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Doctor: Elderly People Should be Left to Die, Their Quality of Life is Too Low
Life News ^ | 8/7/14 | Sarah Zagorski

Posted on 08/08/2014 6:35:01 AM PDT by wagglebee

Dr. James Beattie, a cardiologist who works at the East of England NHS Foundation Trust in Birmingham, believes hospitals should let more elderly patients die and “quality of life” should be given more consideration.

According to an article in the Daily Mail, Beattie said that society no longer accepts mortality and is much less familiar with death.

‘If a person is in hospital, particularly an elderly person with multiple co-morbidities, if they have a cardiac arrest it’s a sign they are in decline,’ he told Radio 4.

elderlypatient19

‘It’s their act of dying and they should not be resuscitated, they should be allowed to die.’

Dr Beattie, who works at the East of England NHS Foundation Trust in Birmingham, explained that the chance of an elderly person leaving hospital after being resuscitated is around 5 per cent.

But he said the issue was a difficult one because people today are less likely to think and talk about death thanks to advancements in modern medicine, which mean that people are living longer.

‘Society these days is much less familiar with death,’ he said, adding: ‘Our great-grandparents and to some extent our grandparents grew up with people dying before the days of antibiotics.

‘That’s denied these days. People died at home. Death is now becoming something in hospitals and care homes, somewhere removed from the family and the home.’

However, the ideology that Beattie proposes is a slippery slope and leads to an ugly future, where the elderly, ill, and dying are neglected and even killed.

Dr. Everett Koop, a renown pediatric surgeon who served as Surgeon General of the United States during President Reagan’s administration, said in his book The Memoirs of America’s Family Doctor, “… We must be wary of those who are too willing to end the lives of the elderly and the ill. If we ever decide that a poor quality of life justifies ending that life, we have taken a step down a slippery slope that places all of us in danger. There is a difference between allowing nature to take its course and actively assisting death. The call for euthanasia surfaces in our society periodically, as it is doing now under the guise of “death with dignity” or assisted suicide.”

While the morality of many end-of-life decisions, such as when to sign a “do not resuscitate order”, when to take a loved one off life support, or if extraordinary measures should be taken to save a person’s life can vary case-by-case, deciding that the elderly or sick should be left to die because they will not have a good quality of life is not one doctors in hospitals should be making. When society travels down that path, it not only leads to death by omission, but intentional, direct killing of innocent people.

Burke Balch J.D. said it best at the National Right to Life convention in Louisville, Kentucky earlier this summer: “It is critical that we understand that the actual application of quality of life ideology is extremely subjective and very arbitrary. Humanity exists on a continuum of our degree of mental mobility, and on a continuum of physical health. The issue of where you draw the line of whether a particular persons life if worth living, or a particular life is not worth living, is something of a gut instinct or of a consensus among doctors.”

The article concluded by explaining that sometimes doctors spend too much time and money on petitions for their patients who need surgeries, instead of meeting all their responsibilities as physicians. Although it may be valid to argue that doctors need to manage their time wisely, when making medical decisions, it needs to be emphasized that time and money should not be ultimate deciding factors as to whether a person lives or dies. Instead, a civilized society should protect their weakest and do everything within their power to ensure their health and survival.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: deathpanels; euthanasia; medicalcare; moralabsolutes; nhs; obamacare; obamacarefuture; palinwasright; prolife; socializedmecicine; socializedmedicine; universalhealthcare; uselesseaters
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To: wiggen

Who gets to judge “quality of life”?


61 posted on 08/08/2014 8:57:50 AM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: Fear The People; Wiggin; tang-soo
North Korea makes the decision based on loyalty to the dictator, if your family had someone in prison for a political crime and you were lucky enough not to have been thrown in the concentration along with him (they often throw whole extended families into the camps, separated of course) you will find yourself with no benefits from the state, no job, no home and no recognition, you are "the unwanted", I think the word is "Kobechi"

These are the homeless people in the fields and mountains who collect and eat grass in order to try and stay alive. What to say to a 20 year old girl, her parents already died, suffering malnutrition?

Would you say her quality of life is too low and go ahead and die? Because that is exactly what was going to happen anyway, so it would be pointless.

North Korean spends about a dollar a year per capita on medical care and most North Koreans never see any of it, of course.

My point is let us not emulate this stuff

62 posted on 08/08/2014 9:07:46 AM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: chessplayer

Right, because they are being forced to stay alive against their will. lol


63 posted on 08/08/2014 9:10:58 AM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy

religious standards will not be allowed

Whether you live or die, comrade, is now an issue for the state!


