News reports have emerged about allegations against two doctors practising under the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust who allegedly administered extra strong doses of chemotherapy to patients who apparently didn’t need the treatment. All forms of chemotherapy come with horrendous side effects, but there are forms of cancer that it can do little for.
According to reports, 55 patients were administered with the allegedly needless treatment, suffering awful side effects like nausea, loss of fertility, and fatal infections.
The victims were kept in the dark about the supposed ‘experimental’ treatment for six years, by which time 29 of the 55 involved had died. The extra chemotherapy has been said to have been of no use because the patients had a type of cancer that required different treatment.
The NHS has stated that no one died as a result of the treatment, and have defended the doctors involved saying they were trying their best to help. But reports in to the treatment suggest that there was no ‘evidence, rationale or explanation‘ as to why the treatment was administered.
The doctors allegedly broke protocol in conducting the treatment with no explanation as to why it was undertaken against guidance.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) also knew of the situation in 2013, yet they did not publicise the problems or review what had happened until a few months ago. The trust involved has since made changes to ensure it does not happen again, despite their initial comments defending the practitioners involved.
A spokesperson for the Trust has said:
“All chemotherapy causes side effects, and the patients would still have been exposed to the risks of side effects if they had received just standard therapy. All deaths appeared to be due to disease progression. By continuously pursuing this, the whistleblower is actively causing patients and relatives emotional harm, which is not in their best interests.”
