Posted on 05/23/2005 2:00:13 PM PDT by EternalVigilance
THE National Health Service should not have to give life- prolonging treatment to every patient who demands it because that would mean a crippling waste of resources, the Government said yesterday. A lawyer for Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, said that a ruling granting a patient the right to request life-prolonging care had serious implications for the NHS.
The dramatic intervention came as lawyers for the General Medical Council challenged a High Court ruling that supported a terminally-ill man’s wish to be kept alive artificially.
Leslie Burke, 45, who suffers from cerebellar ataxia, a degenerative brain condition, won a landmark case last May granting him the right to stop doctors withdrawing artificial nutrition or hydration (ANH) treatment until he dies naturally.
The Department of Health, backing the GMC’s attempt to reverse the ruling, said that if that right were established, patients could demand other life-prolonging treatments. The department argues that this will create a culture in which patients request treatments “no matter how untested, inappropriate or expensive, regardless of doctors’ views”.
Philip Sales, for the Health Secretary, told a panel of three appeal judges, headed by the Master of the Rolls, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers: “A general right, as identified (in the High Court), for an individual patient to require life- prolonging treatment has very serious implications for the functioning of the NHS.
“It may be interpreted as giving patients the right to demand certain treatments, contrary to the considered judgment of their medical team, that would lead to patients obtaining access to treatment that is not appropriate for them, and to unfairly skewed use of resources within the NHS.”
Under current GMC guidelines, a competent patient could decide between treatment options offered by a doctor. “But the patient cannot require his doctor to offer him any treatment option which, in the doctor’s view, is not clinically appropriate or which cannot be offered for other reasons — having regard to the efficient allocation of resources.”
Mr Sales said that the ruling had led to a confusion of the roles of doctor and patient — decisions over treatment were for doctors, not patients.
Doctors’ leaders said the precedent won by Mr Burke had created a minefield of unresolved issues over appropriate treatment and use of NHS resources. The GMC’s arguments — that the ruling is unclear and puts doctors in an “impossibly difficult position” of having to pursue treatments of no clinical benefit — has widespread support within healthcare.
Intensive care beds, where patients can receive lifesaving care such as ANH, cost £1,500 a day to run while high-dependency beds for patients who require close monitoring cost up to £800 a day.
The Government put £300 million into critical care beds after the flu epidemic of 1999-2000, increasing the number of intensive care beds from 1,496 to 1,677 and high- dependency beds from 847 to 1,208. by January 2001.
But since then the number of high-dependency beds has risen by only 206, the Intensive Care Society says. Figures from 2000 revealed that the NHS had four critical-care beds per 100,000 — compared with 25 in Germany and 24 in the US. No figures are available on how many patients in Britain are in long-term intensive care.
Mr Justice Munby ruled last year that if a patient is competent, or has made a request before becoming incompetent, doctors have a duty to provide ANH. Mr Burke, from Lancaster, was in court in his wheelchair yesterday listening to the arguments for overturning the ruling, which he believes will save him if ANH was withdrawn after he loses the ability to communicate. Richard Gordon, QC, for Mr Burke, argued that the GMC case was based upon a misunderstanding of the role of doctors in relation to the legally competent patient. The hearing continues.
This where socialized medicine, in cooperation with the Left's agenda of death, leads.
Ping...
It costs over $2200 a day to feed a patient by tube in Britain?
And it's closer than you'd ever imagine. Tim Murphy is trying to get a handle on everybody's medical records....then they'll have us over a barrel.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1406656/posts
Actually, even non-socialized medicine is heading this way. There was an article posted on FR this morning about Kaiser (HMO) recruiting doctors who were willing to do "PAS" (Physician Assisted Suicide). They were looking for doctors who might not be willing to do it on their own patients, but would order it for the patients of other doctors who didn't feel quite right about ordering it.
I swear, these Euros are going to be opening "Soylent Green Burger" franchises with in the next five years.
These people have lost their bearings.
This is coming. With the flood of illegals and no way to pay for their care, plus the care for every other illegal headed this way and the admin. not in the mood to close the border, there will soon be no medical care left for American taxpayers who are footing the bills. That's the bottom line. And once this elephant's nose is under the tent...oh, they're here, so many we can't send them back. They do work Americans don't want to do. They contribute, yada, yada, they have a right to education, drivers' licenses, welfare, social security, medical care, the vote, the courts will insist that we pick up the tab and shut up. That's when socialized medicine will be on the table. The feds will have to offer something to the taxpayers...the old bait and switch routine. We'll have a socialized medical care card to tuck in our wallets, right beside the passport...because ordinary Americans are warned that they'd better have an up to date passport as an i.d. or they won't be allowed back in from Canada, etc.. Does this sound like Nazi Germany? Where are your papers!!!
I guess you could say we're all terminally ill (my prognosis is another 30-40 years). Now it's up to the bureaucrats to decide when to starve us to death.
Wow. They must have thought we'd gone bloody bonkers with all the sturm and drang over Terri Schiavo.
IOW they'll kill your grandma to make room for maria and her 11 children by 7 fathers.
There is no way we can keep taking in a flood of illegals all for free. Then on the border the people of Mexico just come across and get free health care. Socialized medicine is practically here. When you put a billion dollars in the medicare bill for foreigners that is socialization.
I've got news for you. This is where we're going whether the government or the private sector controls health care. Unless you're one of those few with an unlimited bank account, somebody else is going to ultimately decide how much gets spent to keep you alive. It may be a government bureaucrat or it may be an HMO accountant. Ultimately, the result will be the same. The trend is toward rationing, whether through socialized medicine or through privatization.
The medical, the legal and the political professions have been infected by the lies propogated by the death cultists, you are correct. The battle is being fought on all of those fronts.
This is another "uh oh" moment because we didn't get to vote on creating a society divided into classes of people; those who enjoy all their rights and those who have no rights as soon as they are infirmed.
US Congress Toll Free: 1-877-762-8762.
Please call any time and complain.
Terri Schiavo 1963 - 2005. May she rest in peace. She was murdered by judicial homicide and by Fla's nine gop senators who voted against Terri's life w/Senator Jim King, Jacksonville.
Don't vote for another Bush for president. Jeb's wife is from Mexico City. Both Bushes imo want to expand illegal immigration. They are missing the big picture altogether.
Not necessarily. If there are enough of us who would prefer individual responsibility to the promise of a "free lunch", we can elect politicians who will enact proposals such as tort reform, Medical Savings Accounts, and Medicare/Medicaid reform.
Unfortunately, the free lunch crowd seems to win most often.
ping to self for later pingout.
All that may delay the onset somewhat, but at the end of the day, the resources available to pay for high-end medical care are finite, while the demand for it is nearly infinite. It will be rationed. The only question is who is going to do the rationing.
Do I like socialized medicine? Absolutely not. That said, I'm not too crazy about the HMO business model which views the patient as a drain on the bottom line either.
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