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I recently wrote a blog about the Daniel Ubani case. He was the German surgeon who came over to the UK to do a GP out of hours shift and ended up killing a patient by prescribing a huge amount of the drug diamorphine. This was a very sad case, but it was hoped that the media prominence of the events would ensure that reforms were brought in and that this tragedy was never repeated.

However, on the 12^th of August, the Guardian newspaper published figures from the NHS that they had obtained under a Freedom of Information request. These are extremely disturbing. They noted that, in less than a year, health workers made 1,300 errors related to opiate analgesics. These resulted in 2 patients suffering “severe” harm and 3 patients actually dying.

In addition, the report revealed that two other GPs working for the same company as Dr Ubani , the ironically named ‘Take Care Now’, had also been involved in errors related to diamorphine prescribing. Fortunately, these events were not fatal.
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Just the other day I authored an article on speeding and its dangers. And I will be covering the same topic again after reading this heartbreaking story of a young boy killed by a reckless, speeding driver.

According to the Daily Mail (source), a 12 year old boy who beat leukaemia and lived with several disabilities was tragically knocked down by a speeding driver doing almost twice the limit, as he was crossing the road on his bicycle. Steven Atkinson was reportedly born with a cleft palate and curvature of the spine, as well as being deaf in one ear and having an immobile eye. After a 3 year battle, this brave young boy beat leukaemia.
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Road Traffic accidents are on the increase. Sky News reports that Man Utd’s midfielder Anderson was actually pulled out of his fabulous Audi R8, unconscious, just moments before the burning car exploded!

Amazingly the football star only had minor injuries after his near death crash experience on the rural roads of Geres in Portugal.

Anderson signed a £18million contract three years ago with the popular Man Utd Team. The Brazilian born player spent the night in Sardinha Biba night club before he left in his Audi worth an estimated £125,000.
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I have to say that when I first read the news of this article on the Sky News Website I was actually appalled. Sky news reports that the government are slashing Road Accident expenses by 40%, so they may switch off thousands of speed cameras throughout England. Considering that the accident rates are constantly increasing due to drivers driving at speeds far too fast for the road, how is switching off these preventative measures going to help anyone!?

It has been estimated that 6,000 speed cameras across the UK cost motorists £100million in fines each year. So surely knowing this alone should stop them from turning the cameras off. Surely if there are this many felons now who are speeding, knowing that they are at risk of incurring 3 points and a minimum of a £60 fine, just imagine how many people are going to drive recklessly once the cameras are turned off. If people are already speeding knowing that there are these fines and cameras in place, what in the world is going to stop them from speeding if there is no punishment or fine in place at all!?
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A very sad case has been recently exposed by Channel 4 News (source).

Baby Lucus, seven and a half months old, suffered from a neurological disorder called Sturge-Weber, a rare but treatable condition which causes regular convulsions in young children. He was admitted into the Homerton Hospital in East London for treatment following a number of fits. He was under the care of three experienced doctors: a paediatrician consultant, a senior registrar, and a senior house officer. Despite this, Baby Lucus was administered with between 9 and 12 times the recommended dose for a child of his age and weight of an anti-epileptic drug.
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Britain’s roads are busy, and our skies are polluted – it’s an overwhelming argument in favour of greener, leaner transport. The government in recent years has done a fair bit to try and inspire this, with cycling lanes and toll roads. But the issue remains that motorists and cyclists have never quite seen eye to eye…

Let’s face it; motorists are wound up by slow cyclists, often leaving them impatient and careless. In the absence of taking the right amount of due care and attention, an accident with a cyclist is a common occurrence. But cyclists can help themselves – and many cyclists do. There is legislation in place to improve the safety of cyclists on our roads. It’s good to see public figures as advocates of such safety; but it’s bizarre to see it go hypocritically wrong:
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The transportation of Toxic waste to the Ivory Coast, a country in South Africa, is allegedly responsible for the injury of thousands of local people living on the coast line. It is reported that Trafigura, a British and Dutch based company, had attempted to acquire a Dutch Contractor to clean up the waste on one of its ships but the price was too high so the company employed an Ivorian Company to dispose of the waste. The company Trafigura denies any wrong doing.

A UN report shows that the dumped waste can very likely be held accountable for the death of fifteen people in the area, strong evidence suggests.
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Reports have recently emerged in the media about the death of a stage hand who fell to his death on Thursday 15th July 2010 whilst working at a Will Young concert at Rochester Castle in Kent.

The as yet unnamed 40 year old ‘roadie’ was helping to prepare for the stars open-air show when he plunged off the stage to his death. It is understood that the man, who reportedly suffered severe facial and head injuries, was rushed to Medway Maritime Hospital by South East Coast Ambulance Service but they were unable to save his life and he was pronounced dead on arrival after going into cardiac arrest. A spokesperson for the ambulance service gave the following statement:

“We got called to Rochester Castle to a report of a man in his 40s who had apparently fallen off the stage and had severe facial and head injuries and severe bleeding. We were on the scene within six minutes. The patient was going into cardiac arrest and he was conveyed to the Medway Maritime Hospital. We pre-alerted the hospital of his arrival, which suggests he was in quite a bad way.”
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We’ve all got our excuses for eating too many chocolate bars at work haven’t we? I was too busy to stop and eat a proper lunch. Stress leads me to chocolate. I won’t be home until late so I ate a chocolate bar to keep me going.

But what if there is a scientific reason behind why we reach for the sweets and chocolates when we are sat at our computer all day?

I read a very interesting article on the Daily Mail website recently, regarding a study which has taken place in Stockholm by a Dr Chaput.
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The tragic story of Katie Piper is a horrific example of the cruelty and jealousy that one man went to in order to control his girlfriend. Katie Piper modeled for catalogs and also presented a number of short TV programmes, she was a young, beautiful woman who had dreams of working in the TV business.

Katie like many other young people in today’s society, enjoyed socialising on the social network Facebook, she received many emails every day from admirers. One of her admirers in particular, caught her attention, Daniel Lynch. Lynch was a Martial Arts enthusiast, aged 33, he emailed Katie regularly and Katie felt they had a lot in common; she too had been involved with some promotional work in martial arts. Lynch followed Katie’s career and decided to meet her at one of her promotional events in Reading.

Katie thought that Lynch seemed quite shy and nervous at first but sadly this all changed very quickly. At first Katie was flattered by how often Lynch contacted her, he emailed and called her all the time but soon it became quite obsessive, Katie began to feel quite stifled by all the contact and planned to end the relationship but didn’t say anything to Lynch.
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