In Britain it’s called the Liverpool Care Pathway. Abroad, who knows? So far as I am concerned, it’s state-sponsored execution of the elderly, in many cases without the consent or knowledge of the family.
Under the sickening UK scheme I highlighted last week, if a doctor or group of doctors feel a patient is ‘terminal’ for whatever reason, food and water can be withheld and/or morphine administered to give them a ‘comfortable end’.
Since doctors have little to no training in metabolic/nutritional medicine, how do they know the patient can’t be saved? How many of these ‘pathway patients’ would bounce back if administered proper, life-saving hydration and nutrition, plus a little one-on-one TLC?
Instead, there are reports of patients stuck into isolated rooms, windows left open, bedcovers removed, no food or water for days. During my career, I’ve seen the dead get up and walk. I’ve seen folk not expected to survive another few weeks alive and well today thanks to metabolic medicine, proper nursing, doctors who give a damn, and family who stood by their loved ones. I have featured many of these stories in my books and films over the years.
Can I ask you all this week just to pause and consider for a moment the beloved elderly in your midst. The father or mother who gave you life. The grandparents who loved and nurtured you in your early days. Do we let them go hang as their lives draw to a close or do we draw up family plans right now to give them the best care possible? Right on cue, the following article appeared in the UK press this week:
DOCTORS ORDERED TO TREAT ELDERLY WITH RESPECT... BUT SHOULDN'T THAT GO WITHOUT SAYING? Doctors are having to be ordered to ensure the elderly do not go hungry or thirsty on NHS wards. The General Medical Council has drawn up new guidelines reminding them that their care does not begin and end with providing clinical treatment.
Your pathway testimonies received this week
Connie Hardy, Australia, writes:
“From December 2004, my father was hospitalised off and on from his nursing home in Townsville, Queensland, Australia for the 2 years prior to his death in March 2007. Both at the nursing home and hospital he was denied basic care - water, sufficient food, hearing aids, teeth put in daily, walking frame (and much more) - then ignored because he wouldn't answer (rather hard when you haven't heard the question). My sister and I both dug in our heels and questioned every aspect of his care, or lack thereof, and were then labelled ‘troublemakers’.
This lack of care continued until his subsequent death, at which time we requested a post mortem, and even that was ignored. The hospital and nursing home had very little compassion, and absolutely no idea of nutritional needs. We did come across some very caring staff but they were far outnumbered by the callous ones. He was medicated with anti-psychotic drugs (i.e. Respiridol), when he had a history of endocarditis which was a contraindication, which led him to fall, subsequently causing damage to his temperal lobe & cerebellum.
Up until that time he was a fit, healthy man growing his own fruit and veg. The continued use of useless drugs saw him spiral downwards very quickly.
Both before and after his death, I did everything in my power to try to expose the disgraceful killing of our elderly. I wrote to ministers, prime ministers, attorney generals, Department of Civil Liberties, senators and requested an investigation into his care by the Queensland Health Department. This was done after much driving from myself all the way and, of course, the outcome was ‘unsubstantiated’ even though I could prove each of the points on the Terms of Reference. I was never after litigation, I do not have the funds to proceed on that course anyway and after what we all went through, it was not even a viable option since our lives were decimated by the ongoing stress of feeling such impotence.
You can see photos & read a summary of our story on this website.
http://whistleblowerssupportgroup.blogspot.com/2010/11/open-letter-to-sing-my-father-may-have.html
Please feel free to email or contact me (Connie Hardie) anytime.
Diana F from Queensland, Australia writes:
“I totally agree with the recent discussion that hospitals are killing the elderly. My grandmother died in December 2009 in The Townsville Hospital, Australia, following a painful ordeal. What was supposed to be a simple colonoscopy turned into a series of events that led to the end of her life at 84.
We still don't clearly understand what happened but she supposedly got a bacterial infection after the op (I'm presuming from a tear from the colonoscopy), and went on to have trouble breathing.
She was then given a ‘temporary’ tracheotomy which meant she couldn't talk to us and tell us what was going on. The fear in her eyes was heartbreaking and she tried so hard to communicate with us.
