The Road to Heaven

Nothing to do with voluntary euthanasia and the lack of checks and balances.

You asked for the name of a medical professional who committed murder, so I gave you one; don’t start shifting goalposts.

DG, you know absolutely nothing about the circumstances surrounding Beverley Allitt, which is the child killer that I presume that you are referring to.

One of her young victims was a close family friend and how you can try to connect her (Allitt) vile crimes to your own perverse views on the LCP is quite frankly frightening and I find that attempt personally repugnant.

My late mother received excellent palliative care in Grantham Hospital; the same location where Allitt be friended the families and then killed those innocent young children. During her treatment at Grantham my mother was visited by her long-time friend, the grandmother of that child and on several occasions I witnessed the personal sacrifice that she had to make to even set foot in that hospital, where her grandchild’s life was tragically ended; you could learn a lot from that courage and friendship.

Point accepted, John. But as to agenda – I think I prefer the word motive or reason as agenda hardly seems appropriate – surely Shipman was a murderer and he in some bizarre way relished his acts. As to Alison?, she was a murderer, surely.

I now understand the point you are trying to make, but I’m afraid I do not really accept the connection with LCP. If criminals are within any system will checks and balances find them out? If someone has the intent to commit premeditated murder they will find a way to do so and most assuredly make sure their intentions are not revealed. If the murder is unpremeditasted and spontaneaous how will checks and balances prevent it?

Charlie,

I simply do not know what ‘their agenda’ could be. It seems conceivable that there was one – how else can we explain ‘their’ actions? If you go back to my opening comment – that explains as well as I can, my attitude to these matters.

The rest is the inevitable ‘thread creep’ and I’m as guilty as the rest. I’m not writing about voluntary euthanasia. I did mention it in an earlier comment and that as a modest libertarian, I was in favour. But, that’s it ! The ‘agenda’ I mentioned in connection was a reference to possible base motives and distortion of intent for at least some of those involved in the process. You know as well as I do, that things start with the best of intentions and somehow deteriorate along the way – human nature.

We’re supposed to be discussing possible abuses of the LCP. As for the person not so long ago – a female – who was found guilty of many acts of child murder, I cannot remember her name – Alison? She was caught eventually. Why did it take so long? I don’t want an answer, it’s rhetorical.

If we stick to the opening statement and ignore the side issues we’ll all be more comfortable. Maybe.

John

I simply do not understand your point, unless we are discussing two separate things. Shipman and whomever else you have referred to without any substantiation, have nothing to do with voluntary euthanasia where an individual of their own volition agrees with a medical practictioner to assist in ending their life.

You used the word “agenda” so presumably you used it with some justification. But now you appear to have invited others to guess as to it’s existence.

Re 28 & 30 &31

Edgar has named one of them. The other was, if my memory is correct, a children’s nurse or carer. As for ‘agenda’. Who can guess? I do not know what goes thru’ the mind of these warped individuals. It’s certainly not kindness or compassion or the need to maintain hope or, any form of concern for the welfare of the patient.

In the case of Shipman, it was certainly to do with euthanasia and the lack of ‘checks and balances’. His ‘mission’ was to treat the elderly and frail, even tho’ they were still mobile and able to get around, to an early death.

Eventually the ‘checks and balances’ started to throw up alarms in the shape of numbers of deaths of elderly people being treated by Shipman. The numbers were far above the average for local and national GP surgeries.

Kev 35

I don’t think that it is possible to make a realistic link between the administration of the LCP, lack of care on the wards and cost cutting. There might be a link – it’s not possible to rule it out. It is not only possible but probable that incompetant management made a significant contribution.

The major portion of blame must lie with those at the point of patient contact, and some blame must attach to the inactions of relatives and visitors. If I visited a friend or relative in hospital and it became obvious to me via soiled sheets, dressings, smell and the like that the standard of care was not all it should be, I would raise hell. Local newspapers and my MP would be treated to a blow by blow account of life in X Ward at XYZ hospital.

The indictment for the LCP and neglect on the ward must be:

Lack of elementary compassion
Wilful neglect
Lack of respect
Lack of basic standards
Lack of adequate supervision

I’m left with a suspicion supported by my reading and viewing, that there was almost a ready acceptance to put patients who perhaps stood some chance of either recovery or living longer, albeit with the help of medicine, on the LCP

“Doctor” Harold Fredrick Shipman, for one.

Nothing to do with voluntary euthanasia and the lack of checks and balances.

Two things John.

Your comment about voluntary euthanasia is interesting. I agree with the concept of voluntary euthanasia. As it is not legal in this Country there are no checks and balances. Your references to Harold Shipman are nothing to do with euthanasia, voluntary or otherwise. Quite simply, the man was a murderer and by all accounts he chose his victims wisely which is why he was able to be as proliferate as he was.

