Monday, 12 October 2009

In Passing

“Whenever possible”

What the Dickens? Dept.
The Times (London):
Hazel Fenton, from East Sussex, is alive nine months after medics ruled she had only days to live, withdrew her antibiotics and denied her artificial feeding.  The former school matron had been placed on a controversial care plan intended to ease the last days of dying patients.

Doctors say Fenton is an example of patients who have been condemned to death on the Liverpool care pathway plan.  They argue that while it is suitable for patients who do have only days to live, it is being used more widely in the NHS, denying treatment to elderly patients who are not dying.
...
A spokesman for East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, demonstrating yet again that “There’s No Smarm Quite the Equal of British Institutional Smarm,” said: “Patients’ needs are assessed before they are placed on the [plan].  Daily reviews are undertaken by clinicians whenever possible.”
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

(Oh, I may have added a bit there.)

Via: doubleplusundead

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 21:01:32 GMT | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 178 words, total size 2 kb.

1 Something I concluded during the Terri Schiavo debacle was that withdrawing life support = stopping support of organ systems that would otherwise fail without mechanical intervention, such as respirators and dialysis. Antibiotics and feeding tubes are, therefore, not "life support." Sure, if you withdraw the feeding tube, they die -- but if you take away their blankets, they die then, too. How is death by starvation and/or unchecked infection different from death by hypothermia?

Posted by: Joanna at 10/13/09 12:13:05 (gJQTg)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Comments are disabled. Post is locked.
68kb generated in CPU 0.0211, elapsed 0.1788 seconds.
53 queries taking 0.1642 seconds, 209 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.