A few days later they informed us she would be going into palliative care and three days after that she died. We still don't know exactly what happened and were very disappointed with the lack of communication we received. Since then I have had two other friends tell a similar story of losing a grandparent, when they thought they were on the mend, with little warning or explanation.”
Thomas B from London writes:
“Ten years ago my 81-year-old father was admitted to Arrowe Park Hospital in the Wirral with symptoms of what could have been a heart attack. After a week in the hospital, the doctors could not tell us what the problem was and so he was moved into a room of his own. I had returned to London but my mother visited him every day in his own ‘private’ room. It was late December and a very cold winter. The window of his room was left open and his only covering was a thin sheet. My mother asked the nurses every day if the window could be closed and that my father be given some blankets to keep him warm. The nurses always said they would see to it but never did. After a week of this he died of pneumonia. I believe that he was deliberately killed off because the doctors could not correctly diagnose his problem and he was taking up bed space. The method of execution was a cold room and not pharmaceutical drugs.”
Fran S from Liverpool, UK writes:
“My friend was diagnosed with mesothelioma. She was given 3 months to live BUT she was told that if she had chemo (which doesn't work for mesothelioma) and radiation in which she would lose her hair and nails, they could give her 6 months. How kind of them. I was with her throughout so was witness to this conversation.
Well, after much thought and talk we went back to the hospital two weeks later but she told them she didn't want their 'treatments'. We had never heard of this disease before and we searched and searched all over Liverpool to get some information but there was nothing. The cancer agencies had no information on it and even the top professor at Roy Castle Institute could offer no information; he didn't have enough data.
Then we found the wonderful John Flannagan from Merseyside Asbestos Support Group. He advised over industrial injuries and other aspects of this horrific disease which no one ever did. When my friend refused the treatment offered, three doctors walked out the room and left one to talk to us - my friend was angry and upset and couldn't talk. I asked her 'If it was your mum or grandmother would you let her have the treatments offered?’ She looked down and didn't answer me which said it all.
My friend lasted for two years without treatment.
12 weeks before she died, she started to struggle with her breathing - I phoned her doctor (unavailable), the district nurse, Marie Curie (she was going to them once a week), McMillan nurses they weren’t concerned - I phoned the hospital and told them she needed oxygen (this was on Saturday night) and they asked if she could wait until Monday, then maybe 12 hours, then maybe 8 hours -I told them she had stage four mesothelioma and a locum came out with oxygen and an ambulance and they took her to hospital, I thought she wouldn't survive the night but she did.
She came home with all the breathing paraphernalia and was OK for a while. All the time she went to Marie Curie, about 12 months all they kept asking her was, 'where would you like to be when you die' - every time she came home she was upset with this question.
Six weeks before she died I begged all the agencies to help her because it was awful, she could find no relief from the pain, she couldn't get comfortable - she went to her usual Marie Curie centre for the day (Wednesday) and they phoned me to tell me they couldn't let her home in her condition - I told them I had been begging them to help for the last 6 weeks. I asked all the agencies to watch for the obvious leg problems developing; they said there was nothing to worry about, then the lesions broke and one nurse put the lint and plaster on the ulcer itself. She was in agony.
When she was in the Marie Curie centre she was made comfortable - then, then, then, alarm bells should have rung, she was put in her own room - (she had acquired a sheltered accommodation to go to from her bungalow). I was called in to speak to someone who asked me a few questions about my friend (I was next of kin) not once was I told that she was going to be euthanised, starved of food and water and left to die. I told them of her new home etc., and I can recall the person saying to me that they would see to that. I sat at my friend’s bedside while she drifted, I thought it was pain relief - that was the Wednesday.
On the Saturday my other friend came in and told me to go home to have something to eat, shower etc., I told her I wouldn’t be long but appreciated the break. I never got offered a drink in the Marie Curie centre even though I was there over the 4 days it took for her to die. We searched high and low for a priest to come and administer to my friend, the centre wasn’t bothered about her spiritual care at all. Even one layperson refused to attend her. My friend’s mouth was black and they would not give me the lemon/glycerine sticks to swab her with, they hardly ever came in to her in fact - I used to get the hand towel out of the bathroom and soak it and she would suck it desperately, I would turn each square for her and then get more and do the same again. I think she died of dehydration not the cancer.
