The mindset has been cast. The author's opening paragraph is the
culmination of these dangerous and vile ideas. The author plunges straight in
and says the unthinkable, perhaps, without even realising what he has said.
The dilemma over care for the dying
The Liverpool Care Pathway is a fairly innocuous name for what is perhaps one of the most difficult decisions a doctor has to take: deciding when someone is ready to die.
Is that so? Does the doctor decide when someone is ready to die? Those with faith may say it is God who decides; those without faith may say, simply, their time has come. Both will, surely, concur it is most certainly not the doctor.
It can be very difficult
for doctors to know when someone is in the final hours or even days of life and
so some people can be put on the pathway and then taken off.
Certainly, it is the case that it is possible to diagnose a terminal illness. This is not what is happening here. It is not a terminal illness which is being diagnosed; it is 'dying'!
This seems to be the
crux of the problem and is why the pathway, which has been in use since the
1990s and is widely accepted as good practice in end of life care, has started
to get a lot of attention.
Certainly, it is the case that it is possible to diagnose a terminal illness. This is not what is happening here. It is not a terminal illness which is being diagnosed; it is 'dying'!
"Predicting death in a
time frame of three to four days, is not possible
scientifically." (Professor Pullicino)
Birth by induction: It’s efficient, manageable; it follows a
predictable path. How best, then, to manage death but via The Liverpool
Death by induction: It’s much less bothersome; it’s civilised.
It’s MURDER.
FOOTNOTES:
Hippocratic Oath: One of the oldest binding documents in history, the Oath written by Hippocrates is still held sacred by physicians: to treat the ill to the best of one's ability, to preserve a patient's privacy, to teach the secrets of medicine to the next generation...
THE DUTIES OF A DOCTOR REGISTERED WITH THE GENERAL MEDICAL COUNCIL:“Patients must be able to trust doctors with their lives and health. To justify that trust you must show respect for human life.”
Nick Triggle writes in this article:
ReplyDelete"There is also some disquiet over the revelation that some hospitals are being paid to use the pathway. But inside the NHS this makes perfect sense.
Across the system financial incentives are built in to encourage services to adopt good practice from offering smoking cessation through to ensuring hip and knee patients are seen quickly. Providing good end of life care - as the Liverpool Care Pathway is designed to do - is no different. Nonetheless, it is easy to understand how the idea of paying doctors to withdraw care can be misconstrued."
Government paying NHS hospitals bonuses for meeting their targets for putting people on the death pathway...no different to bonuses for smoking cessation...all so easy to misconstrue.
Miconstrue, my armpit! Didn't they teach critical thinking on your journalism course, Nick Triggle?
Your article chills me to the marrow, Mr Triggle. I shuddered when I read it. I do hope you recall this article when you are a pensioner and perhaps need hospital care, I imagine you will then shudder too.
You will then have cause to thank people like Eldoel, professor Patrick Pullino and others who have the humanity to speak out against the unspeakable practice of drugging, starving and dehydrating patients to death before their time under the Liverpool Pathway.
I might at least have taken the trouble to spell Dr Patrick Pullicino's name correctly in the above comment, not least because I hold him in the highest esteem for his brave ethical stance against the abuse of the LCP for backdoor euthansia in order to fee up hospital beds.
DeleteI apologise, professor Pullicino.
I suppose that you know of the case of Dr. Jane Barton?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1247000/Dr-Jane-Barton-escapes-struck-prescribing-potentially-hazardous-levels-drugs.html
And:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/dr_jane_barton_2
What a to do! I have seen the controlled drug book of this case and the amounts of morphine being given to the NOT dying was incredible!
Unlike in my own poor Dad's case he didn't get any and in the end I had to call the Family GP to summon some help.
Someone within the Hospital [a whistleblower?] passed me the unredacted version of the controlled drug book that shows that the dying on the MacMillan Palliative Care Ward at Sheffield's Northern General Hospital were ONLY receiving 2.5mgs of morphine taken from vials containing 10mgs!!!! Therefore 7.5mgs of expensive morphine is consistently being 'wasted' - for use on those put on the Liverpool Care Pathway??? OR to go elsewhere???
On viewing the unredacted controlled drug book and other documents, a Former Detective Chief Inspector has written detailing his thoughts - please see what he wrote in my annotation under this FOI: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/altered_entries_into_a_controlle
Jan - https://twitter.com/tomsanguish and
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/user/j_brooks_2