Thursday, November 29, 2012

This, This is Too Much

Would add commentary, but then I'd either become homicidal or go cry in a corner somewhere, neither of which would help the situation at all.

Sick children are being discharged from NHS hospitals to die at home or in hospices on controversial ‘death pathways’.  
Until now, end of life regime the Liverpool Care Pathway was thought to have involved only elderly and terminally-ill adults.  
But the Mail can reveal the practice of withdrawing food and fluid by tube is being used on young patients as well as severely disabled newborn babies.  
One doctor has admitted starving and dehydrating ten babies to death in the neonatal unit of one hospital alone.
Writing in a leading medical journal, the physician revealed the process can take an average of ten days during which a baby becomes ‘smaller and shrunken’. 
The LCP – on which 130,000 elderly and terminally-ill adult patients die each year – is now the subject of an independent inquiry ordered by ministers. 
The investigation, which will include child patients, will look at whether cash payments to hospitals to hit death pathway targets have influenced doctors’ decisions.
HT Breda's Facebook