Daughter Claims Father Wrongly Placed on Controversial NHS End of Life Scheme
Posted by Dan McGrath in End of Life Issues, Senior Citizens
President Obama and Speaker Pelosi deny the existence of so-called “death panels” in the health care reform package now underway in Congress, but provisions in the bill call for physician-directed end of life planning, similar to what’s been enacted in England. England’s National Health Service calls the program an “End of Life Scheme.” This article from the UK Telegraph demonstrates the potential pitfalls of such a plan.
The daughter of a stroke victim claims that her father is to be wrongly placed on an NHS scheme for the terminally ill which experts say is causing some patients to die too soon.
By Chris Irvine and Kate Devlin
Rosemary Munkenbeck says her father Eric Troake, who entered hospital after suffering a stroke, had fluid and drugs withdrawn and she claims doctors wanted to put him on morphine until he passed away under a scheme for dying patients called the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP).
Mrs Munkenbeck, 56, from Bracknell, said her father, who previously said he wanted to live until he was 100, has now said he wants to die after being deprived of fluids for five days.
Along with her sister Jocelyn Troake, 60, who lived in Bermuda until recently moving to Frimley, Surrey, to care full time for her father and her mother Edna, 93, they are convinced their father is a victim of the system.
Last week The Daily Telegraph reported a warning from experts that some patients with terminal illnesses were being wrongly put on the NHS scheme and allowed to die prematurely if they ticked “the right boxes”.
The pathway scheme was developed to improve the care of patients in their dying hours and ensure that they were not being “overmedicalised”.
The scheme encourages doctors and other health care staff to consider removing medication, fluids and other treatments that no longer benefit the patient.
It also recommends discussing the situation with relatives, and if possible, with the patient themselves.
Mrs Munkenbeck said that her father was taken off an intravenous drip last week but she argues that he has as much of a right to life as anyone else. Although a spokesman for Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey says Mr Troake is not on the scheme “at the moment”, it is likely he will be offered a plan of care for dying patients.
“We believe that he has been forced down this route. By withdrawing fluids he is now very weak and there’s no going back from it,” she told The Daily Telegraph yesterday.
Read the rest of this story at UK’s Telegraph.
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Adolf Hitler’s Dr. Death, Dr. Mengele, must be rolling over in his grave, rejoicing over the events taking place here in the United States now, with Mengele’s henchmen, in particular, one bin Hussein Barak Obama, advocating end-of-life conferences with Senior Citizens. Doctors will be paid by MEDICARE, I understand, for each “briefing” they give. I’ll tell you this much: I’m in the Senior Citizen bracket, and if I am ever approached by my doctor for tihs kind of briefing, I will flatly refuse to sign any government document that attests to my being briefed, and I will qit seeing that doctor! Life in this country formerly was very sacred; now, it has become a cash-cow to have your life ended prematurely, and bellieve me….it WILL end prematurely, if the government has its say. You can take that to the bank and deposit it, as the saying formerly went. Citizens: BEWARE THE ANGEL OF DEATH!