I still think that there are no parallels between the misuse of the LCP and a lack of patient care in the clinical environment. You have suggested, and I dare say seen evidence to support the contention, that the abuse of the LCP is, at its heart, a method for emptying beds and reducing the financial burden on any health care provider by systematically following this course of action. For there to be a parallel with a lack of care on the wards then surely you would have to provide evidence that there is an organised attempt by elements of the management of the NHS to cut costs by deliberately providing poor standards of care. I don’t perceive that to be the case. Maybe I’m just being naive?

As for Nicholson, I couldn’t agree more. Self-exculpatory gobbledegook is precisely what it was.

Regards,

kev35

“Doctor” Harold Fredrick Shipman, for one.

Re 22 & 24

Voluntary euthanasia? Fine. I have no quarrel with that. But, what happens when some of the people who administer it assume an agenda? What happens when some of the people who administer it, alter or avoid the systems ‘checks and balances’? We’ve recently had to deal with two medical professionals (whose names escape me) running amok and murdering adults and children, left right and center – one male adult, a GP, acting as jury, judge and executioner.

.

John

To what purpose would those “with an agenda” have? And forgive my memory but please remind of the medical professionals who “murdered adults and children left right and centre”.

Re 22 & 24

Voluntary euthanasia? Fine. I have no quarrel with that. But, what happens when some of the people who administer it assume an agenda? What happens when some of the people who administer it, alter or avoid the systems ‘checks and balances’? We’ve recently had to deal with two medical professionals (whose names escape me) running amok and murdering adults and children, left right and center – one male adult, a GP, acting as jury, judge and executioner.

Nicholson is a disgrace. He is the boss. The ‘buck’ stops with him. His statement was a masterpiece of self-exculpatory gobbledegook. When did he last visit a ward, in person, on his own, incognito, to check that all was well? That is what any intelligent, organised and thoughtful person would surely do? On his past performance, he is not fit for the job and should resign, forfeiting his pension on the way.

I don’t want anyone on this forum thinking that I have some kind of ‘agenda’. I do not. We all have our personal beliefs and values. I’m not attempting to convert anyone to mine. However, I do insist because the evidence is there, that the LCP is being misused, seriously so, and has a parallel with lack of patient care on the wards – a minority. I’m sure, but still significant enough to suggest ‘two sides of the same coin’.

Andy in Beds

When people offer you ‘moral platitudes’ and ‘glib sh#t’, It is because in their perhaps clumsy and from your point of view, unwelcome way, they are attempting to offer comfort to a fellow human that they see is in some distress. Just thank them and accept that they are just trying to be kind.

Kev

I agree with much of what you say. It generally reflects my own experiences with the NHS over many years.

It does seem to me that the core of the problem lies with the fact that the service designed by Bevderidge after the war did not anticipate the growth of need, and the demands on the service due to increased life expectancy and advances in curative treatments.

The NHS needs drastic reform but because it is so entrenched in the psyche no government has ever really attempted what is needed but rather tinkered around the periphery. As Gerry Robinson found in his interesting series a few years ago there is no lack of caring, committed clinicians – if they were allowed to get on with the job!

John.

We’re at risk of going way off topic here, the topic you started, but you have made some interesting points.

Of course there are problems within the NHS but I believe, as Julie Bailey has alluded to, that the majority of the problems lie in the management culture. Care HAS, at it’s core, to consider and cater for the individual. But NHS management and Government are failing to see that as the case. This is evidenced by the Postcode Lottery surrounding the provision and funding of certain drugs by NICE. The only consideration should be need, not cost.

“It is not possible to overlook the fact that day after day, night after night, there are alarming media reports of interviews with patients and relatives all of whom drawing upon their experiences relate accounts of patient care that fall far below the level of care that one should normally expect.”

You’re right. but the reverse of that is the thousands upon thousands of patients treated every day who receive excellent levels of care from compassionate medical personnel. But as we all know, good news never creates as much interest as bad.

Regarding your Mother in Law, the desire for her to remain in her home rather than be admitted seems eminently sensible. By their very definition, hospitals ARE full of ill people after all.

“The weight of anecdotal and statistical evidence is pretty conclusive. Something in the NHS is not right and it has to be put right. Are the checks and balances in place and are they observed?”

The checks and balances are an interesting issue. Apart from the fact that they seem to be reviewed and altered on the whim of any passing Health Secretary or NHS Chief Executive, there is no consistency. Again this is evidenced by the differing standards in different areas. The NHS does have issues and it would take someone far wiser than I to sort it out. My own experiences initially as a former nurse, as a relative of NHS ‘service users’ and now as a patient myself definitely lead me to believe that as a society we are far better off with it than without it.

This, from Sir David Nicholson shows the abject failure of Mid Staffs and perhaps the NHS as a whole…..

During that period, across the NHS as a whole, patients were not the centre of the way the system operated. For a whole variety of reasons, not because people were bad but because there were a whole set of changes going on and a whole set of things we were being held accountable for from the centre, which created an environment where the leadership of the NHS lost its focus.

