Elderly patients 'helped to die to free up beds', warns doctor

[Do_Good_Then_Go]

I live in a country with universal health insurance. It is a system of providing and paying for health care, that’s all. I have to admit I’m a bit baffled by those who dismiss such systems out of hand as being somehow wrong or immoral or likely to lead to euthanasia. No system has unlimited resources.

I’ve been an RN for 25 years and I have NEVER seen a patient ignored or ‘left to die’ to free up a bed. Care pathways and the like for dying patients usually mean ‘comfort care’ which is exactly what it sounds like. Keeping a dying person comfortable. It means managing pain and other symptoms and it may mean stopping some treatments or medications because they are ineffective or causing great discomfort or obviously futile. It is a humbling and profound experience to care for a dying person and I’ve found that holds true whether or not the person caring for the patient is particularly religious or not.

 

[vera_dicere]

Most places down here use the LCP and I actually really like its holistic approach to end of life care.

However, I don’t think LCP’s at fault, its the doctors abusing it. Any palliative care pathway can be abused, heck, any time an elderly person or terminally ill person is in hospital or care facility, they are risk of deviant money grubbing medical and nursing stuff trying to hasten the death.

I’ve seen it. I’ve seen families push for death. In one instant, a patient in a resthome who had had a stroke and was blind with very mild dementia had a “turn”. The family refused to allow the doctors and nursing stuff to treat the patient. They’d had “turns” before and always came back around - and were happy to “be back”.

They wanted that woman dead so they could get at her money - that’s what one of the other staff said - who knew the family quite well!

 

[Contarini]

You don’t have choices if you are laid off, or unemployed, as in the situation Contarini faces. He is certainly not alone.
There’s COBRA, but that’s extremely expensive - I think mine was $800/month. I got catastrophic insurance for $200/month while I was job searching.

Mine will be $1200+ a month for my family.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

If, as a rule, people were to pay for the services themselves (i.e., first party payer), they would be very concerned with the price of those services. That would drive the overall price of those services way, way down. There are too many independent service providers out there for them to form cartel-like prices like there are with other markets.

Yes, there are some for whom that model would be challenging, but not as many as one would think. And some sort of assistance from intermediate bodies could provide assistance, as required, for those folks.

But when 85% of the consumers in this country receive services without directly paying for those services, the market, itself, will be utterly distorted…leading to the situation where we find ourselves today. Increasing central control will just make it worse.

One thing we can agree on is that the present system is a mess.

I am basically friendly to some form of universal health care, but I certainly agree that it has its disadvantages, and I don’t dismiss your suggestion either.

Edwin

 

[Holly3278]

This is evil. People should always have the right to food and water.