64 posted on 08/08/2014 9:12:30 AM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: Fear The People
I wonder what he has to say now...

He is one of the ruling elite. These measures don't apply to them, of course. Look at Ted Kennedy at the end of his life. He spent a fortune (because he could) on neurosurgery for what, a few more days or weeks?

65 posted on 08/08/2014 9:31:26 AM PDT by ELS
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To: wagglebee

The terminally ill elderly are in my opinion entitled to every single bit of medical intervention that they, or their families, can write a check to pay for.


66 posted on 08/08/2014 9:33:15 AM PDT by Eric Pode of Croydon
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To: wagglebee

FOR THE ELDERLY

Dear Lord,
as my life declines 
and my energies decrease,
more than ever hold me by Your Power,
that I may not offend You,
but daily increase in Your Love.
Give me strength to work in Your Service 
till the last day of my life.
Help me to ever have 
an increasing dread of venial sin,
or whatever would cause 
the slightest withdrawal of Your love,
all day long,
and at night keep me close to Your Heart;
and should I die, ere the morning breaks,
may I go rejoicing in that vision 
of Your entrancing beauty,
never to be separated from You.

67 posted on 08/08/2014 9:45:07 AM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: NRA1995

Chesterton on birth control/population control:

In 1925 Chesterton wrote an introduction to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in which he said that “The answer to anyone who talks about the surplus population is to ask him, whether he is part of the surplus population; or if not, how he knows he is not.”

68 posted on 08/08/2014 9:46:06 AM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: wagglebee

How many people has James Beattie killed?


69 posted on 08/08/2014 9:46:16 AM PDT by minnesota_bound
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To: wagglebee

We will remind you of this when, in our estimation, YOUR quality of life gets too low, doc.


70 posted on 08/08/2014 9:48:26 AM PDT by jughandle (Big words anger me, keep talking.)
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To: CodeToad
Doctors work too many hours and consequently have a low quality of life. They should all be killed, right?

You were thinking of lawyers, right?


71 posted on 08/08/2014 9:56:28 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Buckeye McFrog

Them, too!


72 posted on 08/08/2014 10:01:25 AM PDT by CodeToad (Arm Up! They Are!)
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To: Buckeye McFrog

And politicians. It would be wrong to exclude them. Wouldn’t want to discriminate.


73 posted on 08/08/2014 10:01:51 AM PDT by CodeToad (Arm Up! They Are!)
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To: wagglebee

This doctor is so special, playing God and redistribution. May he rot in hell where there are no hope for cures for the like of him and his psychopathic well entrenched feel good evil.


74 posted on 08/08/2014 10:22:49 AM PDT by lavaroise (A well regulated gun being necessary to the state, the rights of the militia shall not be infringed)
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To: oldfart

>>I have already made the choice: When the only way I can live is by enlisting technology and an outside power source - pull the plug! There is more to life than maintaining a heartbeat. I am going to die! There is no choice in that. The only choice left is how to reduce the pain and strain on those I leave behind.<<

Your words speak for many more than yourself.


75 posted on 08/08/2014 11:05:53 AM PDT by B4Ranch (Name your illness, do a Google & YouTube search with "hydrogen peroxide". Do it and be surprised.)
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To: wagglebee

It wouldn’t surprise me if the medical profession tended to attract those with sociopathic personalities.


76 posted on 08/08/2014 11:25:37 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: oldfart

“Sure, I may find myself on the wrong side of the line once I stand for judgement but I’ve made similar choices throughout my life, any one of which might be enough to send me to hell.”

Had we all made all the correct choices in life apart from Jesus, each of us would have a destination of Hell. Yet I believe Christ has grace enough even for “an oldfart” such as yourself.

(sorry about sounding ‘preachy’...this is Free Republic and some of us can’t help themselves!)


77 posted on 08/08/2014 11:50:43 AM PDT by mdmathis6
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To: Eric Pode of Croydon

The terminally ill elderly are in my opinion entitled to every single bit of medical intervention that they, or their families, can write a check to pay for.


So if there was absolutely no hope of their being cured or made well again, and they were suffering excruciating pain hour after hour, day after day, you would continue that torture of them for as long as you could afford it?


78 posted on 08/08/2014 12:42:07 PM PDT by chessplayer
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To: chessplayer

So even if the patient wants to live and is willing to pay for it...

You say “KILL THEM!!”

???


79 posted on 08/08/2014 12:45:19 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: wagglebee

Someone tell the aging hippies they need to die now.


80 posted on 08/08/2014 12:49:47 PM PDT by Pajamajan ( Pray for our nation. Thank the Lord for everything you have. Don't wait. Do it today.??)
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