Hospital’s practice shortened 650 lives
LONDON • As many as 650 people had their lives shortened by a British hospital’s institutionalized practice of administering opioids without medical justification, an independent panel concluded Wednesday.
At the centre of the inquiry was Dr. Jane Barton — dubbed Dr. Opiate by the British press — who oversaw the handing out of the powerful painkillers.
But the damning report also slams hospital senior management, health-care organizations, police, prosecutors, local politicians and medical authorities who all failed to protect patients and their families, whose interests were “subordinated to the reputation of the hospital and the professions involved.”
Anne Cunningham, whose husband Arthur died at the hospital, told Britain’s Daily Mail, “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 and put an end to them.”
Bridget Reeves, the granddaughter of one of the victims, Elsie Divine, said it was time for a jury to decide guilt in a criminal court.
“They have grossly failed their ethical standards by abusing people’s human rights,” she said, recalling “vulnerable relatives who were stripped of their final words to their loved ones, silenced by overdoses.”
A three-year investigation of the practices at Gosport War Memorial Hospital in southern England between 1989 and 2000 looked at 833 death certificates signed by Barton and examined more than one million pages of documents.
The inquiry found that 456 lives were shortened and at least 200 more people were “probably” similarly affected.
“There was a disregard for human life and a culture of shortening the lives of a large number of patients by prescribing and administering ‘dangerous doses’ of a hazardous combination of medication not clinically indicated or justified,” Bishop James Jones, the panel’s chairman, said in the report.
Records show that “whereas a large number of patients and their relatives understood that their admission to the hospital was for either rehabilitation or respite care, they were, in effect, put on a terminal care pathway.”
Two nurses, Anita Tubbritt and Sylvia Griffin, raised concerns 27 years ago in February 1991 about prescribing practices but they were ignored and then felt “ostracized” at work.
The panel found that the inappropriate use of opioids began in 1989 and steadily increased until 1994. The practice plateaued until 1998 then declined rapidly, with no cases reported in 2001.
Many of the deaths could have been avoided if the hospital had listened to nurses, who first raised concerns.
Barton, 69, was “responsible for the practice of prescribing which prevailed on the wards,” the inquiry concluded.
Inquests in 2009 and 2013 into 11 of the deaths ruled that medication prescribed by Barton had contributed to six patients dying.
She was found guilty of “multiple instances of serious professional misconduct” by the General Medical Council in 2010 and retired soon after.
The panel heard concerns about her “brusque, unfriendly and indifferent” manner, her “intransigence and worrying lack of insight” into the effects of her actions and her inability to “recognize the limits of her professional competence.”
The panel was careful not to assign criminal or civil liability for the deaths.
However, it said medical records confirm that over a 12-year period as clinical assistant, Barton was central to “prescribing any medication required.”
Police who investigated the deaths treated family members like troublemakers and gave too much deference to the hospital, the panel found. Hampshire Police said Wednesday they would study the report.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt apologized and said prosecutors would consider whether criminal charges can be brought.
Prime Minister Theresa May told MPs, “The events at Gosport Memorial Hospital were tragic, they are deeply troubling and they brought unimaginable heartache to the families concerned.”