Patients with terminal illnesses are being made to die prematurely under an NHS scheme to help end their lives, leading doctors have warned.
In 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across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.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.
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The silence is deafening. Fox News carried the story this morning and “wondered”.
Could it be that Sarah is right?
Mountain out of a molehill. Unless there are infinite resources, some sort of rationing has to take place. That’s not left or right wing, that’s the basis of economics – using scarce resources in the most effective manner. Money doesn’t talk under a state run system (or at least it’s very quiet) so other means must be used. What NHS-bashers and Obamacare-bashers are advocating is still rationing, but now that rationing is based on market supply/demand. Decision tree vs floating price. One tries to be accurate and falls hopelessly short; the other has nothing to do with a patient’s relative sickness.
When my husband was dying, we were under no illusion that there was going to be a happy ending – with innovative drug therapy and homecare he lived for 4 more precious months. The decision to stop treatment was a family decision with input from the doctor. No government bureaucrat was going to rob us of that gift of time. Cheers.
Re #2: “Mountain out of a molehill.”
Actually it’s not. It goes to the heart of who we are and “we” are far more important than Afghanistan or policing the world because they can’t do it themselves.
We look after ourselves first and if we need more doctors we hire them. We do not farm our elderly out to death because we can’t afford them. That’s truly a stupid idea because our elderly are the only people that can tell us what happened in the past.
They are valuable and give us clues to to our future.
I find your thoughts offensive and it isn’t about the “almighty dollar” as you suggest. It has much more to do with our history, who we are and our collective memory.
I’m not ready to dispense with the elderly because they are getting far to expensive. We can handle that if we forget about saving the world and look after ourselves FIRST.
Perhaps Obama will feed the world with soylent green?
Jack, your offense is noted, but unnecessary. My only point is that opposing anything that smells like nationalized health-care doesn’t free you from the scourge of rationing. It just changes the nature of that rationing. The free market rations by nature, and you have to accept that the market exists BECAUSE everyone can’t have everything. In fact a few people can have almost everything (hence my reference to “rolex health care”). Lots of people are left to die in the US right now due to no or poor health insurance – why no outrage from these protesters at that?