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 ...
“Hospice” care itself, as a concept is not the problem
(when it means - all existing and known medical interventions have not stopped a fatal and deteriorating process and no further interventions seem possible, or seem most likely to alter the present course)
but the practice of Hospice care REQUIRES
(1) a family structure that actively seeks to make the best informed consent decisions they can,
(2) hospice care professionals that are not operating independently of the family and the doctors who together selected the hospice care,
(3) family and doctors who together are working to keep as much quality of life that circumstances permit, not simply expedite an exit.
Along the way, it takes a lot of day by day difficult decisions and even when everyone makes what they think are the best decisions, second guessing some of them later is inevitable.
It is a difficult time, but don’t blame “Hospice Care” generically. There are good practitioners involved sometimes. It’s not the practice that’s bad (or good), it’s who exactly is doing it.
If it can be done at home, that is the best choice when it is possible.
I know, I’ve been there.
Not to pick a fight...but, I call them (trolls or Holderites) as I see them...
Six posts, all today. Four on this thread. The first about about as incindiary as can be...
Lacking any knowledge of her care, I cannot comment on that, but most cancer deaths are unnecessary. Just because the AMA has run out of ineffective options is no reason to allow someone to die.
There is a path to the elimination of illness that involves proper diet, and herbal attack on the disease, but also requires that the patient come to grips with the spiritual blockages that prevent cures. This should be the not just the first choice, but the only one. All other modalities hasten death in some measure.
Most cancer deaths are unnecessary?
Wow. If you trully believe that a special diet, herbs and ‘unblocking spirituality’ is all that it takes to fight a volumetrically growing tumor...then you, and your loved ones, have led charmed lives.
Satanic is right. Just look at what Zero said about Terri Shiavo’s murder at the hands of the ‘government’.....he regrets his “inaction” in not removing the feeding tube SOONER. Is that Satanic enough for you? And I won’t even mention how he voted TWICE to withhold medical care for live-birth, fully formed human infants in botched abortions. He was the ONLY DemocRAT senator to vote against it, btw. Hell, Satan’s probably getting jealous of Zero’s track record.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6D32fc2q-0
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=57488
If oogy-boogy would stop cancers it would be known worldwide better than, say, Laetrile.
HA!
Never thought of it that way.
Special diet?
Really just a proper diet. No non-food, no poisonous chemicals, reasonably balanced. That alone will eliminate most illness for the majority of people. Buy fresh foods rather than cans or packages.
As for the spiritual end, get rid of the toxic thoughts: Greed, envy, hate, jealousy, grudges, etc. They cause pain, and life threatening illnesses, and getting rid of them is a huge part of a cure.
I have no info on your oogy-boogy, but Laetrile, by its real name, amygdalin, is tremendously useful for all kinds of problems, such as bio-film infections, backache, sinus pressure, fibromyalgia, and God knows what else. All it really is is the oil of a non-hybrid almond, or the seed of an apricot, which is roughly the same thing.
I just chew up a few nuts into a mush and hold the paste under my tongue for about a half hour. The taste takes a little getting used to, and it has a hot sensation for about a minute.
No, I don’t want to artificially prolong life at all beyond feeding and giving oxygen. The hospice people I’ve been aware of basically pull the plug (so to speak) or increase morphine to hasten death. Where death is imminent, I believe in making the person more comfortable. It has not been my observation that hospice workers restrain themselves from hastening death.
It has been mine.
Then your experience has definitely been different from mine and that’s good. My brother owns a chain of them, but I don’t know about their operations. When our mother died recently, she didn’t want anything to do with them and he honored her request. When my sister-in-law was with her mom in her final hours, they asked her to leave, which I think was awful. Her mom died within minutes. They said she was just hanging on for her daughter; I think they killed her and didn’t want a witness.
What was wrong with saying "no"?
I think they killed her and didn’t want a witness.
See above.
In my experience they were wonderful, caring people doing an extremely difficult and stressful job. We were with our loved one right until the very end. At all times the Hospice staff were caring, compassionate, and extremely professional.
Some folks around here need to reread their Bibles, especially the part about 'easing the passing' of those getting ready to go into the Great Beyond.
They told her her presence was making it difficult for her mom to let go and that she needed to leave. They made her feel guilty by staying and told her it was better for her mother that she left. So she did it believing it was in her mother’s best interest. I never believe it’s best for someone to die without a family member there, if they can be there. It sounds like you are in the minority by having a good experience with a hospice. I think you are being critical of others who haven’t had that experience. Hospices are by their nature death oriented. Death is not dignified. Consider yourself fortunate to find a good one. I doubt there are many of them.
Ask mom what she wants.
They made her feel guilty by staying and told her it was better for her mother that she left.
No one can make you feel guilty unless you're doing something wrong. Then you don't need anyone else to make you feel guilty.
I think you are being critical of others who haven’t had that experience.
I suggest you re-read the thread.
Hospices are by their nature death oriented.
Duh.
Death is not dignified.
That depends on how you do it.
Consider yourself fortunate to find a good one.
It's called 'research'.
I doubt there are many of them.
Unless you have facts and figures to back up that assertion you're just blowing smoke.
I’ve never blown smoke of any kind. I stand by my statements.
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