The UK’s Liverpool Care Pathway has apparently killed its first (reported) victim. The Pathway treats dying patients as members of a category instead of as individuals. Rather than give patients the individualized treatment their respective symptoms and conditions warrant, the Pathway sedates patients thought to be near death, and withholds food and fluids until death. About 16.5% of deaths in the UK are now, apparently, via the Pathway, a far higher percentage than hospice professionals tell me require sedation to control symptoms.
Yesterday, I reported on a case in which a woman misdiagnosed as dying, was spared dehydration only due to the persistence of her daughter. I asked at the time, how many other such cases there are? We now know of at least one–only the ending wasn’t happy. A man misdiagnosed with recurrent cancer was apparently sedated and dehydrated to death. From the story:
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.
If the charges are true, at the very least this is negligent homicide! What does the hospice have to say?
Mrs Jones believes her husband was treated under the Liverpool Care Pathway, but insiders said it was only implemented after he died to help provide comfort to his wife and daughters.
What? A care plan was implemented after he died? That makes zero sense. There needs to be an urgent criminal investigation to find out what’s what.
The bigger question is whether the Pathway will be curtailed so that the lives of other patients are not endangered or cut off from being lived to the last drop by being treated via checklist as members of a category. I doubt it. In the UK–where the NHS is melting down and utilitarian bioethicists have been handed tremendous control over the ethics of care–I am beginning to suspect that the very sick, disabled, and elderly are looked upon as burdens that society can no longer afford.
October 12th, 2009 | 4:16 pm
[...] post: Liverpool Care Pathway: Man Misdiagnosed With Cancer Dehydrated to … VN:F [1.6.9_936]please wait…Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)VN:F [1.6.9_936]Rating: 0 (from 0 [...]
October 12th, 2009 | 4:33 pm
This is horrible. There are no words to describe how horrible this is.
October 12th, 2009 | 5:26 pm
Are these people also being denied food and fluids *by mouth*? I’m getting this eerie feeling that these need not even be people who require ANH.
October 12th, 2009 | 5:40 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Trinity Law School. Trinity Law School said: Wesley J. Smith points us to another case where bad bioethics have had devastating effects. http://bit.ly/1QHnF4 [...]
October 12th, 2009 | 6:09 pm
Hhmm, lemme see, we won’t have “death panels” in the USA but perhaps a “pathway” will be cleared for those of us following in this insanity.
October 12th, 2009 | 6:11 pm
Lydia: At least some only need ANH because they have been put into an artificial coma.
October 12th, 2009 | 7:28 pm
Thanks, Wesley, gotcha. This man didn’t sound to me like he needed ANH going in, but I can see that if you dope someone enough he won’t be able to sit up and chew and swallow! This is just horrible.
October 12th, 2009 | 8:10 pm
Ah, correction: Looks like this patient _was_ on ANH going in–my new inference from the fact that his stomach had had to be removed some time before because of stomach cancer.
I think Wesley’s point stands, though, regarding the more widespread unnecessary use of sedation in these contexts.
October 12th, 2009 | 8:46 pm
Precisely. The man was sedated and dehydrated, apparently, when he had a survivable condition. Moreover, even if he were dying, unless sedation is necessary to control symptoms not otherwise capable of palliation, it is not medically warranted. It is the end of professionalism in medicine, and its replacement by a technocracy. And this isn’t the only evidence of that unfortunate trend.
October 12th, 2009 | 9:38 pm
[...] Go here to read the rest: Liverpool Care Pathway: Man Misdiagnosed With Cancer Dehydrated to … [...]
October 12th, 2009 | 9:46 pm
[...] damn those Brits, don’t they know how to make me look like a genius. I think that Wes Smith gets a little too tangled up in the mistakes, which lets the ghastly [...]
October 12th, 2009 | 11:31 pm
[...] the original post: Liverpool Care Pathway: Man Misdiagnosed With Cancer Dehydrated to … Posted By: admin Last Edit: 12 Oct 2009 @ 12:47 PM Email • Permalink Tags: [...]
