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Now sick babies go on death pathway: Doctor's haunting testimony reveals how children

Re: Now sick babies go on death pathway: Doctor's haunting testimony reveals how chil

I agree.
But, as you can see in this thread, a number of us abandon rationality at the mere suggestion that a doctor could be allowed to kill someone.

Not giving a baby food or water kills them just as dead as a humane shot but it does so in a horrific fashion. The stupidity of people often amazes me.
 
Re: Now sick babies go on death pathway: Doctor's haunting testimony reveals how chil

Not giving a baby food or water kills them just as dead as a humane shot but it does so in a horrific fashion. The stupidity of people often amazes me.
We're not exactly stupid. We can be quite intelligent and very rational. It's just not our first inclination.

Present company--the members of DP--excluded of course.




; )
 
Re: Now sick babies go on death pathway: Doctor's haunting testimony reveals how chil

We're not exactly stupid. We can be quite intelligent and very rational. It's just not our first inclination.

Present company--the members of DP--excluded of course.




; )

So you have a little baby in front of you that for whatever reason you decide to kill. Your choices are walk away and let it painfully die for days or humanely put it out of its misery. Your choice is walk away. Sorry I just don't get it.
 
Re: Now sick babies go on death pathway: Doctor's haunting testimony reveals how chil

Nobody walks away. The LCP is a protocol ensuring a death is as pain free and untroubled as is possible. Removing a feeding tube or IV doesn't mean that a person will be denied oral fluids and hygiene, or pain relief medications. Not resuscitating someone if they have a heart attack doesn't mean you won't treat a chest infection. They're dying. That's not a failure of care, it's a normal part of life, and prolonging the process by artificial means is perverse.
 
Re: Now sick babies go on death pathway: Doctor's haunting testimony reveals how chil


This is done for all sorts of patients in the US. It's based on the idea that a patient has the right to refuse any treatment including food and hydration. If the family decides that the patient would not wish to go on then these things can be withheld.

From what I can tell from the article, it sounds like in Britain that the family must agree to withholding food and water, as is the case in most of the US.

But more recently that is changing. In Texas it is possible for physicians and hospital administrators to decide unilaterally that further treatment of a patient is futile and withhold care even without the family's permission. We can expect this kind of law to become more widely enacted as the government is put in charge of medical costs.
 
Re: Now sick babies go on death pathway: Doctor's haunting testimony reveals how chil

This is done for all sorts of patients in the US. It's based on the idea that a patient has the right to refuse any treatment including food and hydration. If the family decides that the patient would not wish to go on then these things can be withheld.

From what I can tell from the article, it sounds like in Britain that the family must agree to withholding food and water, as is the case in most of the US.

But more recently that is changing. In Texas it is possible for physicians and hospital administrators to decide unilaterally that further treatment of a patient is futile and withhold care even without the family's permission. We can expect this kind of law to become more widely enacted as the government is put in charge of medical costs.
Got money for war against non agressing countries and crap. But we gotta pull the plugs on people that need us to save a dollar. A dollar that is just magically printed on paper. Dying corporation? SAVE IT!! CPR! PADDLES! STAT! Some doctor saying, "I think this human doesn't have a chance to live." PULL IT.
 
Re: Now sick babies go on death pathway: Doctor's haunting testimony reveals how chil

Is it just me that see this claim of being humane is connected to forcing a dying person to suffer for far longer than necessary is totally ridiculous?

Let's say you're doing for religious reasons. You're trapping the person's soul in that body! Or worse, the soul is already gone and you're keeping a empty mass of flesh around so you can feel better about you.... sounds selfish to me.

Let's say you're doing for moral reasons (I don't see how that possible, but whatever.). If there's no hope for recovery, why continue to keep a person in pain? Would it not be more moral to allow them the diginity of leaving this world without being an invalid for years before dying anyway?
 
Re: Now sick babies go on death pathway: Doctor's haunting testimony reveals how chil

So you have a little baby in front of you that for whatever reason you decide to kill. Your choices are walk away and let it painfully die for days or humanely put it out of its misery. Your choice is walk away. Sorry I just don't get it.
I don't understand how someone could make that choice either.
But that's the net effect of public sentiment is that the only thing doctors are allowed to do is withhold treatment.
If a doctor helps, he faces serious criminal charges.

I am assuming you realize that I don't think that dehydration is the humanest possible way to go. Not exactly sure if you picked up on that.
 
Re: Now sick babies go on death pathway: Doctor's haunting testimony reveals how chil

I don't understand how someone could make that choice either.
But that's the net effect of public sentiment is that the only thing doctors are allowed to do is withhold treatment.
If a doctor helps, he faces serious criminal charges.

I am assuming you realize that I don't think that dehydration is the humanest possible way to go. Not exactly sure if you picked up on that.

We seem to basically agree on a personal level anyway. The American Indians had a method for dealing with these situations. They took the infant by the ankles and swung its head into a rock which immediately bashed its little brains out. Who's the savages here them or us?
 
Re: Now sick babies go on death pathway: Doctor's haunting testimony reveals how chil

We seem to basically agree on a personal level anyway. The American Indians had a method for dealing with these situations. They took the infant by the ankles and swung its head into a rock which immediately bashed its little brains out. Who's the savages here them or us?
Hey isnt that what Spanish Conquistadors did en-masse? And what? Indians arent like Chinaman. *indian attack buy white guys* Railroad workers become magically become indian. Wait what am I blathering about?

Back to topic. Your hospice care should be decided by every person when they register to vote. For kids it should be by the parents unless the kid choses life prematurely (like if a kid took the time to write in a not to the registry office he wants to live for as long as possible to always give recovery is far shots hes choice should trumph his parents if they wanted to pull a cord or whatever.

When you start getting into doctor choice over patient/family choice because he cant communicate and bring determent to body into the equation life should always be the default.

Doctors really dont know if someone will pull through or wake up. Sure they can take a guess but they dont really know. Bring organ donations into the mix, giving the doctors a reason to possible want a patient dead and this becomes a no brainer. If a family or person suggests they want life its not up to the doctor to talk the family down and console them into accepting death.
 
Re: Now sick babies go on death pathway: Doctor's haunting testimony reveals how chil


More manipulation by the right attempting to pretend death panels exist. These are not sick babies. Sick offers up the idea that they just need some medicine and they will be all better. These are terminal babies and people. That means there is no saving them. They are dying in the near future and we cannot save them. Instead you try and pretend they are actually going to live, but NHS is just deciding to kill them because it doesn't want to pay for them. That is a decision only american insurance companies would make.

I will avoid telling you about santa, but you do need to know fatal illness strikes many people and there is nothing we can do in some cases. It is sad and people want to do something, but in many cases it is simply beyond out abilities to fix them. The question you want to ask is do you want our finite abilities to be spent on the dead, or would you rather have them spent on people who can be saved? Do you want them saying that attempting to save a baby that is terminal and will die is more important than saving you because babies are cuter than you are?
 
Re: Now sick babies go on death pathway: Doctor's haunting testimony reveals how chil

We seem to basically agree on a personal level anyway.
It's the silly reaction like the one in the OP and the many people who became upset over the mythological "death panels" which lead to the cruelty you're discussing. These irrationalities are a part of what prevents us from allowing doctors to be as compassionate as possible for human beings facing the end.
 
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