Maeve Boothby O'Neill - articles about her life, death and inquest

I’m sure you’ve nailed it.

But since we’re not living in the 1800s, 1900s, and we actually have a wealth of psychological studies to back the assertion that ‘cruel to be kind’ isn’t actually that useful medically or psychologically. That the deviants and insane just don’t come right after a good beating or taunting.

So I call bullshit on the idea that one single medical person has ever dismissed or mocked or denied care to a person with an ME diagnosis out of the kindness of their heart. Certainly not out of clinical considerations.

Frustration, bad shift, temper tantrums, bullying it happens.

Black people, gypsy Roma or Irish traveller people, autistic people, people who are non verbal, trans people, people who do sex work, mad people, fat people, people who self injure, people with suicidal ideation, non-wealthy people who use illicit drugs particularly injectables, people who use higher doses of prescription painkillers, unhoused people, people with a learning disability, Deaf people, people who are hard of hearing, people with low vision, Blind people, people with no English language, people who are illiterate, people without higher education, people with chronic illnesses or pre-existing conditions diagnosed and not, impoverished people, un-waged people, people with ‘higher care needs’, I can’t go on writing. This is just a selection of the people who have reason fear being treated as less of a priority and more of a ‘burden’ by healthcare providers.

Whether we fit into any category of deprioritisation for other reasons or not, as pwME we can count our selves in the largest category of all the hypochondriac category. We have plenty of friends in here. See, everything normal on scan back ache must be drug seeker, FM **** victim who can’t just get over it. For certain reasons we are considered, emblematic of the very worst in this final category.

But look, what ever memos clinicians get about how important it is not to treat us, for us to receive poor treatment they have had to agree to be the conduit and deliver this to us.

In order to discriminate against and harm us staff must have first made a choice to not only believe but to act on guidance or instruction to do so. On the whole when they have, they haven’t done so with much in the way of restraint or re evolution in response to patients outcomes.

This denial or prevarication and delay of treatment and of respectful honest compassionate communication-isn’t new or unexamined. It’s known and embraced for just what it is. See letters pages of magazines and forums for medical professionals everywhere.

A commitment to exclusion has been so widely adopted, that it is known to be exceptional by members of our community to receive compassion and timely treatment both.

Clinicians get memos to say that they need to work longer hours for less pay, and rightly as they should, they examine and challenge such proposals.

Likewise to worsening care for other conditions, due to imposed resource restrictions, that they have been previously allowed to adequately address, they will examine the causes. Maybe they are even forbidden from offering treatments, but they won’t likely add dehumanising treatment to their abandoned patients load.

There are two separate aspects to our problem here. Firstly no access to treatment systemic exclusion at policy and funding level. Secondly every member of staff who chooses to embrace the role that their employer grants them as bouncers and enforcers.


Edit:missed words and additional sentences mid way down for clarity.

 

I mean that it looks as if we may not just be dealing with callousness from professional groups but deliberately targeted callousness out of self interest.

Gasroenterologists make a good living out of procedures like endoscopy, and I suspect make use of clever diagnoses like EDS-related gut hypersensitivity in order to appear as experts to private clients. When NHS patients start wanting long term supportive care for these diagnoses they want out.

 

A distinct possibility.

 

Deaths are easily rationalized away as saying that it shows functional disorders are real, serious and a tragedy. This allows them to signal just how much they take mental health seriously and occupy high moral ground, while actually abusing concepts from mental health and letting people die from neglect.

 

Sarah Boothby has left a comment under the article

"I am awaiting the facts found in written form too but notice that Valerie has overlooked in her replies to David the role of Devon County Council (DCC). DCC is a branch of government – the Local Authority. It exists to implement legislation at local level and accountable via democratic processes in the form of local elections.
Every disabled adult in England has an absolute right to protection from harm and neglect under the Care Act (2014). Extensive evidence in disclosure showed the DCC failed in every one of its statutory duties to Maeve. At the time of her death, Maeve was represented by Irwin Mitchell (Southampton) who were at the next steps stage in taking DCC to judicial review. The contents of an email from Maeve’s solicitor were included in the DCC bundle.
Furthermore, the Coroner did not use her powers to summons a key DCC witness as promised at the PIRH (pre inquest review hearing – where the case was managed in view of the public). I was not informed of this decision until I asked about the key DCC witness, Social Work Manager Juliette Hill while we were discussing how to manage the absence due to ill health of another key witness, GP Dr Lucy Shenton."

ETA
@Valerie Eliot Smith

 

Like the ‘public good’ but without someone checking the evidence isn’t a dodgy cherrypicking out of 2 patients from a database of all patients

 

I believe as was mentioned by Valerie that there are numerous other routes including civil claim, and probably one of these is a specific claim against DCC.

The coroner accepted a colleague standing in for Juliette Hill who was sick. She did not compel her to attend.

We need the written statement first, but I’d support Sarah if she wanted to take further action via any official or legal route, I think there is scope and it would be worth doing, if she wants to. It’s very draining and traumatic, though.

 

I note someone left a comment about whether the Coroner should have considered discrimination, and lack of reasonable adjustments. I think this is an interesting point I’ve raised before, whether this would get pwME any legal traction.

 

Is it because she'd have had to show that discrimination contributed directly to Maeve's death, and that's difficult in someone who even with the best treatment in the world would still have been very ill?

I don't have nearly enough knowledge about it, but I wonder if it's more straightforward to pursue that angle in a different legal context.

