Here's Why Roughly Half of All Hospital Deaths Could Be Related to Sepsis

Sepsis is the leading cause of death to hospitalized patients, but to bring down the sepsis-related mortality rate, prevention and care of other major contributing factors would need to change significantly, according to new research published Friday in JAMA Open Network.

Sepsis is a life-threatening infection individuals can develop during hospitalizations, affecting roughly 1.7 million adults in the U.S. annually. Among those infected, sepsis may potentially contribute to more than a quarter of a million deaths. But it’s not truly known how pervasive sepsis is, which is why researchers undertook a study to assess the prevalence, common underlying causes, and preventability of sepsis.

‘Literally rotted to death’: Ex-nursing home workers face neglect charges in 2 deaths

COLUMBUS, OH (WBNS/CNN) - Seven former nursing home nurses face charges in the death of two patients in 2017.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said the charges stem from patient neglect and inadequate care at Whetstone Gardens and Care Center he called “gut-wrenching."

They were indicted by a grand jury and face 34 charges overall, including manslaughter and gross patient neglect.

It was so bad, one man literally rotted to death.

Medicare would provide national coverage for CAR-T cancer therapies under new proposal

Medicare would provide national coverage for CAR-T cancer therapies under new proposal

WASHINGTON — Under a new proposal, the Medicare program would pay for expensive new cancer therapies known as CAR-T for patients across the country.

Advocates for physician assisted suicide dismiss opposition from Catholic Church

ALBANY — With New York having strengthened and expanded abortion rights and set to pass the Child Victims Act over Church objections, the state Catholic Conference headed by Timothy Cardinal Dolan is now prioritizing blocking a bill to legalize physician assisted suicide.

Disabled people like me fear legal assisted suicide suggests that some lives are less worth living

Disabled people like me fear legal assisted suicide suggests that some lives are less worth living

Disabled people look to doctors to help us live, not to help us die.

By Baroness Jane Campbell, a  founding member of the disability rights group, Not Dead Yet UK.

Many terminally ill and disabled people oppose assisted suicide.

Not a single organisation of, or for, disabled people, or one representing people with long term health conditions has campaigned for assisted suicide to be legalised.

Dr Will Johnston: It has become too easy to end patients' lives.

Dr Will Johnston: It has become too easy to end patients' lives.

As an ordinary Canadian family physician, I have seen a different side of the new ‘Medical Aid in Dying’ regime Dr. Sandy Buchman glowingly describes. The scheme was sold to us and the public as a rare matter of assisting the suicide of extreme terminal illness cases. By a year into it, hundreds (now thousands) had died and over 99% of the deaths were not by self-administration, but intravenously by doctors and nurses. The Canadian euthanasia death rate has continued to escalate, while funding for palliative care services has fallen in several provinces. 

Admitted to Hospice and Palliative Care without Consent-HALO Newsletter

Admitted to Hospice and Palliative Care without Consent

Please click on the above link for more of the entire Article and more News.

By Dorothy Knightly

My husband, William F. Knightly Jr., died on April 26, 2017, from untreated sepsis, which he contracted at a New Hampshire hospital while under the “care” of a hospice and palliative care specialist.

In early February 2017, my husband had lung and lymph node biopsies with negative results. The oncologist said they didn’t know if he had kidney cancer and wouldn’t know unless they took out his kidney. William refused. If there was nothing wrong with it, he said, they would take it out for nothing. The oncologist wasn’t happy. His whole demeanor changed toward my husband and me.

After having the biopsies, William started getting weak. The oncologist prescribed Cipro (an antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections). He had all the side effects listed for Cipro, but the doctor overlooked them and just assumed that my husband was dying of lung cancer.

Hospitalized by deception

We refused when the doctor asked if William wanted to be admitted to hospice care. My husband told the doctor that he didn’t want to die; he wanted treatment. The doctor responded that my husband would be admitted to the hospital for a short time to get his strength back and his pain controlled.

On March 16, 2017, my husband walked into the hospital on his own two feet and was admitted, at which time he was given Dilaudid (a pain-control medication) intravenously. The next day, William told me that a man visited him. We weren’t told this man was a hospice and palliative care (HPC) physician who was there to handle William’s pain medication. The doctor started him on 15 milligrams of MS Contin (extended-release morphine) twice a day and 15 milligrams of morphine every four hours if needed for breakthrough pain. Without his knowledge or consent, William had been admitted to hospice.