Death in the NHS Lane: Terminally Ill People Are Erroneously Sentenced to Die Early by “Death Panels” in UK
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on September 2, 2009
Sarah Palin and her son, Trig
Cautionary tale from the UK… AGAIN.
This breaking story in the United Kingdom is frightening because it could become us in just a few years, if ObamaCare is passed.
You may recall that Sarah Palin blew the whistle a few weeks ago on what she bluntly nicknamed “death panels” in the ObamaCare health care bill.
It caused a huge outcry from ObamaCare supporters. Palin was cruelly scoffed and mocked by liberal MSM, politicians, and comedians (most of whom STILL haven’t read the ObamaCare bill). And then, after less than a week, the offending paragraphs were quietly removed. No one in the Democrat party will confess that the poorly worded text did indeed imply (whether accidentally or intentionally) that “death panels” could exert influence on decisions to let people die prematurely, such as elderly folks and those with diseases that presently have no cure, such as Alzheimer’s disease or Down syndrome. Palin’s youngest child, Trig, has Down Syndrome.
FYI: The risk of Down syndrome increases with the mother’s age. For mothers under age 30, it occurs in fewer than one in 1,000 births. For mothers Palin’s age (over 40), it jumps dramatically to one in 35, according to the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Now, something uncomfortably similar is being reported within the United Kingdom’s nationalized health care system. Only it’s not “implied death panels.” It’s “real death panels.”
If Senator Ted Kennedy had been under this NHS health care plan, he could very likely have died long before the presidential election last fall, definitely before he did last week.
Sarah, you just keep on digging up the dirt, whistle blowing, and letting America know what else is hidden in this unprofessionally written, monstrosity of a jumbled mess health “NON-care” bill. Shame on the Democrat authors.
Sentenced to death on the NHS
Patients with terminal illnesses are being made to die prematurely under an NHS scheme to help end their lives, leading doctors warn today.
Telegraph | By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent
September 2, 2009In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death.
Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.
But this approach can also mask the signs that their condition is improving, the experts warn.
As a result the scheme is causing a “national crisis” in patient care, the letter states. It has been signed palliative care experts including Professor Peter Millard, Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics, University of London, Dr Peter Hargreaves, a consultant in Palliative Medicine at St Luke’s cancer centre in Guildford, and four others.
“Forecasting death is an inexact science,”they say. Patients are being diagnosed as being close to death “without regard to the fact that the diagnosis could be wrong. As a result a national wave of discontent is building up, as family and friends witness the denial of fluids and food to patients.”
The warning comes just a week after a report by the Patients Association estimated that up to one million patients had received poor or cruel care on the NHS.
The scheme, called the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), was designed to reduce patient suffering in their final hours.
Developed by Marie Curie, the cancer charity, in a Liverpool hospice it was initially developed for cancer patients but now includes other life threatening conditions.
It was recommended as a model by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), the Government’s health scrutiny body, in 2004.
It has been gradually adopted nationwide and more than 300 hospitals, 130 hospices and 560 care homes in England currently use the system. Under the guidelines the decision to diagnose that a patient is close to death is made by the entire medical team treating them, including a senior doctor.
They look for signs that a patient is approaching their final hours, which can include if patients have lost consciousness or whether they are having difficulty swallowing medication.
However, doctors warn that these signs can point to other medical problems.
Patients can become semi-conscious and confused as a side effect of pain-killing drugs such as morphine if they are also dehydrated, for instance. When a decision has been made to place a patient on the pathway doctors are then recommended to consider removing medication or invasive procedures, such as intravenous drips, which are no longer of benefit.
If a patient is judged to still be able to eat or drink food and water will still be offered to them, as this is considered nursing care rather than medical intervention.
Dr Hargreaves said that this depended, however, on constant assessment of a patient’s condition.
He added that some patients were being “wrongly” put on the pathway, which created a “self-fulfilling prophecy” that they would die. He said: “I have been practising palliative medicine for more than 20 years and I am getting more concerned about this “death pathway” that is coming in. It is supposed to let people die with dignity but it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Patients who are allowed to become dehydrated and then become confused can be wrongly put on this pathway.” He added: “What they are trying to do is stop people being overtreated as they are dying. It is a very laudable idea. But the concern is that it is tick box medicine that stops people thinking.”
He said that he had personally taken patients off the pathway who went on to live for “significant” amounts of time and warned that many doctors were not checking the progress of patients enough to notice improvement in their condition.
Prof Millard said that it was “worrying” that patients were being “terminally” sedated, using syringe drivers, which continually empty their contents into a patient over the course of 24 hours.
In 2007-08, 16.5 per cent of deaths in Britain came about after continuous deep sedation, according to researchers at the Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, twice as many as in Belgium and the Netherlands.
“If they are sedated it is much harder to see that a patient is getting better,” Prof Millard said.
