It's called the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), and it's not a panel but the treating team of doctors who determines if a patient lives or dies. It was created by a cancer charity called Marie Curie and has been adopted in guidance from the NHS in England. It has been gradually adopted nationwide and more than 300 hospitals, 130 hospices and 560 care homes in England currently use the system.
Now, if a patient is deemed by the doctors to be dying, fluids and medications can be withheld and the patient "terminally sedated" until he finally dies.
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "People coming to the end of their lives should have a right to high quality, compassionate and dignified care."
Where, exactly, is the dignity in being murdered by your supervising physician? And how much quality is in the care that is just ignoring someone until the machines signal the patient is dead? Compassionate? Please.
But this isn't stopping those in England. One final note from the spokesman in England: "Many people receive excellent care at the end of their lives. We are investing £286 million over the two years to 2011 to support implementation of the End of Life Care Strategy to help improve end of life care for all adults, regardless of where they live."
The death panels are being called into question in a letter written by several physicians: Dr Anthony Cole, the chairman of the Medical Ethics Alliance; Dr David Hill, an anaesthetist; Dowager Lady Salisbury, chairman of the Choose Life campaign; and Dr Elizabeth Negus a lecturer in English at Barking University.
The original article can be found here.
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