Bureaucratic Meddling in Health Care Costs Lives (in Europe)
John on October 11, 2009
From the Telegraph:
Since August doctors have not been allowed to work more than 48 hours a week, under rules laid down in Brussels.
A survey of surgeons today reveals that two-thirds believe patient care has suffered since the changes were introduced, with almost half fearing basic safety has been put at risk.
The head of the Royal College of Surgeons, which organised the poll, said its members had reported safety incidents, including those resulting in patient deaths, which they believed were caused by the new system.
And just as predictably, government intervention in the marketplace (of Doctor’s time) has created a new grey market:
The majority of doctors surveyed said they were not genuinely compliant with the new rules, with a “grey market” emerging as doctors worked unpaid to maintain patient safety, while their true working hours went unrecorded. Seven out of 10 surgeons said they were still working more than 48 hours a week.
Prof Black said: “We have got these risks highlighted even with doctors putting in extra hours. It is hard to imagine how bad it would be if they weren’t doing that”.
How’d this happen?
Both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats accused the Government of rushing through the changes, without listening to repeated warnings from senior doctors that the restrictions would put patients at risk…
Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said the survey showed that despite the Government’s repeated claims that the directive was working, it had “scant idea” about what was really going on.
What a relief that nothing like that is happening here.
Related: Hot Air headlines notes this story of attempted euthanasia:
Ball, 42, from Robertsbridge, East Sussex, said: “My mother was going to be left to starve and dehydrate to death. It really is a subterfuge for legalised euthanasia of the elderly on the NHS. ”
Almost sounds like, I don’t know…death panels. And of course, this is exactly what Democrats have in mind for your parents as well.
verumserum.com
Daughter saves mother, 80, left by doctors to starve
(Andrew Hasson)
Hazel Fenton and her daughter Christine Ball
Sarah-Kate Templeton, Health Editor
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AN 80-year-old grandmother who doctors identified as terminally ill and left to starve to death has recovered after her outraged daughter intervened.
Hazel Fenton, from East Sussex, is alive nine months after medics ruled she had only days to live, withdrew her antibiotics and denied her artificial feeding. The former school matron had been placed on a controversial care plan intended to ease the last days of dying patients.
Death panel?
Doctors say Fenton is an example of patients who have been condemned to death on the Liverpool care pathway plan. They argue that while it is suitable for patients who do have only days to live, it is being used more widely in the NHS, denying treatment to elderly patients who are not dying.
Fenton’s daughter, Christine Ball, who had been looking after her mother before she was admitted to the Conquest hospital in Hastings, East Sussex, on January 11, says she had to fight hospital staff for weeks before her mother was taken off the plan and given artificial feeding.
Related Links
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Families 'kept in dark' by doctors over dying
Ball, 42, from Robertsbridge, East Sussex, said: “My mother was going to be left to starve and dehydrate to death. It really is a subterfuge for legalised euthanasia of the elderly on the NHS. ”
Fenton was admitted to hospital suffering from pneumonia. Although Ball acknowledged that her mother was very ill she was astonished when a junior doctor told her she was going to be placed on the plan to “make her more comfortable” in her last days.
Ball insisted that her mother was not dying but her objections were ignored. A nurse even approached her to say: “What do you want done with your mother’s body?”
On January 19, Fenton’s 80th birthday, Ball says her mother was feeling better and chatting to her family, but it took another four days to persuade doctors to give her artificial feeding.
Fenton is now being looked after in a nursing home five minutes from where her daughter lives.
Peter Hargreaves, a consultant in palliative medicine, is concerned that other patients who could recover are left to die. He said: “As they are spreading out across the country, the training is getting probably more and more diluted.”
A spokesman for East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “Patients’ needs are assessed before they are placed on the [plan]. Daily reviews are undertaken by clinicians whenever possible.”
In a separate case, the family of an 87-year-old woman say the plan is being used as a way of giving minimum care to dying patients.
Susan Budden, whose mother, Iris Griffin, from Norwich, died in a nursing home in July 2008 from a brain tumour, said: “When she was started on the [plan] her medication was withdrawn. As a result she became agitated and distressed.
“It would appear that the [plan] is . . . used purely as a protocol which can be ticked off to justify the management of a patient.”
Deborah Murphy, the national lead nurse for the care pathway, said: “If the education and training is not in place, the [plan] should not be used.” She said 3% of patients placed on the plan recovered.
timesonline.co.uk |
