2 replies to this topic

[Droplet]

This article absolutely disgusted me so I'm posting it here to show everyone how disgusting and cruel old age is. Also of how it is not treated like the outrage that it is and death is seen almost like a conveyor belt to oblivion:

Elderly patients are being 'deprived of food and drink so they die quicker and free up bed space', claim doctors

• Six doctors say the 'care pathway' practice could be being used in UK hospitals to ease pressure on resources
• They say in the elderly natural death was more often free of pain and distress

By Emily Allen
Hospitals may be withholding food and drink from elderly patients so they die quicker to cut costs and save on bad spaces, leading doctors have warned.
Thousands of terminally ill people are placed on a 'care pathway' every year to hasten the ends of their lives.
But in a letter to the Daily Telegraph, six doctors who specialise in elderly care said hospitals across the UK could be using the controversial practice to ease the pressure on resources.


Warning: Hospitals may be withholding food and drink from elderly patients so they die quicker to cut costs and save on bad spaces (file picture)
The Liverpool Care Pathway, which got its name as it was developed at the Royal Liverpool Hospital in the 1990s, withholds fluids and drugs in a patient's final days and is used with 29 per cent of hospital patients at the end of their lives.

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The practise is backed by the Department of Health.
But the six experts told the Daily Telegraph that in the elderly, natural death was more often free of pain and distress.
The group warned that not all doctors were acquiring the correct consent from patients and are failing to ask about what they wanted while they were still able to decide.

Claims: Experts say in the elderly natural death is more often pain free (file picture)
The doctors say that this has led to an increase in patients carrying a card stating that they do not want this 'pathway' treatment in the last days of their lives.
One of the letter's signatories, Dr Gillian Craig, a retired geriatrician and former vice-chairman of the Medical Ethics Alliance, told the newspaper: '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.'
A Department of Health spokesman 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 (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) 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.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail...l#ixzz20F9nu9xp

Edited by Droplet, 10 July 2012 - 05:58 PM.

[niner]

This 'Care Pathway' sounds kind of like the thing they call 'Hospice' in the US. For patients who are obviously going to die soon, the idea of hospice is to stop the interventions that are ultimately useless, and just cause pain and distress for the patient, instead focusing on making the patient comfortable. Having just had a relative in a Hospice program, I can tell you that it is a godsend for the patient and family alike. The part about depriving them of food and water so they die faster sounds hard to believe. That certainly isn't a part of Hospice, although if a person chose to have no interventions whatsoever, and couldn't eat or drink normally, I suppose it might amount to this. That wouldn't happen without the consent of the patient, if the patient were capable of consent. Otherwise you would need the consent of a legal guardian to do that.

[Droplet]

This 'Care Pathway' sounds kind of like the thing they call 'Hospice' in the US. For patients who are obviously going to die soon, the idea of hospice is to stop the interventions that are ultimately useless, and just cause pain and distress for the patient, instead focusing on making the patient comfortable. Having just had a relative in a Hospice program, I can tell you that it is a godsend for the patient and family alike. The part about depriving them of food and water so they die faster sounds hard to believe. That certainly isn't a part of Hospice, although if a person chose to have no interventions whatsoever, and couldn't eat or drink normally, I suppose it might amount to this. That wouldn't happen without the consent of the patient, if the patient were capable of consent. Otherwise you would need the consent of a legal guardian to do that.

The Care Pathway may or may not involve a hospice. Here, a hospice is an actual place where the dying go. They provide care for the person and respite for the family. They are not as clinical as hospital environments and are sort of like a "home from home" for the terminally ill. They still have nurses and your medical equipment but they are places that the relatives can also go to for support.

As far as I understand The Care Pathway, it is basically a palliative care program rolled out nationwide to enable people to die a "good death." Or at least in theory it should do that. Our hospitals have been in the news a lot lately due to bad things including a poor guy only in his twenties who died of dehydration and even tried to dial 999 for water. The NHS is a lot better than what for example exists in US but there are sadly a few major things that really need remedying. At least in UK we can afford to be ill and I'm so thankful for that.

Sorry to hear about your relative.

Edited by Droplet, 10 July 2012 - 08:20 PM.