Category Archives: Heart

Get ready for work: what woman who needs constant care was told

Ruth Anim has learning difficulties, a heart problem and epilepsy. A work capability test by Atos said she should prepare for a job

Cecilia Anim describes how she was told to take her disabled daughter for a test to see if she could get a job Link to this videoRuth Anim needs constant one-to-one care, has no concept of danger and attends life skills classes to learn practical things like how to make a sandwich or a cup of tea. So it came as a considerable surprise to her mother, Cecilia, that an official assessment of her daughter’s abilities classified her as someone who would be capable of finding work in the near future.

More hospices needed ‘to care for people dying gradually’

More hospices and care homes are needed to cope with increasing numbers of people dying “gradual” deaths, say doctors.

Better health care, and to some extent a fitter older population, means fewer people are experiencing ‘sudden’ deaths, for example from heart attacks.

By Stephen Adams, Medical Correspondent

7:30AM BST 18 Sep 2012

The country faces a growing crisis in its ability to care for people suffering cancer, dementia and other long-term ailments, according to specialists who say that supply is not keeping pace with demand.

Better health care, and to some extent a fitter older population, means fewer people are experiencing “sudden” deaths, for example from heart attacks.

While increased longevity is to be welcomed, doctors say not enough resources are being devoted to making the last days of the elderly as comfortable as possible. Doctors writing in the British Medical Journal Supportive and Palliative Care say gradual deaths from cancer and other chronic diseases are already “a considerable burden” for European countries.

Gruenenthal’s thalidomide apology ‘insulting’

The company which invented thalidomide has “insulted” those affected by the drug by issuing an “insincere” apology, campaigners have said.

The drug, sold in the 1950s as a cure for morning sickness, was linked to birth defects and withdrawn in 1961.

German-based Gruenenthal has issued its first apology in 50 years, but said the drug’s possible side-effects “could not be detected” before it was marketed.

But the UK’s Thalidomide Trust said any apology should also admit wrongdoing.

Nick Dobrik, a member of the trust’s national advisory council, said it “should be an unreserved apology, not a conditional apology”.