UK NHS Doctor admits that NHS murders 130,000 patients annually

[JimBowie1958]

UK NHS Doctor admits that NHS kills 130,000 patients prematurely and deliberately each year - Liverpool Care Pathway
Top doctor's chilling claim: The NHS kills off 130,000 elderly patients every year | Mail Online

NHS doctors are prematurely ending the lives of thousands of elderly hospital patients because they are difficult to manage or to free up beds, a senior consultant claimed yesterday.

Professor Patrick Pullicino said doctors had turned the use of a controversial 'death pathway' into the equivalent of euthanasia of the elderly.

He claimed there was often a lack of clear evidence for initiating the Liverpool Care Pathway, a method of looking after terminally ill patients that is used in hospitals across the country.

It is designed to come into force when doctors believe it is impossible for a patient to recover and death is imminent.

It can include withdrawal of treatment - including the provision of water and nourishment by tube - and on average brings a patient to death in 33 hours.
There are around 450,000 deaths in Britain each year of people who are in hospital or under NHS care. Around 29 per cent - 130,000 - are of patients who were on the LCP.

Professor Pullicino claimed that far too often elderly patients who could live longer are placed on the LCP and it had now become an 'assisted death pathway rather than a care pathway'.

He cited 'pressure on beds and difficulty with nursing confused or difficult-to-manage elderly patients' as factors.

Professor Pullicino revealed he had personally intervened to take a patient off the LCP who went on to be successfully treated.
He said this showed that claims they had hours or days left are 'palpably false'.
In the example he revealed a 71-year-old who was admitted to hospital suffering from pneumonia and epilepsy was put on the LCP by a covering doctor on a weekend shift.

NICE and QUALY dehumanize elderly
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2008/feb/08020701

 

[GodSaveAmerica]

Thought its not discussed, I am sure the same thing happens here in the United States. Under those circumstances where there is no hope of restoring a patient's health, the resources are better used elsewhere. Care should be taken so that treatment is denied only when the patient is beyond hope.