Tory attack on the poor spreads from the disabled to the elderly and children
The big question: Tories want nurses to ask the elderly, “Will you die so we can save some pennies on your pension and healthcare?”
For once, the Daily Mail‘s indignation is right on the button.
It reports today that district nurses are being asked to encourage elderly people to sign their lives away.
These ask if people have a preference to die at home when their time comes – and go on to suggest: Do you agree to a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) notice?
In other words, if they suffer a life-threatening health risk and doctors could bring them back, will they tell the medical professionals not to bother?
Nobody knows how long an elderly person might live after having their life saved. Some might say the Mail is simply trying to protect its readership – but this does seem to be a cynical attempt to save money – not only on health care but also on pension payments.
“The Royal College of Nursing says its members, most of whom will be meeting the patient for the first time, should not be put into the position of asking the elderly to sign their life away, particularly since they may be confused and not have a relative present to support them,” the Mail‘s comment column states.
It quotes a healthcare expert who said “the question itself is ‘callous’ and potentially disturbing, since it might leave the frail or vulnerable wondering if the visiting nurse ‘knows something they do not’, and death is imminent.
“Doubtless the NHS will say there is no malice intended, but this approach is as deeply troubling as it is insensitive. Don’t forget the Liverpool Care Pathway – under which patients judged to be dying were left without treatment, food or fluids – similarly began with supposedly humane intentions, only to be scrapped after… fears that it was being coldly misused to free hospital beds.”
Slightly less believable – on the face of it – is a plan reported in the Daily Mirror to force children in a central London council estate to use a play area underground.
The Conservative-led council that runs the Churchill Gardens estate wants to use current play facilities at the primary school to build an elderly people’s home, the paper reported.
Land marked out to accommodate the elderly will instead be used – get this – “for luxury apartments overlooking the Thames and the multi-billion-pound Battersea power station development. Flats that no-one in the overcrowded Churchill Gardens estate will be able to afford”.
Yes – it’s social engineering. Bring in the super-rich; bury the proles (and their children). Ensure enough Conservative voters live in the area to keep the Tories in control there.
Does anybody think the council has any intention of building children’s play facilities underground? It seems a bizarre effort, considering this council’s desire to do anything rather than spend money on the poor. Also, it would open up the estate to the possibility of terrible crimes, as children who are out of sight – as Tory councillors seem to desire – would be prey to criminals.
Both stories highlight the attitude of Conservatives in power in the UK today. They don’t care about anyone but their own.
They deprive the poor to save money, and then lavish it on those who have too much already.
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coming your way soon isnt life strange first they tell you the nhs is safe in their hands but sell it off on the quiet perhaps this do you like all your weekly pills in one go ok with them thuss saving massive monies that their mates can proffitt from
At least we got the Liverpool ‘care’ pathway scrapped. And we can this if enough nurses refuse to do it and then we get it stopped. Get down to the council meetings in our hundreds and stop this nonsense – now!
We can! Our children, our elderly and our money – enough!
X
I am appalled at myself for reaching a state where I just accept that this callous load of b*****ds known as Tories can’t sink any lower with respect to human beings.
They are equally as bad as the Nazis if not worse, at least Hitler looked after his own with one exception. These b*****ds are just looking after their own, big business and old school chums. Everyone else is expendable. Even though in most cases they impose lingering deaths through starvation and hypothermia.
That is historically false. Many Germans and Austrians, plus non-Jewish residents (i.e.not one ot that exception set) were persecuted by the Nazis. For starters, German trade unionists. Also the merely anti-authoritarian ethnic German father of my partner, Eduard. His crime was to let Slavic slaves at the factory where he worked, bathe and eat at his home. He had to escape when the Gestapo found out about his kindness.