I still have her medical records and diaries of her desperation and neglect by the medical people, the people who should have cared, who neglected her. Going back to the Saturday, I went home but got a call at 7.25 pm from Marie Curie to say that my friend’s condition had declined. I said I was on my way but the nurse said not to rush. If my other friend had not been there, no one would have noticed that her condition had deteriorated. She was the one who told them to phone me. I got there 5 minutes before she died, a promise I had made to her. My friend had stipulated that she wanted to die at home but they never gave her the chance.”
Jeanette B from NSW, Australia, writes:
"This is a topic close to my heart. I have gone through this with my Dad, grandfather and close friend. Dad was admitted to hospital to be ‘fattened up’ as the radiotherapy had killed off his ability to eat. It took them 3 weeks to give him an agonising death. They knocked him out with morphine, did not hydrate him, and when questioned, my brothers and I were treated like aliens.
Dad had, in his confused state, not put us down as next of kin, so we were treated as unimportant, undeserving of any explanation for the barbaric treatment Dad received that resulted in his end.
Then my friend went to hospital for a rest and some treatment. I received a phone call from the hospital telling me ‘it did not look good’. It took them about two weeks to kill her, again using morphine and denying food and water. When I queried this, the response was that she was dying, meaning why bother giving her water, which would only prolong the dying process.
Then my grandfather, nine weeks after my father. We fought to ensure he did not suffer the same horrific experience. Up against a system with the threat of loss, we were treated as if we were mad if we questioned any of their treatments. He died in a week.
Before she passed, my friend whispered to me that this was an oppressive place and to get her out of there. After that, she could not talk or protest further after being drugged on morphine. I told her son what she said but the ‘professionals’ had convinced him there was no hope; that they were helping to make her death comfortable.
Thank God for The Campaign for Truth in Medicine which tells it like it is: Legal execution of the elderly and vulnerable.”
Last week’s links
Under the sickening UK scheme I highlighted last week, if a doctor or group of doctors feel a patient is ‘terminal’ for whatever reason, food and water can be withheld and/or morphine administered to give them a ‘comfortable end’.
Since doctors have little to no training in metabolic/nutritional medicine, how do they know the patient can’t be saved? How many of these ‘pathway patients’ would bounce back if administered proper, life-saving hydration and nutrition, plus a little one-on-one TLC?
Instead, there are reports of patients stuck into isolated rooms, windows left open, bedcovers removed, no food or water for days. During my career, I’ve seen the dead get up and walk. I’ve seen folk not expected to survive another few weeks alive and well today thanks to metabolic medicine, proper nursing, doctors who give a damn, and family who stood by their loved ones. I have featured many of these stories in my books and films over the years.
Can I ask you all this week just to pause and consider for a moment the beloved elderly in your midst. The father or mother who gave you life. The grandparents who loved and nurtured you in your early days. Do we let them go hang as their lives draw to a close or do we draw up family plans right now to give them the best care possible? Right on cue, the following article appeared in the UK press this week:
DOCTORS ORDERED TO TREAT ELDERLY WITH RESPECT... BUT SHOULDN'T THAT GO WITHOUT SAYING? Doctors are having to be ordered to ensure the elderly do not go hungry or thirsty on NHS wards. The General Medical Council has drawn up new guidelines reminding them that their care does not begin and end with providing clinical treatment.
Your pathway testimonies received this week
Connie Hardy, Australia, writes:
“From December 2004, my father was hospitalised off and on from his nursing home in Townsville, Queensland, Australia for the 2 years prior to his death in March 2007. Both at the nursing home and hospital he was denied basic care - water, sufficient food, hearing aids, teeth put in daily, walking frame (and much more) - then ignored because he wouldn't answer (rather hard when you haven't heard the question). My sister and I both dug in our heels and questioned every aspect of his care, or lack thereof, and were then labelled ‘troublemakers’.
This lack of care continued until his subsequent death, at which time we requested a post mortem, and even that was ignored. The hospital and nursing home had very little compassion, and absolutely no idea of nutritional needs. We did come across some very caring staff but they were far outnumbered by the callous ones. He was medicated with anti-psychotic drugs (i.e. Respiridol), when he had a history of endocarditis which was a contraindication, which led him to fall, subsequently causing damage to his temperal lobe & cerebellum.