Katherine Murphy, director of the Patients Association, said: “Even the tiniest things that happen towards the end of a patient’s life can have a huge and lasting affect on patients and their families feelings about their care. Guidelines like the LCP can be very helpful but healthcare professionals always need to keep in mind the individual needs of patients. There is no one size fits all approach”…
From Power Line:
How are the costs of medical care contained under a socialized medicine regime? What happens when government committees are empowered to decide where health care dollars are spent–theirs, yours and everyone else’s?
In the United Kingdom, death panels designate certain patients as “dying” and deny them medical treatment, thus averting any possibility that they may not be dying after all…
Related health care reading:
Gateway Pundit: Breaking: Patients With Terminal Illnesses Die Early Under British Health Care System
BlackListed News: UK HEALTH SYSTEM: PATIENTS WITH TERMINAL ILLNESSES MADE TO DIE PREMATURELY
theblogprof: Single-Payer Hell: Patients With Terminal Illnesses Made To Die Prematurely Under British Health Care System – NHS Death Panels are real!
Free Republic: Sentenced to death on the NHS
Liberty’s Army: Forecasting Death in the UK: Fasttrack to Death with the NHS Pathway Policy
Greg Gutfeld, Big Hollywood: Daily Gut: Forget Kanye, It’s All Russell
Frugal Café Blog Zone: Finger Mayhem – Guard Your Phalanges at ObamaCare Protests! Update: video included and UK Health Care Scandal Breaking: Neglectful, Cruel Treatment of 1 Million Patients Reported and France’s Broken Health Care System: Copying America’s Current System (non-ObamaCare) Could Save It and More Socialized Medicine Horror: Giving Birth in UK Hospitals Hazardous to New Mothers – Shortage of Beds, Thousands Give Birth in Bathrooms, Corridors and “War on Senior Citizens”: Mark Levin Interviews Dr. Betsy McCaughey on ObamaCare Details
NewsBusters: French Health Care Expert: France’s System Broken, Should Copy US; Media Yawn
Right Pundits: France’s Disastrous Universal Healthcare
Wall Street Journal: France Fights Universal Care’s High Cost
Jane Q. Republican: The British NHS: The Healthcare Might Kill You…But It’s Free!
Right Voices: Hey MSM, You Forgot To Report That France’s Health Care System Broken and Should Copy US!
Greg Scanlen, American Spectator: Saving Money in the UK
BBC News: ‘Basic care’ lacking in hospitals and Fear over NHS compensation scale and Prison food ‘beats NHS hospitals’ and Hospital food waste is almost £1m
Telegraph: Daughter claims father wrongly placed on controversial NHS end of life scheme and ‘Cruel and neglectful’ care of one million NHS patients exposed and Sufferers pull out teeth due to lack of dentists and Dying patients and Number of NHS patients given wrong medicine doubles
Track-A-’Crat: Another Health Care Victim
Michelle Malkin: Hands off my health care. Teeth off my hands.
HillBuzz: It’s her again…on Facebook
VotingFemale Speaks!: Sarah Palin Calls Out Obama; Where’s the Tort Reform, Socialist? and Obama-Pelosi Declare WAR; Demonizing Health Industry; Warning, Socialist Demons At Work
The Western Experience: British health care at its best!
A Time For Choosing: Sarah Palin Continues to Help Shine the Light on Obama’s Corruption
MensNewsDaily: The Real Cost Of Health Care In France
Irish Election: The next healthcare scandal?
The Weekly Standard: Choosy Moms Don’t Choose Socialized Medicine
Wellsy’s World: Canadian health system “not sustainable,” looking to privatize
Are you Freaking Stupid?: Healthcare Industry Adds 544,000 Jobs During Recession, Will Media Notice? | NewsBusters.org
Tiger Hawk: Canadian brain surgery
Ann Coulter, Townhall: Liberal Lies in National Health Care: Second in a Series and Take Two Aspirin and Call Me When Your Cancer is Stage 4
Fort Peck Journal, Health Care Reform: IHS “horror” stories
Hot Air: Video: Bachmann zaps heckler over maternity care and Dems’ new rallying cry: Let’s pass this trillion-dollar travesty for Teddy
Patterico’s Pontifications: The Tedward Lovefest: Candidate for Health Care Sainthood Has One Teensy, Weensy Little Blemish on His Health Care Record
The B.S. Report: Video Of The Day: Glenn Beck; AARP: Leading The Elderly To The Slaughter?
Fine Dry Wit: A Six Thousand Dollar Hammer!
American Spectator: Honoring Teddy By Opposing Health Care
Indian Country Today: Trahant: The double standard of government-run health care: Indian Health Service
HoodaThunk?: The single-payer healthcare system in our own backyard.
Right Angles: Single-payer horror stories
Goodtimepolitics: 1,200 Veterans Falsely Told by VA They had Fatal Disease and Birth on pavement ‘after being refused ambulance’
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/19/death-panels-exist-already/
The State of Texas has actual death panels, and it was applied to a child in Austin, TX who’s mother wanted the child to remain on life support.
The law was also signed by Gov. Bush before he ran for president.
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