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Earl Aagaard’s opinions about everything that interests him. Og also enjoys gardening, travel, reading, woodbutchery, and lots of other stuff.

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AN EMINENTLY SANE RULING THAT IS GOING TO BE MISUSED

In England, LESLIE BURKE is suffering from a degenerative brain condition. Naturally, he’s concerned that at some point, he’ll lose the ability to communicate, even though he’s still “there”, inside…...and given the times in which we all live, he doesn’t want someone figuring it would be better all around just to starve and dehydrate him. In other words, he doesn’t want to become another TERRI SCHIAVO

So, he engaged a solicitor, and “won a ruling last year in the High Court to stop doctors withdrawing food and drink.” However, what sounds like the British doctors’ union appealed, and

...today a panel of three judges headed by Master of the Rolls Lord Phillips set aside the decision of Mr Justice Munby, which was hailed as a landmark for terminally-ill patients at the time.

The GMC argued that the original ruling put doctors in “an impossibly difficult position” as it would oblige a doctor to provide treatment that the patient demands, even if the professional is that it would be futile. The GMC believes that a patient does not have the right to demand any particular form of treatment.

It is most unfortunate that the judges went along with the medical people, and appear to have endorsed the idea of FUTILE CARE THEORY, giving the doctors and hospitals, usually through an ethics (sic) committee, the power of life and death over patients, even those who have explicitly expressed their wish not to be killed. The court appears to be operating as if it thought this were the 1950s, and not the 21st century:

Lord Phillips, giving the ruling of the court, said: “Where a patient indicates his or her wish to be kept alive by the provision of artificial nutrition and hydration (ANH), any doctor who deliberately brings that patient’s life to an end by discontinuing the supply of ANH will not merely be in breach of duty but guilty of murder.”

Where the Court of Appeal disagreed with Mr Justice Munby was over a situation where a patient’s request for ANH was against a doctor’s judgment that it would cause distress to the patient.

“Ultimately, however, a patient cannot demand that a doctor administer a treatment which the doctor considers is adverse to the patient’s clinical needs.

“This said, we consider that the scenario that we have just described is extremely unlikely to arise in practice.”

This is a loophole the size of a MACK TRUCK!! If Mr. Burke cannot communicate, and the doctor in charge believes that food and water are “adverse to (his) clinical needs”, Mr. Burke is going to be starved and dehydrated. Exactly when any particular “treatment” becomes “futile” will be decided by the “experts”, and the one who defines the terms ALWAYS wins the argument!

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/29 at 12:02 PM

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