Police officers 'tried to stop hospital staff treating injured protester'

[Joanne98]

Mother of injured student Alfie Meadows said that her son's life could have been put at risk by the journey to another hospital

Police have been accused of attempting to prevent seriously injured protesters being treated at the same hospital as officers hurt during last week's tuition fees demonstration, igniting claims that one student's life could have been put at risk.

The mother of 20-year-old Alfie Meadows, who required brain surgery after allegedly being hit by a police truncheon, claimed that when her son was taken to Chelsea and Westminster hospital officers objected to him being treated there.

Susan Matthews, 55, said that only the intervention of an ambulance worker allowed her son to receive urgent medical treatment for the stroke he suffered after receiving his injury. "If he hadn't, Alfie would have been transferred and he could have died," she said.

After allegedly being hit by police, the philosophy student fell unconscious and later sustained bleeding on the brain.

His mother added: "The ambulance man took us to Chelsea and Westminster hospital. That had been given over to police injuries and there was a standoff in the corridor. Alfie was obviously a protester and the police didn't want him there, but the ambulance man insisted that he stayed."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/12/police-injured-protester-hospital?CMP=twt_gu

[ixion]

1. The sense of entitlement amongst the law enforcement community needs some serious reiging in

A nice public smack down would do them good.

[Lasher]

2. Wow, that's for sure.

Since when do the police get to put themselves first in line, or in this case exclusively so? I certainly hope they suffer repercussions.

[avaistheone1]

3. Amazing I didn't realize the police owned the hospitals for their exclusive use.

Evidently they function as the judge and jury on the public's lives.

[mwooldri]

6. Those officers need to be identified and disciplined (at the least).

In life or death situations, the medical team takes the lead. They outrank the police at this point and yes, even an "ambulance technician" can order the Chief Constable to "back down".

I guess the police officers were lucky it was NHS crew they were blocking. If the words "St John" appeared in there anywhere, then it'd be even more embarrassing for the police...

[MattSh]

4. Hey Police dudes...

If you don't want to be treated in a hospital that also treats protesters, you're free to go somewhere else.

No one is making you stay!

[Heywood J]

5. Beating a kid so badly that he had a stroke...

If a man in a bar had done that to a kid then interfered with the ambulance crew, he would be serving ten years or more.

[nradisic]

7. Britain is a police state

Cameras everywhere, police who could care less about individual rights and more and more laws restricting personal freedom...what a country. Britain has become what we read about in "1984" and we are well on our way there...