VICTIMS OF A CATASTROPHIC IMMORALITY
GRIEVING families of the patients whose lives were cut short in Gosport Hospital blasted the ‘catastrophic and immoral’ failings.
They accused doctors and nurses of abusing the human rights of some of its patients and said ‘shameful and scandalous’ blunders led to the largest national scandal in the NHS and the largest number of deaths under any sort of care.
Families of elderly relatives who were given fatal opiate overdoses said these ‘ horrifying, shameful and unforgivable actions’ should be put before a jury at a criminal court. One described what took place as murder.
They demanded to know why a police investigation dismissed them as troublemakers and was hushed up.
Many reacted with anger and disbelief when they learnt that Dr Jane Barton was reportedly holidaying on a Spanish island. There is no suggestion Dr Barton is guilty of murder. Bridget Reeves, granddaughter of 88-year-old Elsie Devine, said hospital management, police, prosecutors and medical watchdogs had questions to answer.
Speaking on behalf of the families, she said: ‘None of us would have allowed our loved ones to be admitted to Gosport War Memorial Hospital had we known there was an ongoing police investigation in 1998.
‘The people of Gosport had the right to know and there would have been outrage if they had known the concerns of the whistleblower. Inexcusable failure of them all is not only shameful, it is scandalous and it is immoral. They have grossly failed their ethical standards by abusing people’s human rights. Our vulnerable relatives who were stripped of their final words to their loved ones, silenced by overdoses, is more than catastrophic.
‘This sort of behaviour going on in our NHS is both chilling and precarious.’
Miss Reeves described the families as ‘victims of crime’ who should have been given an explanation for the high death rates but instead faced a ‘sinister and calculated’ cover-up. The report concluded that the documents seen by the panel did not in fact contain evidence to support collution or conspiracy ratehr a tendency for organisations to act to protect their reputations. ‘Those implicated must now face the rigour of the criminal justice system,’ she said. ‘Accountability must take precedence here. These horrifying, shameful, unforgivable actions need to be disclosed in a criminal court. Only then can we put our loved ones to rest.
‘Hopefully people will wake up now and realise this is the largest national scandal under the NHS and the largest number of deaths under any sort of care.’
Her grandmother weighed just 7st when she died in 1999, after being ‘given enough drugs to lay out a 6ft violent man’.
Miss Reeves’s mother, Ann, said Dr Barton was not the only person she wanted to be held accountable. ‘She had people working with her,’ she said. ‘You can have one or two deaths and make a mistake but you can’t have hundreds.’
Charles Farthing, whose stepfather Brian Cunningham died from an overdose, said: ‘Dr Barton was utterly reckless in her prescribing. She effectively gave the nurses a free licence. Criminal charges must be brought.’ His wife Anne said: ‘These people did not deserve to be put down like a dog. These people lived their lives only for someone at the end to decide to play God’
Joan Lavender, daughter-in-law of Elsie Lavender, said: ‘We say she was murdered.’ Many families said the publication of yesterday’s report was vindication of what they have known for decades.
Pauline Godley said her father Arthur Cousins, 82, had pleaded with her to ask doctors to stop giving him morphine three days before he died in July 2000.
‘Not only shameful, it is immoral’