everything she could to at least make the old man comfortable.

Sorry Will. I had just heard about this on the radio when I posted it. I don't mind admitting it made me mad.

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I appreciate what you're saying. I don't know anything about this man but I'm sure the knighthood was deserved. That's not the point. My question is - how many other poor souls are treated like this due to the litigation-crazy world we live in? If we allow this to continue nobody will dare to help anyone, no matter what danger they're in.

Sorry Hagar, you replied whilst I was responding to Mark's comments.  The thing with lifting is that we are not allowed to do it, period.  The carer shouldn't have lifted him either, that she did was her decision and she would have been under pressure from her employer to do something.

My response to the situation is impossible to know as I wasn't there but in my experience people of a certain age and background consider us to be servants and treat us in this manner.  I have often found my self in the situation of being informed that I am "not allowed" to give a patient oxygen or put the bed sides up as "He won't like that"  On one occasion I was called to a stroke patient who had suffered a stroke and was choking.  We (the 'team') had informed the family that due to the fact that his swallow reflex was compromised he was unable to eat and drink and was therefore nil by mouth.  His Son, a highly intelligent man, had decided that this was simply not good enough for Father and had given him a drink of water.  Now in addition to the stroke he developed an inhalation Pneumonia and nearly died  The family tried (unsuccsesfully) to sue the hospital due to the hospital acquired infection.....

I would bet that in this situation the crew arrived and were greeted by a relative who immediately started berating them for not getting there sooner (she had waited an hour).  They probably found the gentleman slumped in a corner somewhere and knew that they were going to have to apply brute force to get him anywhere.  Patients of this sort invariably cry out when you lay a finger on them and his wife may have been in the back ground shouting "Stop it! you are hurting him."

Alternatively two guys who couldn't give a F**k were sent round to get the poor old gent back to his bed and decided that they couldn't be bothered.

Normally I would agree that it is odd that they were unable to move the gentleman onto a stretcher and then transfer him to his bed and considering that he was frail and less than ten stone I would imagine that I would be capable of lifting him alone.

I guess we'll never know.  Apologies for any offense caused to the upper and middle classes who think that they're better than me because daddy was loaded.

Will

Sorry if I caused any offence. I was not trying to have a go at how the health service is run or how almost everything in this country has deteriorated over the last few years. I would need a complete new thread to do that. LOL

I was simply trying to point out how badly this country has always treated its war heroes. The continued loyalty of our armed forces has never ceased to amaze me.

Maybe we should all hobble around with our walking frames muttering "Frankly my dear I DO give a damn!"

Only 'cos you have to wear it at home Will when you've been a bad boy

Mark