British "death panels", denial of care

The wonders of government run health systems!

"Death panels" and denial of care are inevitable consequences of having state-operated healthcare (whether they are in any health proposal officially or not). The limits of the system are reached when the budget runs out, and then ways of compromising to spread available resources need to be found, which is where planners come in. Who lives and who dies? Their choice.

Image source
___________________________________________________________________

Telegraph - Sentenced to death on the NHS

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across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.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."

The warning comes just a week after a report by the Patients Association estimated that up to one million patients had received poor or cruel care on the NHS.

Now enjoy a public information film: Health Care Rationing and You! (via Skeptical Eye)