Pallliative care experts in the UK are charging that terminally ill patients are being intentionally misdiagnosed as being close to death in order to enable doctors to stop treatment and instead dehydrate the patient to death. My contacts in the UK have been warning me about the “Liverpool Care Pathway” for some time and now, here it is in the Telegraph. From the story:
Patients with terminal illnesses are being made to die prematurely under an NHS scheme to help end their lives, leading doctors warn today. 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across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.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.”
Here’s the thing: Every hospice expert I have spoken with say that palliative sedation is rarely necessary to stop suffering. If some 16% of dying patients die under sedation as the story states, something is very wrong.
I am sorry, but this is a direct consequence of the rejection of human exceptionalism and the embrace a quality of life ethic. Indeed, it shows where utilitarianism leads, where in the drive to stop suffering we end up turning on the sufferer. Think about it: How often these days do we hear bioethicists bemoaning the “drawing out of the dying process,” when what we are really discussing is extending life?
Not coincidentally to our discussion of Obamacare, it was pushed by the NICE utilitarian bioethics board–the very kind that the highly influential former Sen. Tom Daschle wants for America–which could arise from the proposed cost/benefit boards in the current health care plans:
Developed by Marie Curie, the cancer charity, in a Liverpool hospice it was initially developed for cancer patients but now includes other life threatening conditions. It was recommended as a model by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), the Government’s health scrutiny body, in 2004. It has been gradually adopted nationwide and more than 300 hospitals, 130 hospices and 560 care homes in England currently use the system.
If these allegations are true, it is a scandal of virtually unprecedented proportions: A detailed investigation should be conducted. And if people were truly sedated and dehydrated to death without consent before their time, heads should, figuratively roll, medical licenses should be revoked, and–if the facts warrant–criminal charges filed.
September 2nd, 2009 | 6:54 pm
[...] panel fear–and if it is true, it is a huge lesson for us as we discuss health care reform. More details over at Secondhand Smoke. Comments [...]
September 2nd, 2009 | 9:51 pm
Dear Mr Smith,
Such death panels are indeed the inevitable consequence of the kind of government-controlled, single-payer health care system the Obama Administration wants to establish in the United States.
I don’t think there is a single country in the world where the imposition of socialized medicine has improved medical care for the “masses,” and in a number of more and more well-documented cases, the quality of care has actually deteriorated after socialized medicine was established.
September 2nd, 2009 | 10:30 pm
Oh, come on Wesley. “Death panels”? That’s the kind of stuff we expect from Sarah Palin, not from intelligent people. You yourself have said that the term she used was extreme.
September 3rd, 2009 | 12:53 am
Well, History Writer: If people are being basically forced into sedation and dehdyration by a predetermined policy, that sounds like a UK death panel to me.
September 3rd, 2009 | 5:39 am
OK, HistoryWriter, what would you call them? Involuntary Life-Cessation Panels? Would that make it all better?
[ECM: I edited this comment about HW being too PC and anti-Palin because it became too personal. Thanks.]–this is a death panel, period, and no matter of ‘churching’ up the language changes it.
September 3rd, 2009 | 6:09 am
As Mark Steyn noted at “the Corner,” Governor Palin was correct to point out that government controlled, socialized medicine necessarily implies rationing, and rationing inevitably leads to “death panels.” That is exactly what we see going on in the NHS. And that is exactly what lurks in the talk of cost containment by limiting care in the celebrated “last year of life.”
September 3rd, 2009 | 11:34 am
My only question is–is it even a panel? I get the impression from the article that it may be a decision being made by the “team” treating the person and that’s it. I don’t even know how small this “team” can be.
What’s interesting is that heretofore England has been, it’s seemed to me, somewhat better than the U.S. about nutrition and hydration, as it is regarded in law as nursing care rather than treatment. But it sure looks like that’s changing.
September 4th, 2009 | 3:16 am
Don’t be deceived by one media report in the UK that is anti NHS. A good 90% of the English people love the NHS. See here for proof:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6794585.ece
September 4th, 2009 | 10:01 pm
“If these allegations are true….”
That’s a mighty big “IF”, and the title of your article — complete with exclamation point — implies that it’s factual.
September 5th, 2009 | 10:02 am
[...] the British health care system More horror stories about the NHS, from this Telegraph. (H/T Secondhand Smoke via [...]
September 5th, 2009 | 4:38 pm
[...] horror stories about the NHS, from this Telegraph. (H/T Secondhand Smoke via [...]
September 8th, 2009 | 2:42 pm
[...] FIRST THINGS: Bill Intentionally Made Unintelligible?; NHS Meltdown: Death Panels! …. [...]
September 10th, 2009 | 3:51 am
We already have “death panels” in medicine and have had them for over 10 years. doctors are mandated to tell old and sick patients to authorize do not resuscitate orders. it’s kind of coercive too. they send in counselors to try and get patients, undesirables into hospice, and then they are encouraged to stay at home and not go to the hospital when their conditions deteriorate, if a doctor feels that the patent’s condition is hopeless.
This just happened with my mother who is not end stage and was in and out of the HMO, Kaiser, for 20 weeks. We stayed by her side 24/7 to protect her since they caused her condition to worsen after inserting a pacemaker. If I were not a health care provider she would be dead. I fought over 35 doctors who all gave up on he and late in her course intercepted a doctor’s prescription for Morphine 15 mg extended release twice daily while she was in the hospital. That would have killed her. If I had left the room or not asked the nurse what she was about to give to my mother, my mom would be dead. After months of misdiagnosis, direction to hospice who turned her down for lack of a diagnosis, (got a good person), my mother ended up having hypothyroidism. Doctors don’t even examine patients anymore due to federal government interference. By the time this health care thing passes they will gladly collect a paycheck for their shoddy assessments and poor diagnostics. That is the result of any socialized system- look at the VA, IHS and military medicine. They all suck. I know, I worked in all of them. Delay, diminish and deny care with no consequences and a guaranteed paycheck.
Doctors have complete contempt for old frail people, for people in pain, for chronically ill people and in many places in this country, if elderly patients come in with a lung mass or effusion on xray, they will not diagnose it by pulling off the fluid from around the lungs or by performing a bronchoscopy. The offenses are many and widespread so those who aren’t in the field and who get decent care know nothing of what they speak about.
They don’t make the diagnosis so they don’t have to treat. They get patients to stay at home if they are doing poorly and to take morphine instead of getting care. Morphine suppresses the respiratory drive and causes really ugly things to happen that ultimately kills off patients. It’s being done, it’s been done and it is already codified in HMO and managed care legislation. So all of these useful idiots on this thread who love their government, are wrong and blind. Anyway, it’s all a moot point since they passed health care reform for the VA, Indian health and Medicare and Medicaid in February, slipping it into the stimulus package. It goes into effect October 1 and boy, this country of idiots is in for a real ride to their graves.
September 14th, 2009 | 7:00 pm
[url=http://u9csbiudl1xgxcpe.com/]zdvfje2wsyockf7m[/url]
[link=http://q0c83jogxb7i1j17.com/]kk53ocwx00u95vhk[/link]
b0hoc6wv0t8xw7×4
http://2oec7dbwjbt81b3d.com/
October 12th, 2009 | 4:14 pm
[...] Some doctors have raised a stink about this, as I discussed earlier over at Secondhand Smoke. Yesterday, the Sunday Times reported about a woman, misdiagnosed as terminal, who was only spared dehydration because of the persistence of her daughter. And today, the Mail reports that a man was misdiagnosed with recurrent terminal cancer and dehydrated, apparently under the Pathway guidelines. An autopsy showed he had a chest infection and would have survived if treated. [...]
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact