Scots dementia expert says coronavirus outbreak could be 'quite useful' as it will kill off hospital bed blockers

Charming!

Although my comment is based on your OP as your link isn’t blued.

www.heraldscotland.com/news/18284610.coronavirus-pandemic-clear-bed-blocking-people-taken-system/
Try this link.
What chilling words from a woman who was Scottish Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing.

Neither it was lemon, no idea why. Thanks for that link jane.

I have had dealings with Prof Andrews in a previous role and she is very - how shall I put it - forthright.

Yes, I read that this morning which got me thinking whether this virus had " escaped " on purpose to see off the high-riskers.
Germ warfare and all that.

She doesn't have any filters ,does she.I too have come across her before and she is very old schoo;l in her attitudes.However she is an EX employee of NHS Scotland so I dont think we need worry about her

I suppose she could have a point - but it's a point best left unsaid - better still, unthought!

She is however an adviser to the national Dementia Services Development Trust and an expert on all things dementia related. I hope that Words are now being had with her.

Apparently she’s now claiming her comments were “ironic” . For someone with such a high profile in dementia services you’d have thought she’d have had the common sense to know that her comments were not going to go down well.

Apparently you are not supposed to state the obvious now because it upsets some people.

However this has been mooted before and is a theory often trotted out when there is this type of crisis.

If you’re in a position like Prof Andrew’s then no, you’re not supposed to say things like that off the cuff at a SG audit meeting.

How disgraceful. RCN - says it all!

It isn’t the stating of the obvious that’s upsetting Trisher, it’s the implications of what she said that are offensive.
That old people and especially those with dementia are a nuisance and a drain on society and that if they die from coronavirus it will be a blessing for everyone else

I think nature does have a way every now and then of sorting the world out and do you know if my numbers on the cloud so be it

That old people and especially those with dementia are a nuisance and a drain on society and that if they die from coronavirus it will be a blessing for everyone else

I don't think that ⬆️ is the implication at all. What was also said is that it is because we don't do things (look after old people with dementia) properly already that hospital bed blocking is a problem. The speaker says higher taxes are needed to sort out proper social care. She's making a political point. Of course the example is horrific. She says that too. But it's also, possibly, the truth, whether we like it or not.

There are some interesting statistics shown too, which seem to suggest that Scotland has a bigger problem in this area than England.

She is making a political point - at a time when it’s not required. People are hugely concerned about the impact that this will have on their loved ones and for someone who works with older people to use the committee as a platform for her political views to be heard and claiming would be “quite useful” in clearing delayed discharge levels because “people would be taken out of the system”. is ill judged, offensive and completely unnecessary. Not the time, not the place.

Perhaps she is beginning to suffer from dementia herself?

I'd never heard of her before but my goodness, she's a caution isn't she? Whilst what she said might have some basis in fact, it was a pretty callous and unnecessary statement to make. She'd be best hoping that her words don't come home to roost.

She'd be best hoping that her words don't come home to roost.

Perhaps. But if she's as evil as people seem to think, perhaps not. Perhaps she just thinks truth needs stating.

I've never heard of her, don't know anything about her, and don't agree wholeheartedly with her political point, but she has every right to say what she thinks, especially if she thinks that in the long run it will improve things for people with dementia.

I don't see the point in getting all hot under the collar when people say things that are, or could be, manifestly true even though unpleasant. What needs to happen is that people need to implement positive change. If that's her aim then good luck to her.

Shock tactics can be usefu.

If what she says is true then we've learnt something we jolly well ought to do something about. We should be criticising ourselves and our politicians as much as her.

She’s hugely influential in the field of dementia and very well known in NHS Scotland.

Does it need to be said? Yes. Was that the time to say it? No, absolutely not. Has it upset people who have vulnerable, adults relatives or older people themselves? Definitely.

Her remarks were ill judged and completely pointless at this time. She has achieved precisely nothing in terms of reducing the spread of the virus or the fear that goes along g with it or educating the population about how to reduce their risk of contacting it.

The two quotes below are what I took from the article. NOT that she thinks the elderly need killing off.

we’ve put people in the wrong places by not having the kind of strategic views that we should have.. Yes. Due to a lack of funding to move them out of a hospital bed, into nursing homes.

a hospital that has 92 delayed discharges. Because there is nowhere else for them to go.

EllanVannin Fri 06-Mar-20 19:31:02
Germ warfare and all that.
I agree with the germ warfare comment. The virus didn't originate in that wet market. It started in a Canadian lab, was stolen by two secret agents who were then expelled from Canada and was worked on in a Chinese lab. This knowledge has been in several academic articles online. Pretty sure they didn't mean it to escape in China, but as for the west...