 

Sarah Boothby's 2nd Comment under David Tuller's Virology Blog article

'Further to my post above. I have since discovered a Juliette Hill was being investigated by her professional regulator, Social Work England, at the time when Asst Coroner was telling us PIPs she would need to know why Hill could not be called to testify.'

.
https://virology.ws/2024/08/12/trial-by-error-valerie-eliot-smith-on-the-inquest-findings/

.

 

WOAH

edit - I’ve seen she accepted a 3 year warning on file, for a case that clearly isn’t Maeve. Basically failure to act/recognise/supervise the social workers in the case. It’s period late 2020 into 2021

https://www.socialworkengland.org.u...lic-redacted-final-case-examiner-decision.pdf

 

I don’t have the brain to think it through, but it’s not necessarily something for the Coroner, it would be separate.

 

I note the Social Work England case concluded 9 July 24 when Hill accepted the warning regarding Fitness to Practice.

 

It depends of the Coroner has to consider the Equality Act. She made reference to the Human Rights Act Article 2 Right to Life but decided it didn't apply. I didn't hear in her summing up if she considered the Equality Act but it may not come under the scope of an Inquest.

 

They guarantee an outcome, then point at the outcome they created to say "see, we were right". Which is a bit like "predicting" what a person will say next, because you wrote their speech. It may seem clever without context, but in context it's just ridiculous.

But it's out of ideological ineptitude, so they don't even realize that they created the outcome themselves. Like creating horrible condition for a population, then deriding them as primitive, foul-smelling and uneducated. Old colonizer mentality.

Same principle behind labeling anything they don't understand as mental illness, then talking about a mental health crisis. Then they keep throwing more resources at "mental health", including corrupting health care to the purpose of mass mislabeling illness as psychological, which only inflates those fake numbers further, which leads to more resources, which grows the "crisis" further, and so on and on.

It's so incredibly corrupt and inept that it's impossible to get people to see it. People can't believe that medicine can be this incompetent. It's too scary to think about, since everyone will need health care not just at some point in their lives, but at their most vulnerable. Even people who experience it in a limited way put it down the memory hole. One thing that has really shocked me is how almost no one who recovered from Long Covid has done anything. Everyone just says "so long, suckers!" to the rest and never think about it again.

 

Brief summary of Juliet |Hill's case:
Her management oversight of a member of her team dealing with a vulnerable adult was lacking.
Were there enough regular meetings? Informal or formal? What records of these meetings with proporsed actions were there.

From the final case examiner decision:
https://www.socialworkengland.org.u...lic-redacted-final-case-examiner-decision.pdf

From theContent of the warning
The case examiners formally warn the social worker as follows: An allegation whereby the management oversight of a vulnerable adult fell significantly short is serious.
The matters alleged had the potential to cause harm to a vulnerable adult.
Your actions as alleged also have the potential to have an adverse impact on the public’s confidence in the social work profession.

The conduct that led to this complaint should not be repeated.
Any similar conduct or matters brought to the attention of the regulator are likely to result in a more serious outcome.
The case examiners warn that as a social worker, you must adhere to the required professional standards.

The case examiners particularly remind the social worker of the following Social Work England professional standards: Be accountable for the quality of my practice and the decisions I make As a social worker, I will:
3.2 Use information from a range of appropriate sources, including supervision, to inform assessments, to analyse risk, and to make a professional decision.
3.11 Maintain clear, accurate, legible and up to date records, documenting how I arrive at my decisions.
3.12 Use my assessment skills to respond quickly to dangerous situations and take any necessary protective action.
Promote ethical practice and report concerns As a social worker, I will: 6.4 Take appropriate action when a professional’s practice may be impaired. This warning order will be for a duration of 3 years.

 

To me it seems the healthcare system worked exactly as the higher ups intended it to. Meave’s mistreatment is the result of people designing the system with BPS views. It reminds me of the saying “The purpose of a system is what it does”.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does

 

Regulatory concerns and concerns recommended for closure
While registered as a social worker and employed by Devon County Council;

Regulatory Concern 3 You did not exercise adequate management oversight of Adult A’s case in that:
i. You did not hold regular supervision with the allocated social worker,
ii. You did not maintain adequate supervision notes from these supervisions,
iii. You did not share supervision notes with the allocated social worker.
iv. You did not take appropriate steps to address concerns with the allocated social worker’s practise.

Regulatory Concern 4 You did not adequately manage risk in the case of Adult A in that
i. As above, you did not ensure adequate management oversight occurred in respect of Adult A’s case,
ii. You did not take timely action upon receipt of safeguarding enquiries, including that you did not respond adequately to ‘cuckooing’ concerns when these were raised,
iii. You did not provide clear rationale for your safeguarding decisions, iv. You did not communicate adequately with stakeholders, including Adult A and other agencies.

Grounds of impairment: Regulatory Concerns 3 and 4 amount to the statutory grounds of misconduct and/or lack of competence or capability.
Your fitness to practise is impaired by reason of your misconduct/lack of competence or capability.


For info:
What is cuckooing in safeguarding?

Cuckooing is a practice where people take over a person's home and use the property to facilitate exploitation. It takes its name from cuckoos who takeover the nests of other birds. It is sometimes called “Home Invasion” and can involve: Taking over or using the property to take drugs.

 

Timing of this lack of supervision from above report p11

Whilst there is evidence of some monthly supervision being held, there is evidence from the supervision records which shows a gap of five months between October 2020 and March 2021.

From p6:
The complaint was raised by Devon County Council and received on 8 July 2022:

While Hall was registered as a social worker and employed by Devon County Council;