This is what is happening:
Son was very ill. Asked nurse if he is eating. Told “He is on Pathway.” Asked, “What a pathway to death?” Had never heard of this before. Why was I not formally told he was “on the Pathway’? Went to visit him one day, when I could see he was dying. Asked nurse why he was in a ward with five others. Asked if he could be put in a side ward. No. Said at least pull the curtains round him, as other patients could see and hear him, and it would be scary for visitors to see this man obviously on his way out. He died that night.
Very close frail elderly relative taken into nursing home, because she had been being abused by home carers. I was asked to sign a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) notice, because she has advanced Dementia, and could not make the decision herself. I did sign with the proviso that I was called immediately so that I could be there at the time. I am still not sure if I have done the right thing, but I would expect, at her age, resuscitation might just make her suffer more and prolong the inevitable. It is a quandry which I am not happy about, and I wondered why a ‘special’ doctor had to come to the nursing home to get me to sign the notice.
“Also, it would open up the estate to the possibility of terrible crimes, as children who are out of sight – as Tory councillors seem to desire – would be prey to criminals.” I too am concerned about children being ‘hidden from sight’, when they should be out in the fresh air, and in full view of their parents.
Mike I don’t want to rain on your parade but asking people if they wish to be resuscitated has been a perfectly legitimate question for a very long time.
It SHOULD be something discussed within families before the situation arises.
Within my family it has been for a long time. I have personally given my permission for that course of action to be carried out on a blood relative because I knew that was their wish because it had been discussed in depth with them when they were fully compos mentis.
On the other hand my mother, when I discussed it with her wanted to struggle on until her last breath. (In her case she just died peacefully in her sleep at home so the decision did not arise. )
The discussion here is about people having a particular option presented to them as preferable when it might not be.
That is NOT how nurses ask the question. Nurses have been asking patients the question for decades. Why all the current fuss I really do not understand. (my wife has been nursing 1974.)
I wouldn’t think that the Fail is really thinking about the good of the elderly here. It sounds like just another way to dig at the NHS, as is, in order to lead more folk to support privatisation.
The more one reads articles like this, the Bilderbergs and the new world order becomes more realistic. Heaven help us all. One wonders if this Ebola crisis is purposely man made to reduce the population even more !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
with current medical tech, we can keep the body alive for as long as you want, some people value being 10 stones of meat, that breathes, shites and eats via machine, some dont.
Some people value life at all costs, some people prefer the dignity of a quiet death
In my ward, we had a muslim man, who was judged to mentally unstable and sectioned under the Mental Health Act by his mullah and pet psychiatrist, so he was tied to the bed and had dialysis forced on him, to keep him alive. He had to be tranquilised because he was so unhappy and was howling for a good portion of the day. He died after 4 horrible weeks. We were all glad, as he was a nice man, who we all liked and it seemed to some form of cruel torture to keep him alive against his will.
Some people value the quantity of life, some value the quality
Death, like taxes, are largely a matter of choice, you only need access to the relevant level of doctor/accountant
Yes indeed. So you agree that people should be able to choose what they want, and not have any option pushed on them, as seems the case according to the Daily Mail?
The government-independent Order of Medical Specialists has little or no difficulty with medically related ideas. My partner and I might be in a bit of trouble soon http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2014/08/medicial_specialists_back_pric.php . But the dementing rich will have their gated village in Holland’s 2nd most posh area, Het Gooi : http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/aug/27/dementia-village-residents-have-fun
The Specialist.percentage and the apparent agreement by the Order’s bosses are bad signs for every EU Member State.
And this was predictable on 2012, as soon as the welfare “reforms” were on the table. They must be slow on the uptake at the Mail, after all, didn’t they demonise and stigmatise poor and disabled people, echoing endorsement for this government’s draconian policies? Oh yes, so they did.
And IDS already changed the definition of “childhood poverty” in advance – http://kittysjones.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/the-poverty-of-responsibility-and-the-politics-of-blame/
Eugenics by stealth is still eugenics, and hello, it’s been ongoing for a while now, people @ the Daily Mail
Ashamed to be British.
What has this country become???
Time for a change.