(SPUC) – More than 450 people died in Gosport War Memorial Hospital after being prescribed “dangerous doses” of clinically unjustified pain killers, a damning new report has found.
An independent panel led by former bishop of Liverpool James Jones concluded that between 1989 and 2000 “the lives of over 450 people were shortened as a direct result of the pattern of prescribing and administering opioids that had become the norm at the hospital, and that probably at least another 200 patients were similarly affected.”
Furthermore, the report said, “there was a disregard for human life and a culture of shortening the lives of a large number of patients.”
This “institutionalised practice of shortening lives” occurred under the direction of clinical assistant Dr. Jane Barton, who was responsible for prescriptions made on the wards. In 2010, the General Medical Council ruled that Dr. Barton was guilty of multiple instances of professional misconduct relating to 12 patients who died at the hospital, but she was never struck off and has since retired.
However, the report found that the fear that they were dealing with “another Dr. Shipman” led any investigations to focus solely on whether she was guilty of unlawful killing, rather than pursuing a wider investigation. CONTINUE