Liverpool Care pathway - Living Matters

Dying matters...? Living matters!

This is the Daily Mail -

Her family claim that being discharged in the early hours made her condition worse. Her son-in-law, Richard Smart, said yesterday: 'It is medical negligence. The hospital just thought this is an old lady, she has seen better days, let's get rid.'It is absolutely shocking. I wouldn't treat a dog like that.'Her family accused Warrington Hospital of being more interested in freeing up beds than protecting her interests.

And there is more here -

Eileen Hansbury, 89, had been admitted nine hours earlier after suffering a suspected broken nose in a fall.Her appalled family say hospital bosses simply threw the confused old lady out in the early hours so they could free a bed. 'I complained to the hospital immediately.‘After six months I had a letter saying my mum was discharged because they thought it was “in her best interests”.‘How is that the case when she was asleep and comfortable in bed at 2am? They just wanted to get her out of the bed so someone else could have it.‘It is outrageous that elderly and often confused patients are shunted out of hospitals in the early hours of the morning.‘It is okay to discharge at a reasonable hour, but not in the middle of the night.‘I think it is preposterous and it is time this practice is stopped.’

A year later and the practice continues.

These are not isolated cases. They are indicative of a culture of not seeing a person, an individual in front of you, but a case. And not even that: an aggravation, a nuisance, a problem to be solved in any way necessary.

This is truly a case of 'the hotel would run a lot better without all the guests getting in the way'! Truly Pythonesque.

It used to be, you died and they said, depending on your religious or areligious predilection, 'God's called you home' or 'your number's up'. No more.

Doctors now 'decide' when it's time to go. They 'diagnose' dying; even use their 'intuition', as is advised to GPs seeking their one percent.

It is a judgement call to give up on their patients. They say they are being merciful; but is it more a case of putting their patients at their mercy?

Relatives have gone to court to overturn a decision by doctors to place their patient at their mercy. And have succeeded, only to have the good doctors go to court in their turn and overturn that decision to rescue the patient from their clutches. 

I am going to be accused of being 'right-wing' in saying this, but aren't the courts behaving like 'death panels'? The doctors are certainly acting like Gods, wielding the powers afforded them by the Mental Capacity Act, determining whose life is and is not worth saving and the life not worthy of living.

Loony Lefties have already called this an attack on the sanctity of the NHS (National-socialist Health Service) while they do not shrink from attacking the sanctity of life. It is neither Left Wing nor Right Wing; it is more a case of Upwing and Downwing, of right and wrong.

If the courts are the death panels, then the almighty State has declared itself God, empowering  doctors with a death charter, the Mental Capacity Act.

The frail and the fragile are also at their mercy, those who are perceived as a glass half empty rather than a glass half full.

This must stop.