Monday 12 August 2013

Liverpool Care Pathway - Dying Wishes

When the choice has to be made, is there any choice? Will you leave it to someone else to determine your wishes for you based on a conversation?


When is a living will a death wish? When it’s a death warrant!

And will thy will be done? It's only words, and words are what they make them mean.
"It's only words and words are all they need
To take your heart away."
They say they can diagnose dying, but they can’t even diagnose death. They even want  to redefine death, such is their arrogance.

A legally-binding, advanced care directive does not empower, but disempowers; it removes all control.

EoL (end of life) registers have been compiled.

Medics and health professionals have been, are being, groomed (trained) to groom (have conversations with) those people added to these death lists and selected for EoL care to downsize care expectations and sign these documents. What you are persuaded to be perfectly rational when you're out of the woods may not be exactly what you intended when you can't see the wood for the trees.
The Guardian

It is being suggested that organ donation be included in the document. That might be irrelevant where opt-out systems are being adopted, as in Wales, but when the organ farmers rush to bring in the harvest of body parts it really could be a matter of life or death.
The Welsh government believes the law will increase the number of organs available, save dozens of lives every year and, if successful, could be copied in other parts of the UK.

Opponents claim the move gives the state too much control over people's bodies, could cause extra distress for bereaved families and puts medical staff in a difficult position.
This is Syracuse Post Standard –

Lisa McGiffert, director of Consumers Union Safe Patient Project, said there is no way of knowing how often near-catastrophes like the Burns case happen because there is no system in place to collect information from hospitals about medical errors.

"These sorts of things do happen," McGiffert said. "It's pretty disturbing."
Her organization believes states should require hospitals to report all such incidents soon after they happen.

"That would require people to think about how to prevent it in the future," she said. "If you don't have to account for it, that doesn't always happen."

Two medical experts who reviewed the case for The Post-Standard found it shocking, and questioned why the hospital didn't do more to ensure other patients aren't put in the same position.

"Dead people don't curl their toes," said Dr. Charles Wetli, a nationally known forensic pathologist out of New Jersey. "And they don't fight against the respirator and want to breathe on their own."

Once those signs of life appeared, the organ-harvesting process should've stopped, Wetli said.

Wetli wondered why, after seeing signs that Burns was alive, a nurse would give Burns a sedative.
Wetli wondered why, after seeing signs that Burns was alive, a nurse would give Burns a sedative.

This is not a ‘first’ for New York State.

This is New York Post –
The New York Organ Donor Network pressured hospital staffers to declare patients brain dead so their body parts could be harvested — and even hired “coaches” to train staffers how to be more persuasive, a bombshell lawsuit charged yesterday.
Coaches trained staffers to groom relatives and medics.
“They say to her, ‘If you give us permission we will use your mother’s organs and we will help many, many people who need them,’ ” he said.

McMahon’s objections were ignored by a neurologist, who declared her brain dead — and her organs were harvested, according to the suit. McMahon even claims he tried to get a second opinion.

A month later, a man was admitted to Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, again showing brain activity, the suit said. McMahon claims his protests were again blown off by hospital and donor-network staff, and the man was declared brain dead and his organs harvested.

In November 2011, a woman admitted to Staten Island University Hospital after a drug overdose was declared brain dead and her organs were about to be harvested when McMahon noticed that she was being given “a paralyzing anesthetic” because her body was still jerking.

When he objected, another network employee told hospital personnel McMahon was “an untrained troublemaker with a history of raising frivolous issues and questions,” the suit charged.

“I had a reputation for raising a red flag,” he said.

In order to harvest organs, the network needs a “Note” — an official declaration by a hospital that a patient is brain dead — and consent from next of kin.
...she was being given “a paralyzing anaesthetic” because her body was still jerking.
This is Business & Health –


 And Mail Online reported this - 
She is now making a good recovery at a rehabilitation centre and is able to walk, talk and even ride her horse Mathilde.
Her family is now suing the hospital for damages, claiming that doctors had been desperate to harvest her body parts.
'Those bandits in white coats gave up too quickly because they wanted an organ donor,' her father Kim told the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet.
The family’s lawyer Nils Fjeldberg said that Ms Melchior keeps asking if doctors were trying to kill her.

It gets worse.

Mail Online also reported on this British girl -




The organ harvest, the temptation of the Advance Directive and the dangers of euthanasia.

A difficult choice presents itself.

There is another patient who would benefit from organ donation. This patient is on a higher trajectory on the Complete Lives Treatment Curve.

"Expected to die..."

A decision has to be made. It is very tempting to weigh one life off against the other and make a quick 'quality of life' assessment...

It can't happen.

It won't happen.

It does happen -

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