Health care

The toxic prison attitude that can cost inmates their lives

David Morgan, a 35 year-old man, told staff he’d taken an overdose. A nurse decided the man seemed drunk and needed to ‘sober up’. No proper medical assessment was conducted, and staff locked him in a holding cell. Over the next two and a half hours David became ‘increasingly distressed and unwell’, ‘incapable of coherent speech’ and ‘was unable to prevent himself from repeatedly falling on the floor’. Meanwhile the nurse, and prison staff looked on. As a result of these multiple falls, David broke his nose, fractured both legs and sustained significant bruising to his head and face. Eventually he lost consciousness, was taken to hospital and died eight

Why are so many health workers turning down the vaccine?

On Saturday the government hit its target of administering a first vaccine dose to 15 million of the highest-risk groups for Covid 19. By now, everyone over the age of 70, all healthcare workers and vulnerable groups should have been offered a vaccine. It is an impressive achievement which stands in contrast to many of the other things that have gone wrong over the past year. But there is a rather large fly sitting in the ointment. While 90 per cent of eligible members of the general public have turned up for their appointments (97 per cent in the over-80s), the same is true of only 80 per cent of