[Nachum]

Full Title: Elderly patients dying of thirst: Doctors forced to prescribe drinking water to keep the old alive, reveals devastating report on hospital care

[Yaelle]

This is sad. I have an elderly relative possibly at the end of her life, in the hospital in queens right now. I hope they are giving her enough fluids,

[Tennessee Nana]

RomneyCare

[FormerACLUmember]

The daily horror show on ObamaCare in the UK, totally covered up by the evil democrat party US media.

Not one in a hundred people in the US are aware of the truth.

Yeah, we see these on Free Republic, but that is about all.

[HiTech RedNeck]

You’d think that water taps would be made available for the patients that still have the ability to operate them. It can’t be that expensive an item can it?

[matt04]

Tine to get rid of a lot of nurses. If they can’t be bothered to provide water, they have no place in healthcare.

[Brandonmark]

Drip, Drip, Drip
(It's another form of water boarding just for our elderly)

[KarlInOhio]

You say horrible death by dehydration. Obama says long term cost savings.

tomayto - tomahto

[Mariner]

At what point does society...whether a govt board, an insurance company, the family, the market...or even the patient say "enough" ?

As we cross the threshold of 2 workers for every retiree...with the advances in medical care and assisted living, folks are living well into their 80s and 90s fairly regularly.

Are there enough resources in the country to fund every conceivable medical procedure and unlimted assisted care?

Those resources don't exist.

How does a compassionate society decide that allocation of resources? That will be one of our great moral challenges of the next 30 years.

How do we provide unlimited medical care and assisted living for 40 to 60 million people over 65?

Is it even possible?

I say it is not possible.

[Berlin_Freeper]

Hang a sock out the window when it rains then suck on it.

[Fiddlstix]

Ain't Socialized Medicine just peachy keen?
Everyone is so looking forward to 0B0Z0Care,doncha know.
</sarcasm>

[JPG]

They might as well be adrift on the ocean...”Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink.”

[Bernard Marx]

Dealing with the elderly is an embarrassing social dilemma. Younger folks, who can't emotionally handle the reality that they'll someday be in that condition themselves, are desperate to salve their consciences by passing their parents off to third parties: rest homes, etc. Their consciences are assuaged because they've "done something."

Earlier cultures dealt with the problem more mercifully IMO. When the time came it was part of the social contract in many societies to leave old folks alone in the wilderness to die with dignity of exposure, starvation and thirst -- a much kinder and quicker fate than being left to the not-so-tender mercies of minimum-wage airheads who entertain themselves by placing bets on which of their charges will wet or soil themselves first.

I'm reaching that time of life. Thank God I haven't given all my guns away!

[little jeremiah]

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So nurses in the UK are nothing but butchers who "forget" (yeah, "forget") to give the helpless eldery patients depending on them, water??? Insane. So these "forgetful" executioners - I mean, nurses - need to have prescriptions of the medicine - I mean "water" so the helpless elderly do not die of thirst. What depths of cruelty!

[cherry]

"The snapshot study, triggered by a Mail campaign"

a lousy study by a paper that sensationalizes.....

[wideminded]

I once heard that an elderly man I had known my entire life had been ejected from the nursing home where he had been living. He had somehow ended up in a ward of people with very advanced dementia even though I knew from previous visits that, although he had some problems, he did not belong there. When I went to visit him I found him barely able to move or speak, lying in the main room of the ward with all the others who were similarly mute and motionless.

I inquired from the doctor on duty if his current condition could be the result of a drug overdose. The doctor clearly though nothing was amiss. But right after this one of the nurses whispered to me: "You can get him out of here."

I had an ambulance called and he was transferred to a nearby hospital (which considering the closeness of the hospital was a ridiculously involved procedure in itself), At the hospital doctors quickly found that he was extremely dehydrated, that this was the reason for the apparent change in his condition, and told me that he would have died very soon if he had not been brought in. Soon he was revived and we were having a conversation.

He still had some serious problems but he lived for several years after this incident. Anyway this taught me that:

1. There probably are a lot of cases where the symptoms of extreme dehydration or other critical health problems are confused with dementia.

2. Once you appear to have dementia, or even if you are just among others with dementia, a lot of people (including doctors) are not going to inquire too closely about your well-being.

3. Sometimes nurses have a better idea what is going on than doctors, but they can be afraid to speak up.

[arthurus]

I believe part of the Kenyan Medical system that the Democrats have forced and the Republicans wil,do go along with is the unionization of the medical profession. When hosp9ital staffs are all unionized we will have this phenomenon in spades. Patients will no longer be the focus of nurses and hospital techs’ work. Union politics and union concerns will rule totally and they have nothing to do with things like patients’ welfare.

[Right Wing Assault]

They’re sending a mixed message to the staff. They actually want these folks to LIVE??

[Bellflower]

I take care of my mom and make sure she constantly drinks plenty of water. It is something so fundamental and normal for most people, to drink water, they fail to realize that some elderly just don't do so without supervision and encouragement.

[redgolum]

After my father’s brain surgery, he spent some time in a nursing home (a move I was very much against, but had no say about).

What I saw there was very sad. My Grandparents ended up there, but only when it was the last resort.

[jmcenanly]

They have, and soon we will have, entrusted the care of their parents and grandparents to people without the common sense to take care of a dog or cat.Where do they find people like that?