Posted on 10/12/2009 12:45:28 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
A grandfather who beat cancer was wrongly told the disease had returned and left to die at a hospice which pioneered a controversial 'death pathway'.
Doctors said there was nothing more they could do for 76-year-old Jack Jones, and his family claim he was denied food, water and medication except painkillers. He died within two weeks.
But tests after his death found that his cancer had not come back, and he was in fact suffering from pneumonia brought on by a chest infection.
To his family's horror, they were told he could have recovered if he'd been given the correct treatment.
Today, after being given an £18,000 pay-out over her ordeal, his widow Pat branded his treatment 'barbaric' and accused the doctors of manslaughter.
Mr Jones was being cared at a hospice which was central to the contentious Liverpool Care Pathway under which dying patients have their life support taken away, although the hospice claims it wasn't officially applied in his case.
The scheme is now used by hundreds of hospitals and care homes, and is followed in as many as 20,000 deaths a year.
Supporters say it brings dignity to a patient's final hours, but critics fear that some are placed into it incorrectly.
The retired bricklayer was diagnosed with stomach cancer in May 2005. After undergoing chemotherapy, he had his stomach removed by surgeons at Royal Liverpool Hospital that September.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
The death panel said NO!
We MUST NOT let an NHS occur here!
you just KNOW this was going to happen sooner or later.
To look in the eyes of a Hospice nurse is to look in the eyes of Satan himself.
"There are many ways to say tough excrement"
“Second opinion? Tell us another funny, we Brits are doubled up with laughter!”
It’s one thing when a patient chooses to forgo further treatment for a difficult cancer and receives only comfort care. It’s quite another when the patient is starved and dried to death. The latter is satanic.
What kind of medical system denies food and water to the sick or dying?
Sometimes. But not always. The problem is, it can be very difficult to tell which ones are evil and which ones aren’t, until after your loved one is dead.
At least they have tort reform/s
A “utilitarian” one.
Complete, utter, unadulterated bullsh**.
Sounds like Gubberment Health Care?
I was outraged until I read that this story took place in England. That’s par for the course in England. The Brits don’t have their socks anymore.
Sad, but the doctor won’t be held liable for his misdiagnosis and, as the Brits see it, he was already old and had some good innings. Anything else is purely sentimental.
Have the Brits lost use of their hind legs?
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Not even a decent year’s salary. You don’t have to love jackpots to see this stinks.
Two wrong statements make a right?
Thanks to ACORN, we have Obama to lead our country down that path. Within two years, he will bring American medical care to that level.
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