Moral of the story? If you suffer a grave injury, make sure you tell the ambulance driver to head straight for the Chunnel!
Sounds like the hospital systems implementing the LCP has it's eye on the bottom line. From I take from this he had a stroke, was able to communicate, and wanted to live. From what I see here, there's no dignity involved, just beancounters trying to keep their jobs. Can't wait for it here.
Impossible. Everyone knows government run health care is not only cheaper and of higher quality, but also offers patients and families greater choice.
There are any number of bean counters working for hospitals and private insurance companies who are just as likely, if not more so, to implement and/or poorly execute plans just like this. I don't see much difference if it's an uncaring government bureaucrat or if it's an uncaring private-sector bureaucrat if the end result is the same.
The difference is that in this case the government is the doctors employer and can and does use pressure to get the doctors to do things that are anthem to their Hippocratic oaths and that compromises the relationship between doctor and patient with the doctor as the patients care giver. Insurance companies can try that, but they cant have that sort of effect. The thing is that medical staff in the US today would like to counsel patients families on end of life issues and discuss with them when life saving measures become futile. But the difference is that right now they are genuine in their desires and only start those conversations when keep the patient alive is causing more harm and is being done for the sake of the family, not the patient. But you get the government in there telling doctors (directly or indirectly) that their livelihood is endangered because not enough of their patients are checking out soon enough and you have a problem.
When has that ever happened? Look FFS this sensational bullshit article is the result of much digging because of a particular unfounded fear on one side of the 'healthcare' debate in America. Im sure if the same people dug hard enough looking for 'examples' of certain practise in the US health system they would be just as successful.
For the last ten years the the Health System has been moving gradually towards the Health System that is in place in America at the moment, where one has a 'choice'; the ability to listen to the opinions of medical experts, or listen to another medical expert who will take their money. This is oppossed to decades ago, when one went to the hospital, when you were sick, were made better (which I thought was meant to be the primary aim of any Health System, regardless of what your opinoions on the politics/business end of it is) and everyone went home happy. Now, since at least 1997, the Health System has been changing to one of choice and this LCP mentioned in the article is a result of this swing from the NHS to the Paid Health Service, wherein the health and well-being of the patient is not the primary/sole concern of the health service. This is not the norm for the NHS as was, but the norm for the type of business controlling health service as is in place in USA. As mentioned in a previous post, go digging in the American health system and will you find similar cases? Answer: Yes. Are all people who are critical of the NHS going to jump on the bandwagon and take this as the norm and cry "Holy Thunder, not in my name! I want to give my money away!"? Answer: Self-evident.
^Nothing wrong with choice in the NHS. I want to pick my consultants, and location, as the quality varies horribly. Luckily I know a lot of people who are in the NHS, so when a family member recently had to to have surgery and care for their cancer we were able to select the best consultant for the job rather than being handed one. The problem in the NHS is one of targets, bean counting and trying to apply an antiquated set-up to 21st century issues.
I wouldnt say that was any better if you went private. My cousin had a severe health problem for over 18 years, 6 of those he was private (very expensively). The private doctors and consultants were just as bad as the NHS in his case. He only got himself sorted when he went back on the NHS and happened to be given a decent consultant
Hence why choice is good in both private and the NHS. With my consultant and/or surgeon, I want to see survival rate, I want to see how many hours he's worked and how he old he is - due to Working Time Regulations we're now getting 'experts' with under a quarter of the experience they would previously have had. Right now, in the NHS, they can't the basics right - the frequently go off surnames rather than the NHS number. Now whilst the NHS number generator has thrown up duplicates, causing mayhem in some cases, it's still a lot less likely to find two of those duplicated than, say, the surname 'Smith'
Oh, and on the subject of health I think it's about time our fucking taxes stopped funding the cunting wankstainery of shitehawks that is the Alcohol Health Alliance. And for the BMA to be told to shut up about lifestyles, or go fucking die in a fire.
They're a fake charity - some 90% government funded - who get wheeled out to spouts some stats as a 'well-informed' and 'neutral' source whenever the government is thinking of banning, taxing or more heavily regulating something to do with alcohol. The BBC of course never do any due diligence when reporting it, although since they've cut their journalism to bare bones to fund third-rate comedians on BBC3 and sent over a veritable village of folk to cover the Olympics, guess something had to give. Irks me a little.
It will mean you can be sure you'll keep your health care if you get sick and actually need it, which is a definite improvement on the current situation. And, if properly implemented (far from certain), reform will, in the long run reduce government spending on health care and your taxes. Remember: the U.S. government already spends more per capita on health care than all but two industrialized democracies governments in the entire world. There's no where for even slightly reasonable (again, far from certain on the "reasonable") reform to take U.S. government health care spending in the long run but down.
Am I the only one who sees no problem in the original article. The problem here is that the daughters think he is being denied the right to life, but the article clearly states that in these situations doctors will only remove those things they feel are no longer helping the patient. Therefore this case is clearly one where the emotional layman, the daughter, just doesn't want to listen to the doctor's advice that he's terminally ill, pretty much fucked, and the medications are no longer helping him. I think it's a natural reaction, when you don't understand medicine, to assume the doctor's are letting your relative die, but if someone's had a heart attack you don't put their leg in a cast to help them pull through simply because it's a medical treatment. If it's not going to treat the condition, what's the point?
True, Americans pay more in tax for their 'private' health coverage than brits do for their so-called 'social' system. Medicare and medicaid and all those types of programmes actualy cost more (in tax per capita)than a decent free healthcare system.
Article might well be the truth. Situtation might well be fucked up. Article might be distorted or outright lies. Says nothing about the NHS as a system either way.
