Posted on 09/02/2009 4:38:52 PM PDT by Michel12
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across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.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.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
“If they are sedated it is much harder to see that a patient is getting better,” Prof Millard said.But what better way to ration care and control costs?
Sounds like an ObamaGoodIdea to me.
Is the Lockerbie bomber gonna get better medical care in Libya?
But I’m not dead yet...
Ohhhh, isn't that lovely? These people are getting to enjoy the same "beautiful" death that Terri Schiavo got to enjoy!!
/sarc
This is incredibly disgusting, vile and repugnant. I don't know why our cousins across the pond tolerate this but, if we don't put DeathCare to death, the same thing awaits each and every one of us!!! Resume calling your Congresscritter and tell them that ANY vote to pass ANY version of DeathCare is a nail in their political coffin!!!
Then, make sure you follow through next year!!
And once that evil were to get going what would they plan next?
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I think Mark Levin was talking about this. Thanx for posting this article.
bump!
“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.”
wow!
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