October 12th, 2009 | 11:35 pm
A while ago I had a conversation with a fairly radical guy who said that he didn’t trust hospitals and had told those around him that if he ever had a heart attack or something, ‘just throw me in a ditch and leave me there until I get better or die.’ I took that statement to be intentionally hyperbolic or irrational, but honestly, if I that’s what the doctor plans to do with me when I am ill, I might as well choose to be thrown in a ditch-at least then God will be the one ending my life and not the stupid doctors who think that they are God.
October 13th, 2009 | 11:43 am
This happened to my father in May of this year. He was in a hospice. All his medication was withdrawn even his insulin. He was deprived of food and drink and given huge amounts of opiates.His treatment was horriffic we had to practicly kidnap him. Sadly he died 5 days later at my home, I believe the opiates killed him. I am so angry and my heart is broken. It is legalised euthanasia
October 13th, 2009 | 6:54 pm
[...] Left to Starve & Soldier Gets Cancerous Lungs in Transplant; and “Liverpool Care Pathway: Man Misdiagnosed With Cancer Dehydrated to Death” …. (gatewaypundit.blog, [...]
October 14th, 2009 | 5:03 am
My father as of last weekend has become a victim of the LCP
He was put on it due to suffering from bacterial meninigitis , but pulled through
Unfortunatley it was too late for him in the end because due to the dehydration (lack of drip) had become confused and although not written on record, tried to get out of bed only to have a fatal fall (unfortunately he was in a room on his own, beause he was in a ladies ward due to lack of space whichi believe didnt help the monitoring of him.)
October 15th, 2009 | 11:08 am
This is happening to my mother right now. Hospice got involved and doped her up with so much with morphine and haldol she isn’t able to wake up. She is 60# right now and starving to death because of Hospice!! Very, very sad!
October 15th, 2009 | 11:54 am
My Mother has just been killed (1st October)using LCP – without any prior approval by her family or me.
The Death Certificate gave Dementia as the cause of Death – she recognised all of us that afternoon, drank cups of tea in bed, etc,etc before she was put on the LCP – later that day, she seemed happy when we left the bedside that afternoon.
She “died” exactly 7 days later.
I have refused to sign the certificate – it should state “Cause of Death” – Liverpool Care Pathway.
Be very warned.
October 15th, 2009 | 12:53 pm
[...] J. Smith has the story at First Things. With healthcare reform on the horizon in America, we can’t afford to get lazy or [...]
October 20th, 2009 | 11:04 am
[...] get into some of the horror stories, such as the man put into a coma and dehydrated who turned out not to have cancer. And then I tie the Pathway into Obamacare: This is precisely the paint-by-the-numbers medical [...]
November 4th, 2009 | 7:45 pm
The NHS in the UK are just using the Pathway to kill off people. The did the same to my father in law against every ones wishes just said we can do this and dehydrated him and stoped his dialyisis. We did not know about the Liverpool pathway at the time. It was not explaned to the family. We are now in the process of taking them to court.
November 29th, 2009 | 6:15 pm
The Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient, (as it is properly called) was developed from the model of patient care used by Marie Curie Cancer Care who have a Hospice in Woolton Liverpool that is most highly regarded by the people of Liverpool and beyond. The model has been taken to the NHS hospitals because the Doctors involved cared that all patients near the end of their life have consistently that most approptiate.
The end of life is something for which today we as relatives and friends are not prepared. Death has too often been at one remove from “normal life”, many Doctors seeiing there job in terms of treatment and “positve outcomes”.
Thankfully some Doctors and Nurses have realised that palliative care in the NHS was lacking focus and have turned to the charitable sector to find a path forward.
It seems to me that those fortunate enough to find caring medical staff who act in a concerted and orgainsed to provide palliative care way are likely to pass their final days and hours on this valley of tears at peace.
November 29th, 2009 | 6:49 pm
Nick: The problem isn’t the motive. The problem has been the application, people who didn’t need to be sedated have been, including people, apparently, who could have been treated.
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