Lucy Meszaros was a woman in the prime of her life. Wife of Mike and mother of Josh and Mikey, everything began to change in 2004 when she was diagnosed with MS.
By 2011, although Lucy’s condition had declined to the point that her husband Mike became her full time carer, she was still happy and content. Everyone who met her remarked on her bright and bubbly personality. Her nickname was Lucy Smiler, because she always greeted visitors with a bright, infectious grin. Watching videos of her on her husband’s social media, you would never guess that she was condemned by their NHS Trust to dying in horrendous pain; from conditions that were very easy to treat, yet treatment was consistently delayed, withheld and even refused.
As Lucy’s MS progressed, bowel and bladder function were affected and she suffered fecal impaction. Mike sought treatment for these issues constantly, yet the treatments Lucy received were inconsistent and over time, her bowel became so impacted, Lucy developed some type of fistula.
Most fistulas are easy to treat and along with effective treatment for fecal impaction, Lucy’s condition would have greatly improved and no doubt prolonged her life. Left untreated, as Lucy’s fistula was, she suffered constant urinary tract infections which led to more than thirty-five bouts of urosepsis, a serious condition that requires immediate treatment to avoid death.
Lucy also developed painful kidney stones which can also cause urosepsis. Kidney stones can block the kidney, ureter, or bladder, preventing the passage of urine. These blockages, which are extremely painful, are also very easy to treat, which brings me to the reasons why Mike faced so many obstacles in his desperate fight for treatment for Lucy.
Cognitive impairment can be a symptom in both MS and Sepsis and this led to Lucy’s diagnosis of dementia. Substandard care for dementia patients is a widespread problem, and the poor quality of care for people with dementia has featured heavily in the news. There have been many features from Panorama and Dispatches as well as families resorting to their own secret cameras in care homes to shed light on how our society treats its elderly, disabled and cognitively impaired citizens.
With the NHS in crisis, much more so since the ‘pandemic’, it has developed a dismissive and damaging attitude towards people with disability and comorbidities. The use of unnecessary, judgmental and even covert DNACPR’s (Do Not Resuscitate) authorisations has greatly increased.
https://www.facebook.com/carerswantcompetence/videos/949543696901270
Lucy was subjected to no less than three of these covert DNACPR’s, each decision made without the knowledge of her family and specifically when seriously ill with urosepsis from her unresolved fistula and kidney stones. Mike was Lasting Power of Attorney for Health and Welfare. The hospital had a legal obligation to be transparent.
Remembering how many of these covert decisions has been made behind his back, the echoing still rings in his ears of the typically used words; “Well, I can see that she has MS, she ‘must have’ a poor quality of life. We don’t think it’s in her Best Interest to surgically intervene”.
How is it that a stranger in a health profession decision-making role, who has often spent less than five minutes at the bedside, is able to make unsubstantiated snap decisions about a quality of life and decide that rather than do a simple surgical procedure, they’ll allow you to die?
https://www.facebook.com/carerswantcompetence/videos/2892387664235441
Poor quality of life decisions based on age, cognition and disability must not affect our basic human rights; yet the internet is full of accounts of patients having DNAR orders and ReSPECT forms put on their loved ones medical notes without LPA’s knowledge.
Mike Meszaros had followed all channels of complaint and has been frustrated at every turn; met with false allegations of ‘aggressive and intimidating behaviour’ in attempts to conceal clinicians own behaviour and discredit Mike’s justified concerns.
Hospitals and care providers manipulatively govern their own complaints procedures, often with these tactics along with gaslighting.
When he, and many other families complain or speaks out publicly against poor care and treatment they can be subjected to weaponised reverse blame (DARVO) tactics by our NHS, used as forms of control to prevent exposure of hospital clinicians covert and often illegal behaviours.
Mike has Carers Want Competence FB page which is an advice, support and awareness platform in public interest, and as is his right, he is using his social media to tell Lucy’s story and urge others to take greater care of loved ones in hospital. Yet he has received a summons to appear in court on 31st July because local authorities are attempting to silence him with an injunction which would prevent not just him, but families from all over the UK from speaking out against neglect and abuse.
The government is elected by the people, to be there for the people, yet they disregard the happenings that they are well aware of in the NHS. This was once a public service, envied all over the world, but now seems to be an end of life machine to cull the weak and vulnerable.
We, the British public ask the Prime Minister to:
Hear Mr Mike Meszaros in parliament or number ten Downing Street, so that lessons can be learned from the tragic and untimely death of Lucy Meszaros.
Reform the complaints process so that NHS facilities no longer handle their own complaints and a simpler, fairer and faster route to justice for patients and their families is established in the near future.
Stop the weaponisation of covert use of DNACPR, ReSPECT and DOL authorisations, and stop the gagging of British citizens whose only agenda is to raise awareness in public interest and improve the quality of NHS patient care.
Improve the quality of care for the elderly, disabled and cognitively impaired and end the worsening discrimination against these, our most vulnerable citizens.
Lucy Meszaros wanted to live. She had a very reasonable quality of life when not suffering from urosepsis. She deserved to have the causal factors resolved. She deserved to live, she had the right to live, and strangers did not have the right to judgementally assume that just because she had MS her quality of her life was not worth their time and effort.
Carers Want Competence 