Editor's note. This is reprinted
from NRLC's invaluable Robert Powell
Center for Medical Ethics
blog--http://powellcenterformedicalethics.blogspot.com
Recent and intensifying reports of
systematic rationing in the United
Kingdom have gone largely unreported. As
Sen. Reid, along with the White House
and leadership, edges closer towards a
final bill, these very real rationing
dangers ought to be brought out into the
open.
In September, a group of experts who
care for the terminally ill wrote a
letter
to the United Kingdom's
The Daily
Telegraph, expressing deep
concern over wide-spread treatment of
those deemed to be dying.
The letter in part states,
"The Government is rolling out a new
treatment pattern of palliative care
into hospitals, nursing and residential
homes. It is based on experience in a
Liverpool hospice. If you tick all the
right boxes in the Liverpool Care
Pathway, the inevitable outcome of the
consequent treatment is death. As a
result, a nationwide wave of discontent
is building up, as family and friends
witness the denial of fluids and food to
patients. Syringe drivers are being used
to give continuous terminal sedation,
without regard to the fact that the
diagnosis could be wrong.
The letter from the doctors came a mere
week after a report by the UK
Patients
Association estimated that up
to one million patients had received
poor or cruel care on the NHS.
The Liverpool Care Pathway to which the
doctors refer was initially developed by
a Liverpool hospice, and was designed to
reduce cancer patient suffering in their
final hours (but now includes a vastly
larger group). In 2004, the National
Institute for Health and Clinical
Excellence (Nice), recommended
widespread use. Today, more than 300
hospitals, 130 hospices and 560 care
homes in England currently use the
system.
Author and lawyer Wesley J. Smith
writes,
"The Pathway's guidelines instruct
doctors to put patients thought to be
near death into a drug-induced coma,
after which all food and fluids, as well
as medical treatments such as
antibiotics, are withdrawn until death.
The problem with such a protocol is that
no matter how well motivated -- and
undoubtedly, the Pathway's creators had
good intentions -- follow-the-dots
medical protocols often lead to
patients' being treated as members of a
category rather than as individuals. At
that point, nuance often goes out the
door, and mistakes, neglect, and even
oppression frequently follow."
The personal stories filtering through
are quite unbelievable.
Nine days ago, the
Times of
London
reported
on the case of Hazel Fenton, identified
by doctors as terminally ill and left to
starve to death – now recovered for nine
months (needing only antibiotics and
food/fluids) after her daughter
intervened.
Seven days ago,
The Daily
Mail
reported,
"A grandfather who beat cancer was
wrongly told the disease had returned
and left to die at a hospice which
pioneered a controversial 'death
pathway.' Doctors said there was nothing
more they could do for 76-year- old Jack
Jones, and his family claim he was
denied food, water, and medication
except painkillers. He died within two
weeks. But tests after his death found
that his cancer had not come back and he
was in fact suffering from pneumonia
brought on by a chest infection."
Here is evidence of how Government
promulgated rules are leading to
outright denials of treatment. We have
yet to see a health care restructuring
proposal that will provide the kind of
long-term sustainable financing needed
to prevent this very thing from
happening in the U.S. - a fact that
ought to be a deep cause of concern.
For more on this and further accounts
see articles by Wesley J. Smith at
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MzVjMTU3ZGE2MDVkM2ZjMTg1YTY3NDIwYjdmOWZmYTE=;
and from Real Clear Politics at
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/10/19/government_control_leads_to_denial_of_health_care_98776.html.
Please send your comments to
daveandrusko@gmail.com.
Part
Three
Part One
