Liverpool Care Pathway - After The Review, After Everything, They're STILL Killing People

It was all really a bit of a muchness, but now it's done and dusted. And once the dust has settled, its back to business as usual…

And a withering silence descends: the silence of the Lamb.

This is an AMDA Live Webinar on Palliative Care in LTC (Long Term Care) scheduled for Thursday, October 24, 2013 -

Upon completion of this activity, participants should be able to:

• Describe the suffering of the frail elderly

• Delineate the physician's mandate to provide compassionate care

• Compare and contrast palliative care and hospice care

• Develop mechanisms to ensure compassionate care for the frail elderly by implementing a palliative care

The suffering of the frail elderly...

The physician's mandate...

In the Session Description, attitudinal and behavioral changes are sought in the physician.

This is dangerous. The physician is to be groomed/ brainwashed into believing that the final decision lies with them to determine the course of treatment/non-treatment and implementation of palliative care.

The mandate is theirs to determine what is best for those in their charge for they know the suffering of the frail elderly.

The story reported here in the Hereford Times is an objective example of this malpractice put into practice.

Hereford Times reports -

Mr Mitton’s step-daughter Shirley Bolger said: “He had a most horrendous death, and none of us had a clue that he was on the Pathway.

He seemed really hungry and really thirsty, but we didn’t make the connections.

“He was absolutely desperate and kept grabbing my hand, asking for a drink.

When I touched his lips with a sponge moistened with tea, he tried to eat it. He suffered terribly.

“All he wanted was to go was to go up to Birmingham and have his operation and get back to planting his daisies and geraniums. For a man of his age he was so fit.

This was an absolute waste of life.”

She said that Mr Mitton, aged 84, of Mabels Furlong, had a benign brain melanoma, adding he went into Hereford County Hospital believing he was waiting for a move to Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital for a life-changing operation.

Instead, his family claim, he was put on the Liverpool Care Pathway.

“They (hospital staff) said they don’t really operate on people over 80-years-old,” said Alison Turner, Les’ stepdaughter-in-law.

“They said ‘do you want to put him through that’. We said he has no chance of life without it.”

The Ledbury Reporter -

A SENSE of bewildering loss, for family members and community alike, prevailed at the funeral of former Ledbury postman Les Mitton.

More than 150 people attended the funeral of a man who was described, in a funeral eulogy, as “a cornerstone of society”.

Delivering the eulogy, his friend, Martin Burton MBE said: “A few months ago, he was walking about in Ledbury in the same way he did for so many years. He was one of the best-known people in Ledbury.

“Les was a great and lovely man who lived respected and died regretted.”Mr Mitton, who was 84, died on August 1; but his funeral at St Michael and All Angels Church only took place on Tuesday because his family questioned the circumstances of his death at Hereford County Hospital.

 He would not let anything overcome him.

“With a patience, and a compassion and an understanding which was brilliant – no matter what he faced, he would not let anything overcome him. He deserves not to be forgotten.” - Reverend Howard Mayell.

Les Mitton went into hospital for an op. He expected treatment.

Les Mitton was a man typical of a generation which believed in facing up to life's hardships and meeting them head on. He went for treatment. He expected treatment. Les Mitton was not 'lost'; Les Mitten was TAKEN!

Les Mitton was taken by a decision not to come to his aid.

Les Mitton's wishes should have been respected. Wishes, however, are only respected, only count, when treatment is being declined.

They wouldn't give Les Mitton treatment because they know all about the suffering of the frail elderly.

“They said, ‘Do you want to put him through that?’ We said, 'He has no chance of life without it.'”

Les Mitton was over 80. They don't operate on people over 80. People over 80 are the frail elderly.

Les Mitton was 'past it'. Not content with denying him the treatment he sought and had expected, they put him on the LCP.

This is The Mandate -

This mandate – the first of its kind in the world – underlines my responsibility as Health Secretary to preserve and defend those principles to which we all remain indebted.

Never in its history has the NHS had to face such a profound shift in our needs and expectations.

An ageing population, rising costs of treatments, and a huge increase in the number of us with long-term, often multiple conditions are rewriting our relationship with health and care, all at a time of acute pressure on public finances.

JEREMY HUNT Secretary of State for Health

1. Preventing people from dying prematurely

1.1 We want people to live longer, and with a better quality of life. Too many people die too soon from illnesses that can be prevented or treated. From cancer, liver and lung disease – and for babies and young children, England’s rates of premature mortality are worse than those in many other European countries. There are also persistent inequalities in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy between communities and groups, which need to be urgently addressed by the NHS Commissioning Board.

Les Mitton went into hospital for an op. He expected treatment. He got treatment, but not quite the treatment he expected!

This is not just a case of whether or not the family were informed; this is a case of the patient, Les Mitton, not being informed.

This was a man who would not let anything overcome him. Against the 'God Squad', however - the doctors and nurses who, possessing the 'god complex', would play god with other people's lives - Les Mitton stood little or no chance.

"Too many people die too soon from illnesses that can be prevented or treated." [The Mandate]

Les Mitton went into hospital for an op. He expected treatment.

Les Mitton should have been treated. He died prematurely because the treatment he sought was denied him.

The DoH has committed itself against ageism. The Mandate, to which Mr. Hunt is committed, has a stated purpose to prevent people from 'dying prematurely'.

Les Mitton died prematurely in a most cruel  and desperate manner. It was a 'most horrendous' death.

Mr. Hunt, it is time, particularly following the review, to reign in these megalomanic medics!

This is The Mandate:

"An ageing population, rising costs of treatments, and a huge increase in the number of us with long-term, often multiple conditions are rewriting our relationship with health and care, all at a time of acute pressure on public finances."

An aging population...

Rising costs of treatments...

A time of acute pressure on public finances...

Is that what it's all about, Mr. Hunt? All about the money, money, money?

"34. No such difficulty arises, however, in the situation that has caused Mr Burke concern, that of the competent patient who, regardless of the pain, suffering or indignity of his condition, makes it plain that he wishes to be kept alive. No authority lends the slightest countenance to the suggestion that the duty on the doctors to take reasonable steps to keep the patient alive in such circumstances may not persist. Indeed, it seems to us that for a doctor deliberately to interrupt life-prolonging treatment in the face of a competent patient's expressed wish to be kept alive, with the intention of thereby terminating the patient's life, would leave the doctor with no answer to a charge of murder." (Family Law Week)

Mr. Hunt, these megalomanic medics did not 'interrupt' life-prolonging treatment; they refused to even commence it! They have no answer to a charge of murder.