UK Petition Starts For Margaret Haywood The Struck Off Nurse

I should say too Esta -there are signs (in health services) people have had enough of this Govt that has lurched towards too much State control ..However - its a big ship - is the ship of the bureaucratic State and it will take time to re-direct more humanly - I doubt  that we have any political vision in the UK anymore,  so whoever takes the wheelhouse will take us across the rocks ..

I would emigrate but hell where to ?  

Burrowing may be the best I can do ...

I agree with the previous comments. I think it is a good idea though as well as signing the petition and talking about it on the net, to write a good old fashioned strongly worded letter to the NMC on good old writing paper, putting all the argument but stressing the total loss of faith that the public have in the corporate, manager driven NHS with its lack of humanity except at the lowest levels. The NMC has got to show that it cares at ward level otherwise they will be seen as a redundant "jobs for the boys" Quango of the worst kind, which come the revolution ( which I don't really look forward to!) will be swept aside. We simply cannot afford to carry this sort of prestigiuous body unless they have true courage and moral values. This is what I am doing now.

Thanks Mary - I'll put your post onto the main story later as an update there - and find the link to the NMC site .. Their handling of this has been very poor .. Shortsighted I think and not in the public interest ... The petition has gone to 11000 now and is climbing ..

Kind regards

ADR  

I suport the petition to have this nurse reinstated she never should have been taken off the reg of nursing if it was not for people like her these health trusts be able to cut proper health care they need to be exposed has we see they are failing in patient right across the country and getting away with murder.

Brian Collins

41 Chilham Close

Sheerness

Kent

ME12-1HD

There is no question that she was correct.  A nurse SHOULD put the rights of her patients first and not have to be on guard for her job when management is wrong.

All Margaret Hawood was doing was giving a voice to all our mothers and fathers, she could see that proper care and respect for human life was not being meant.  She is a strong, compassionate and warm hearted woman and she listened to the patients, she heard their distress and she done something about that.  She should still be doing the job she loves, because she understands what being a nurse involves, giving the patient proper care and support and understanding their feelings and needs.

At least Margaret knows that she has the support of the nation

I Think its horrible how the people in hostipal was treated and the way they have treated Margaret Haywood she Has done the right thing by people.All my surport to Margret & People how has lost any body .

Devon Stephens 

/

Age 14

Hertfordshire

I have been involved with a hospital for the past three months as both my parents were diagnosed with terminal cancer at the beginning of January.  Whilst care on my fathers ward was reasonable, the care on my mothers was lacking in many areas.  I filed two complaints and ended up living in the hospital refusing to leave as I was concerned for my mothers wellbeing.  I have medical knowledge. I am also blessed with an amazing family and wonderful friends who took care of my other responsibilities enabling me stay in Sussex 150 miles from my home to ensure that my mother did not dehydrate, received nutrition through a feeding line, did not fall off the commode where she was placed and then left by the nursing staff, was washed, and had access to regular and appropriate pain relief.  I am lucky that I could do all this for my mother in her final weeks.  And we as a nation are lucky to have Margaret Haywood who risked so much to fight for the dignity and the rights of all patients who do not have any family members or close friends who are able to protect and support them.   The NHS has failed many people entrusted into their care and now they have failed Margaret Haywood.  It has also failed future patients who will no doubt suffer further in a system that Margaret had the courage to expose.      

I think she was absolutely right in doing what she did. She cared enough about her patients to take action to try and stop it happening to more vulnerable patients. She should be supported by her professional body, not punished!! If more peole in the medical, nursing and health care professions cared for patients as much as she does, maybe our health service wouldn't be in the state it is in, as more people would speak up!! We are all service users at some point in our lives, and i believe we should treat others as we would want ourselves and our loved ones to be treated. Sometimes that means going the extra mile... but this programme highlighted it was basic nursing care that was lacking that robbed those vulnerable patients of their dignity in their last weeks/days!! Keep fighting margaret. you have lots of support.

I hope that the people on the Board that struck off Margaret Haywood find themselves in hospital in later life, lying in their own poo and pee for hours/days on end, being starved and uncared for like so many NHS patients have endured. But, of course, they will probably be cared for in Private, expensive hospitals that the likes of you and me can't afford.

Re-instate Margaret NOW and give her all her backpay: she deserves every penny. 

The decision to sack nurse Margaret Haywood is wrong I watched the promgrame and felt sick and sad how these people were treated I have worked in the care field for almost 10 years covering all ages. I feel nurse Margaret Haywood should be applauded for her actions and re-instated

Sarah . I am sad to hear of your struggle - but very heartened at your courage -well done for protecting your mom .. Our family did the same in Birmingham with one of ours .

Yes WE ARE LUCKY to have a human being like Margaret Haywood - who (I saw part of an interview with her) is a very caring human being - with that rare ingredient - true empathy .

... True empathy is the fount of care - its the ability to feel others distress and needs - We need that upholding - not the machined glossed over approach of NHS Foundation Trusts which hide truth we should all know about .. We need to sack more of the top-staffies and increase the rights for public transparency into wards and all NHS practice .

Current systems like Non Execs on the Boards and   Local Involvement Networks (LINks) are not enough - they tend toward becoming too agreeable with the NHS.   The now demised Patient and Public Involvement Forums (PPI's ) were not enough either  - although a few were critical many were poodles..

Sarah WE CAN DO SOMETHING - we can write to MP's - WE can BLOG from the heart .. We can stop letting parts of the culture of the NHS get away with perverse concealments - We can increase the rights of dissent and we can stop being silent and silenced by our country's undemocratric ways and pressures on us .. 