If patients were not the centre of the organisation it is not surprising that things went so badly wrong. If the management of the NHS were so focussed on other aspects of managing the organisation that they failed to notice that patient care, their reason for being, had slipped so alarmingly then someone has to be accountable for it. I respectfully suggest that while some Doctors and Nurses must accept some of that accountability, the onus of that accountability must lie with a management that was so consumed with targets and finance that they completely lost sight of why they were there.

Now the Chief Executive of the NHS, Sir David said today that he was “pretty sure” that he was the man to take the NHS forward. I’m afraid that for me “pretty sure” is nowhere near good enough.

Regards,

kev35

Moggy, I’m a life long Atheist, I used the ‘There but for the grace of God phrase, in the context of me being fortunate, in that I am not at the present time, at least as far as I know, terminally ill. From what you’ve said in your last post, you’ve had more than your fair share of experiencing grief.

I really don’t understand those, who believe in a caring and compassionate deity, that sees patients, their families and friends go through the ordeals connected with debilitating, and painful, terminal illnesses. I just don’t get it.

Andy in Beds.

Don’t offer me abuse – it’s not nice. Where there’s life there’s hope. Where there is no life, there is no hope. As long as you breathe, there is hope one way or another that you will escape from your depression. It’s my wish that this comes to pass.

It wasn’t abuse, if I’d have offered that you’d have known it.
What I offered was the the truth–as I see it.
Which is what most people on here are actually doing–on all these threads.
As far as I’m concerned, I’ve been here too long, I’m not ashamed that it’s the way I feel, it’s just the truth.
I’ve no doubt I’ll get the ‘it’s a cowards way out speech’ from some smart-*rse, but if you are considering that, you can stick it up your kazoo, because I’m not interested. I consider myself a reasonably intelligent human being and I’m tired of people offering moral platitudes and glib sh*t on why I feel as I do.

It’s high time that the law in this country, should be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century in respect of voluntary euthanasia.

I couldn’t agree more

There but for the grace of God

I couldn’t agree less

In the space of a couple of years cancer claimed my still much-loved Ex, my Mother and my Mother-in-law.

Walking the latter’s coffin down into the crematorium the Canon of Ruthin, her home, who barely knew her from Adam was walking in front, wittering about ‘God’s wonderful mercy’.

Hah! I’d watched her die. There was no ‘mercy’ present. God, is a sad joke and it’s time we left that mumbo-jumbo behind, and took care of our terminally ill humans as well as we do our pet animals.

Moggy

Re 17

Kev 35

Is what we are reading and viewing about the LCP, various hospitals and the NHS generally just journalistic invention?

I’m aware that you have commented on failings in the NHS. In such a large organisation there are bound to be such. And I write as one who has been the very fortunate beneficiary of NHS medical science and compassionate nursing.

It is not possible to overlook the fact that day after day, night after night, there are alarming media reports of interviews with patients and relatives all of whom drawing upon their experiences relate accounts of patient care that fall far below the level of care that one should normally expect.

Just recently, my wife’s mother, an elderly lady, became ill with suspected pneumonia. Her doctor examined her at her home, prescribed a course of antibiotics and in answer to a question from her daughter, was vehemently opposed to her removel to hospital, commenting that he would not send any of his relatives or patients there if he could avoid it.

The weight of anecdotal and statistical evidence is pretty conclusive. Something in the NHS is not right and it has to be put right. Are the checks and balances in place and are they observed?

Kev 35, I don’t blame you for defending the NHS, it’s impossible for it to be all bad. But, there are some parts that are not working properly in the public interest.

Sorry Kev, I edited/added a couple of lines to my post prior to seeing yours.

There are times when a few simple lines move us far more than reams of anyone’s tosh, be it John’s or mine, and this is one of those occasions.

As for your final paragraph, I couldn’t agree more.

Regards,

kev35

Kind words John, Thank You. Last summer, a couple of months before he could no longer drive, he took me down to the hallowed Myrtle Avenue spotting place at LHR. We both share a great love of aviation, and his fave jetliner is the A380. The sun was out all day, and it was a good day out for us both, and I shall never forget it. It was beginning to get dark, so time to make the 70 mile journey home. He said, ‘lets stay a bit longer’ he just wanted to see one more 380, then the ‘killer’ phrase, ‘cos I don’t think I’ll be coming here again. Suppressing tears at that point was not easy, and that 70 miles seemed to last for ever.

Of course, we must always look for hope, but what happens when there isn’t any? The answer as far as I’m concerned, is to be allowed to let go, and to have the right to do so, without the spectre of prosecution hanging over those involved. The law needs to be changed. IMO, its inhumane not to do so.

Kev, I’m sorry to hear about your father. Dementia has to be one of the cruelest conditions there is, and one, we are told, more of us have the chance of suffering in the future.