Up until that time he was a fit, healthy man growing his own fruit and veg. The continued use of useless drugs saw him spiral downwards very quickly.
Both before and after his death, I did everything in my power to try to expose the disgraceful killing of our elderly. I wrote to ministers, prime ministers, attorney generals, Department of Civil Liberties, senators and requested an investigation into his care by the Queensland Health Department. This was done after much driving from myself all the way and, of course, the outcome was ‘unsubstantiated’ even though I could prove each of the points on the Terms of Reference. I was never after litigation, I do not have the funds to proceed on that course anyway and after what we all went through, it was not even a viable option since our lives were decimated by the ongoing stress of feeling such impotence.
You can see photos & read a summary of our story on this website.
http://whistleblowerssupportgroup.blogspot.com/2010/11/open-letter-to-sing-my-father-may-have.html
Please feel free to email or contact me (Connie Hardie) anytime.
Diana F from Queensland, Australia writes:
“I totally agree with the recent discussion that hospitals are killing the elderly. My grandmother died in December 2009 in The Townsville Hospital, Australia, following a painful ordeal. What was supposed to be a simple colonoscopy turned into a series of events that led to the end of her life at 84.
We still don't clearly understand what happened but she supposedly got a bacterial infection after the op (I'm presuming from a tear from the colonoscopy), and went on to have trouble breathing.
She was then given a ‘temporary’ tracheotomy which meant she couldn't talk to us and tell us what was going on. The fear in her eyes was heartbreaking and she tried so hard to communicate with us.
A few days later they informed us she would be going into palliative care and three days after that she died. We still don't know exactly what happened and were very disappointed with the lack of communication we received. Since then I have had two other friends tell a similar story of losing a grandparent, when they thought they were on the mend, with little warning or explanation.”
Thomas B from London writes:
“Ten years ago my 81-year-old father was admitted to Arrowe Park Hospital in the Wirral with symptoms of what could have been a heart attack. After a week in the hospital, the doctors could not tell us what the problem was and so he was moved into a room of his own. I had returned to London but my mother visited him every day in his own ‘private’ room. It was late December and a very cold winter. The window of his room was left open and his only covering was a thin sheet. My mother asked the nurses every day if the window could be closed and that my father be given some blankets to keep him warm. The nurses always said they would see to it but never did. After a week of this he died of pneumonia. I believe that he was deliberately killed off because the doctors could not correctly diagnose his problem and he was taking up bed space. The method of execution was a cold room and not pharmaceutical drugs.”
Fran S from Liverpool, UK writes:
“My friend was diagnosed with mesothelioma. She was given 3 months to live BUT she was told that if she had chemo (which doesn't work for mesothelioma) and radiation in which she would lose her hair and nails, they could give her 6 months. How kind of them. I was with her throughout so was witness to this conversation.
Well, after much thought and talk we went back to the hospital two weeks later but she told them she didn't want their 'treatments'. We had never heard of this disease before and we searched and searched all over Liverpool to get some information but there was nothing. The cancer agencies had no information on it and even the top professor at Roy Castle Institute could offer no information; he didn't have enough data.
Then we found the wonderful John Flannagan from Merseyside Asbestos Support Group. He advised over industrial injuries and other aspects of this horrific disease which no one ever did. When my friend refused the treatment offered, three doctors walked out the room and left one to talk to us - my friend was angry and upset and couldn't talk. I asked her 'If it was your mum or grandmother would you let her have the treatments offered?’ She looked down and didn't answer me which said it all.
My friend lasted for two years without treatment.
12 weeks before she died, she started to struggle with her breathing - I phoned her doctor (unavailable), the district nurse, Marie Curie (she was going to them once a week), McMillan nurses they weren’t concerned - I phoned the hospital and told them she needed oxygen (this was on Saturday night) and they asked if she could wait until Monday, then maybe 12 hours, then maybe 8 hours -I told them she had stage four mesothelioma and a locum came out with oxygen and an ambulance and they took her to hospital, I thought she wouldn't survive the night but she did.
She came home with all the breathing paraphernalia and was OK for a while. All the time she went to Marie Curie, about 12 months all they kept asking her was, 'where would you like to be when you die' - every time she came home she was upset with this question.
