More than 1,000 working doctors, nurses and carers have written to The Daily Telegraph to defend the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway, saying it is how they themselves would wish to die.
Some 1,300 have signed a letter in support of the procedure, which is meant to help staff give terminally ill patients the most comfortable last few days of life.
The pathway, now used in almost all NHS hospitals, has become mired in controversy recently, with families claiming they were never told their loved-ones had been put on it.
Some have asserted the pathway hastened death and a handful want police to press charges against medics.
Doctors have also raised questions over its use, including those who claim it is being used to cut short elderly patients’ lives in a bid to cut NHS costs. It can involve removal of hydration.
However, now medics have rallied to its defence, saying it has proved to be a major step forward in how patients are dealt with at the very end of their lives.
A comment posted on this article.
If I "withdrew hydration" from my dog I would be condemned as appallingly cruel and prosecuted - and rightly so - but these self-important self-satisfied excuses for medics think it is acceptable to do it to people. God help us - they certainly won't.
1 comment:
Perhaps time for a little trial: place a hundred pf these HCPs on this starvation/dehydration pathway and survey them posthoumously to see if they still think they had a dignified death.
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