A weekly programme which focuses on people and the situations which shape their lives.
Reporters: Angela Huth, Jeremy James, John Percival, Trevor Philpott, Desmond Wilcox

This week: The Life Sentence: 1: Pamela
In 1943, when the war was at its height, a pretty girl of sixteen, crippled with rheumatoid arthritis, was admitted to a geriatric hospital in South London-a place only for old people. Today, twenty-four years later, she is still there, living in a hospital surrounded by the old and the dying. Pamela needs little medical attention, she is bright and intelligent. But Pamela has an official national health label: Young Chronic Sick. This two-part enquiry looks at conditions both inside and outside hospital for people like her - and there are at least three thousand like Pamela, sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in geriatric hospitals.
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