God bless you are your mom (and family)

I 100% support Margaret for her brave and selfless act.  Its a shame that so few people speak out against the appalling conditions that they witness working in the NHS, no doubt it is the fear of reprisal that prevents them. The rediculous decision to strike Margaret off for disclosing the grim treatment at Brighton will only serve to prevent more employees exposing the dreadful treatment the elderly and infirm receive in the hands of the NHS.   

Agreed Carolyn - you are right - so few people do speak out in the UK and I think that is why others have now battened onto this appalling treatment and are backing Margaret's brave stance .

Well said about the grim treatment at Brighton . We have to support Margaret Haywood because we cannot allow people to die through infections and dirty practice . Those people are some that we know of (because other UK Hospitals have had themes like this) and they are our community too .. We must stand up each other and not let the State kill people by default of better , open and checkable practice - by lay people ..

I think that Margaret was very courageous and I just hope that this petition will help to get her re-instated.

John :

The petition has gone past 21000 people and the larger press have got wind too - I think everyone needs to pile in because the principles of more not less openess are really worth upholding .. 

People can write to the Nursing Midwifery Council too to say what they think of them for de-registering Margaret

 Organization: NMC
    Address 1: 23 Portland Place
    City: London
    State: London
    Zip: W1B1PZ
    Country: GB

The problem with todays NHS is that it's being run by managers who have very little if any medical knowledge. It has taken a true caring professional to put her neck on the block to highlight that more care is given to budgets than to patients. As for those so called nurses who either steal food from patients, or find them a bother or a nuisance, then I have some simple advice for them, GET OUT OF NURSING! We support Margaret 100% and trust that the dimwits who stood her down will quickly realise that although hospitals may be full of them, the public is fast running out of (patients) patience with this type of idiotic bureaucracy. 

 The problems on the ward were bravely highlighted by Margaret Haywood after she had tried to get them sorted with a manager and senior .. Yes I think you are right Jon and Viv , I would add -  the trouble is the NHS has become perversely shaped by ambitious health professionals and ritual NON-execs at Board level (charged with the duty of publci scrutiny) who are frankly lethal in terms of what they wish to conceal on their watch .. Openess of  view may be painful but we have start rewarding everyone for that and sacking idiots who are trying to create a secret service not a public service with healthy and very open transparency  we can view ourselves and trust ...

The NHS now is too often like a mafia camp of tongue controlled capo's .. 

This is normal practice in the NHS and the Labour government has made things much worse, carrying out state-funded witch hunts on people using their Big Brother surveillance apparatus. It is like living in Stasi East Germany with Gordon Brown in power.

iffy - our "democracy" in the UK has turned into a bureaucracy that creates far too much dominion over the democracy and one of the problems is openess which the bureaucracy traditionally is never happy with - that includes the NHS and its managers .. 

A culture of openess and NHS transparency must be encouraged  - especially when dirty wards can mean death .

Margaret Haywood will never become reinstated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

Why?

Simply because the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) are using her to send a message to all other similar potential future Whisleblowers in the NHS.

i.e.  That if you are thinking of becoming a Whistleblower then think again, because if you do Whistleblow then you will almost certainly loose your job for doing so.

Perhaps it may also be that the NMC have been somewhat "leant on from above" to come to their decision regarding the striking off of Margaret Haywood too - who knows????

Margaret Haywood will never become reinstated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

Why?

Simply because the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) are using her to send a message to all other similar potential future Whisleblowers in the NHS.

i.e.  That if you are thinking of becoming a Whistleblower then think again, because if you do Whistleblow then you will almost certainly loose your job for doing so.

Perhaps it may also be that the NMC have been somewhat "leant on from above" to come to their decision regarding the striking off of Margaret Haywood too - who knows????

Elsa :

You may well be right ... I too think she is being used as an example but that does not mean we as the UK public cannot take note of  what the NMC are doing and use it in the court of our actions and values - perhaps writing to MP's and the NMC in protest too .. Some people have . 

See the NMC statement : 

ADR

Elsa , 

I see your point .. Yes  ..

Occasionally though in the moral mud and moral blood that is life some individuals make serious differences ... The price is high ... For some people inner integrity and the vision of that is worth living and dying for ... Call it an article of faith .. But yes we crucify the truth-bringers who remind us all how we should be - so very often ... 

Take care Elsa .

I don't like the latest custom and practice of sacking people for telling the truth.

It is sad that we live in a society which claims to have free speech but when people take up that right, they are punished rather than being seen as decent people, sharing what is actually going on in the NHS, publicly.

NHS complaints procedures are a farce and all they serve to do is keep things behind closed doors.

More staff and patients need to get vocal about what is actually happening or else we will end up living in some Orwellian '1984' state and what a horrid state that will be!

Mandy:

There is a serious problem in  the UK and that is State -power has become pushy and too entrenched - the mechanisms for accountability have become weakened and played with by Labour - its only now in April 2009 that the Health and Social Care complaint's processes are being joined up so that they are seamless instead of (as the Health Ombudsman criticised) seperated by two statutory instruments (SI) demonstrating poor co-integration .. Labour made both SI's (2004 and 2006). Margaret Haywood's case demonstrates a failure of whilstleblowing policy despite the fact that she followed the Public Disclosure Act on it .. The Nursing and Midwifery Council  are part of the problem too . They need an overhaul . They have not acted in the public interest accoding to well over 30000 people now .

Labour have not delivered "quality drivers" like  Patient Choice or modernisation truly because the NHS State is too heavy with bureaucracy and very de-localised despite small symbolic engagements of the public in health  in looking at the overarching State supply sides ..

Proper Patient Choice - should  have been enfranchised and made the real driver for quality so that the NHS could be criticised by the demand led side  for its services . Its like the BBC - its guaranteed an income no matter what and that is not right it encourages monopoly and one super-supplier which may not be right for many ..

The nurses however must be protected from any kind of pressure which stops them from protecting the public interest  and patients health .