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Welcome to Obamacare, 2020

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Hospitals 'letting patients die to save money’

Hospitals may be depriving elderly patients of food and drink to hasten their deaths as part of cost-cutting measures to free up bed space, leading doctors warn.

Supporters of the Liverpool Care Pathway, which allows medical staff to withhold fluid and drugs in a patient's final days, claim it is the kindest way of letting them slip away Photo: ALAMY

By Stephen Adams, Medical Correspondent

11:06PM BST 08 Jul 2012

533 Comments

Tens of thousands of patients with terminal illnesses are placed on a “death pathway” to help end their lives every year. However, in a letter to The Daily Telegraph, six doctors warn that hospitals may be using the controversial scheme to reduce strain on hospital resources.


Supporters of the Liverpool Care Pathway, which allows medical staff to withhold fluid and drugs in a patient’s final days, claim it is the kindest way of letting them slip away. But the experts say in their letter that natural deaths are often freer of pain and distress.


Informed consent is not always being sought by doctors, who fail to ask patients about their wishes while they are still in control of their faculties, warn the six. This has led to an increase in patients carrying cards informing doctors that they do not wish to be put on the pathway in the last few days of their lives.


The six doctors are experts in elderly care and wrote the letter in conjunction with the Medical Ethics Alliance, a Christian medical organisation. They say that many members of the public have contacted them with examples of inappropriate use of the pathway, which is implemented in up to 29 per cent of hospital deaths.


They warn that there is no “scientific way of diagnosing imminent death.” They write: “It is essentially a prediction, and it is possible that other considerations may come into reaching such a decision, not excluding the availability of resources.”


The Liverpool Care Pathway, so called because it was developed at the Royal Liverpool Hospital in the 1990s, aims to ensure that patients who are close to death can die without being subjected to unnecessary interference by staff. In addition to the withdrawal of fluid and medication, patients can be placed on sedation until they die.

Dr Gillian Craig, a retired geriatrician and former vice-chairman of the Medical Ethics Alliance, is one of the six signatories to The Daily Telegraph letter.

“If you are cynical about it, as I am, you can see it as a cost-cutting measure, if you don’t want your beds to be filled with old people,” she said. She advised that those who did not want to be put on the pathway should carry cards made by Dr Rosalind Bearcroft, a consultant psychiatrist from Kent, and another signatory.

Last year The Daily Telegraph reported that the numbers being put on the pathway had doubled in just two years, with tens of thousands of patients now involved. But up to half of families are not being informed of clinicians’ decision to put a relative on the pathway, the report by the Royal College of Physicians found. Advocates point out that the Liverpool Care Pathway has been approved by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) and is backed by the Department of Health.

A Department of Health spokesperson said: "People coming to the end of their lives should have a right to high quality, compassionate and dignified care.

"The Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) is not about saving money. It is an established and respected tool that is recommended by NICE and has overwhelming support from clinicians at home and abroad.

"The decision to use the pathway should involve patients and family members, and a patient's condition should be closely monitored. If, as sometimes happens, a patient improves, they are taken off the LCP and given whatever treatments best suit their new needs. To ensure the LCP is used properly, it is important that staff receive the appropriate training and support."
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/h...itals-letting-patients-die-to-save-money.html

Welcome to Obamacare, 2020
 
Notable Mistakes of the Daily Telegraph- :)

Notable mistakesThe Daily Telegraph has published at least five premature obituaries:

Cockie Hoogterp, the second wife of Baron Blixen, in 1938 after the Baron's third wife died in a car accident. Mrs. Hoogterp sent all her bills back marked "Deceased" and survived her premature obituary by over 50 years.[33]

Dave Swarbrick in 1999, prompting much embarrassing publicity for the newspaper, and Swarbrick's remark "It's not the first time I have died in Coventry."[33]

Dorothy Southworth Ritter, the widow of Tex Ritter and mother of John Ritter, in August 2001.[33] She eventually died in 2003, two months after her son's death.

Ballet dancer Katharine Sergava in 2003, which also caused The New York Times to print an erroneous obituary based on The Telegraph's.[34]

Iraqi Defence and Interior Minister Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali", who was widely reported to have been killed in April 2003.[35]

On Wednesday, 24 February 1988, The Daily Telegraph was printed with the wrong date: Thursday 25 February was printed by mistake. This caused complaints from confused readers, but also inspired the first front page cartoon by Matt Pritchett, who now[when?] has a cartoon on the front page of the Telegraph almost every day. The cartoon had the caption: "I hope I have a better Thursday than I did yesterday".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Telegraph#Notable_mistakes
 
crap. they can only charge what their competitors are charging.if they charge more, folks will use another facility.
 
Colorforms said:
Because we all know the Old Grey Lady never made a mistake.
So, no contribution to the thread?
Click to expand...

I could also note that 64% of the Telegraph readership...support the Conservative Party. So it's about as "un-biased" as Fox News or the Washington Times.

I'd also ask.....why are you worrying? "President Mitt" has said he'll repeal "Obamacare" "Day One" after his inauguration in January 2013....so it won't even EXIST by 2020?!!?!?!?

And you trust Mitt....doncha? :)
 
Hospitals 'letting patients die to save money’
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You do realize that George W. Bush as Governor of Texas signed into law, a bill put forth by the Conservative GOP in Texas that allowed any hospital to "pull the plug" (ie terminate life support services) for any patient that was behind in payments or uninsured. And to do so WHITOUT PRIOR NOTIFICATION OF NEXT OF KIN!!

Please - this is a GOP position from a long time back.
 
CF, given the "horrors" that will be inflicted on us in 2020 if "somehow" President Obama is re-elected and his bill stands?


and given we're a democratic republic with elections for President every 4 years?....wouldn't that mean a MASSIVE vote against Democrats and for "free market health care" Republicans in that 2020 election????
 
Colorforms said:
They would charge enough to not have to? And the scandal would ruin them.
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Dream on. This has been the law in Texas since the mid 1990s and no scandal has ruined any TX hospital for doing so. (Signed into law by GWB as govvernor).
 
i wasnt lobbying for anything. merely pointing out that there is nothing extra to stop private hospitals from doing the same thing and that they would have equal incentives to do the same thing if it is in fact for cost savings.
 
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