The wonders of socialized medicine: two stories
A 29-year-old woman will die without a new drug that the NHS is refusing to provide despite the manufacturer offering it to her for free, it emerged today.
Caroline Cassin, 29, who suffers from Cystic Fibrosis (CF) has been offered a new drug free of charge for a limited period by the makers but her NHS hospital is refusing.
Her family say she will die soon without it, yet managers at Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham say it would be unethical to provide the drug under the deal, only for it to be withdrawn later.
“Unethical” to let this young woman live at least as long as the drug is provided for free? How long will that be, anyway? The story doesn’t say.
Regardless: who knows what might happen in the time the drug provides her? New research, new medications, new procedures, new billionaires? Why does the medical bureaucracy get to tell this woman no?
Because they’re in charge. That’s why. Hat tip Sarah Hoyt for that one.
Hospitals bribed to put patients on pathway to death: Cash incentive for NHS trusts that meet targets on Liverpool Care Pathway
The euphemistically named “Liverpool Care Pathway” involves withdrawing life-extending treatments from patients. Allowing them to die, in other words. And, according to the Daily Mail, hospitals are getting incentive payments to do just that:
Hospitals are paid millions to hit targets for the number of patients who die on the Liverpool Care Pathway, the Mail can reveal.
The incentives have been paid to hospitals that ensure a set percentage of patients who die on their wards have been put on the controversial regime.
In some cases, hospitals have been set targets that between a third and two thirds of all the deaths should be on the LCP, which critics say is a way of hastening the deaths of terminally ill patients.
At least £30million in extra money from taxpayers is estimated to have been handed to hospitals over the past three years to achieve these goals.
Critics of the method warned last night that financial incentives for hospitals could influence the work of doctors.
The LCP involves withdrawal of life-saving treatment. Patients are sedated and most are denied nutrition and fluids by tube. On average a patient put on the Pathway dies within 29 hours.
I suppose you could look at this as a positive incentive. I’m referring to the above paragraph that reads “The incentives have been paid to hospitals that ensure a set percentage of patients who die on their wards have been put on the controversial regime.” So they don’t want people dying who aren’t in the LCP.
In the LCP, people die. Anywhere else in the hospital, they don’t.
Except, you know, maybe some families don’t want their loved ones put into the LCP, no matter how close to death they are. This would seem to put that choice out of the conversation.
Because the medical bureaucracy is in charge, because the government is paying the bill. Hat tip Dan Mitchell.
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