Six weeks before she died I begged all the agencies to help her because it was awful, she could find no relief from the pain, she couldn't get comfortable - she went to her usual Marie Curie centre for the day (Wednesday) and they phoned me to tell me they couldn't let her home in her condition - I told them I had been begging them to help for the last 6 weeks. I asked all the agencies to watch for the obvious leg problems developing; they said there was nothing to worry about, then the lesions broke and one nurse put the lint and plaster on the ulcer itself. She was in agony.
When she was in the Marie Curie centre she was made comfortable - then, then, then, alarm bells should have rung, she was put in her own room - (she had acquired a sheltered accommodation to go to from her bungalow). I was called in to speak to someone who asked me a few questions about my friend (I was next of kin) not once was I told that she was going to be euthanised, starved of food and water and left to die. I told them of her new home etc., and I can recall the person saying to me that they would see to that. I sat at my friend’s bedside while she drifted, I thought it was pain relief - that was the Wednesday.
On the Saturday my other friend came in and told me to go home to have something to eat, shower etc., I told her I wouldn’t be long but appreciated the break. I never got offered a drink in the Marie Curie centre even though I was there over the 4 days it took for her to die. We searched high and low for a priest to come and administer to my friend, the centre wasn’t bothered about her spiritual care at all. Even one layperson refused to attend her. My friend’s mouth was black and they would not give me the lemon/glycerine sticks to swab her with, they hardly ever came in to her in fact - I used to get the hand towel out of the bathroom and soak it and she would suck it desperately, I would turn each square for her and then get more and do the same again. I think she died of dehydration not the cancer.
I still have her medical records and diaries of her desperation and neglect by the medical people, the people who should have cared, who neglected her. Going back to the Saturday, I went home but got a call at 7.25 pm from Marie Curie to say that my friend’s condition had declined. I said I was on my way but the nurse said not to rush. If my other friend had not been there, no one would have noticed that her condition had deteriorated. She was the one who told them to phone me. I got there 5 minutes before she died, a promise I had made to her. My friend had stipulated that she wanted to die at home but they never gave her the chance.”
Jeanette B from NSW, Australia, writes:
"This is a topic close to my heart. I have gone through this with my Dad, grandfather and close friend. Dad was admitted to hospital to be ‘fattened up’ as the radiotherapy had killed off his ability to eat. It took them 3 weeks to give him an agonising death. They knocked him out with morphine, did not hydrate him, and when questioned, my brothers and I were treated like aliens.
Dad had, in his confused state, not put us down as next of kin, so we were treated as unimportant, undeserving of any explanation for the barbaric treatment Dad received that resulted in his end.
Then my friend went to hospital for a rest and some treatment. I received a phone call from the hospital telling me ‘it did not look good’. It took them about two weeks to kill her, again using morphine and denying food and water. When I queried this, the response was that she was dying, meaning why bother giving her water, which would only prolong the dying process.
Then my grandfather, nine weeks after my father. We fought to ensure he did not suffer the same horrific experience. Up against a system with the threat of loss, we were treated as if we were mad if we questioned any of their treatments. He died in a week.
Before she passed, my friend whispered to me that this was an oppressive place and to get her out of there. After that, she could not talk or protest further after being drugged on morphine. I told her son what she said but the ‘professionals’ had convinced him there was no hope; that they were helping to make her death comfortable.
Thank God for The Campaign for Truth in Medicine which tells it like it is: Legal execution of the elderly and vulnerable.”
Last week’s links
- SENTENCED TO DEATH ON THE NHS: Patients with terminal illnesses are being made to die prematurely under an NHS scheme to help end their lives, leading doctors have warned.
- UNDERCOVER NURSES SAVED MY CONDEMNED MOTHER: Daughter pays £1,000 for private carers after NHS hospital staff said she couldn't be saved.
- '50,000 PEOPLE DIE FROM MALNUTRITION A YEAR IN NHS HOSPITALS,' CLAIM TORIES
- DEATH-ROW DRUG FED TO DYING SCOTTISH PENSIONERS
- PATHWAY FOR THE ELDERLY THAT LEADS TO LEGAL EXECUTION
- And of course, the famous ALLAN SMITH STORY from New Zealand.
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