GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: BioEdge: Is the BMA introducing ‘backdoor euthanasia’?

domingo, 19 de agosto de 2018

BioEdge: Is the BMA introducing ‘backdoor euthanasia’?

BioEdge: Is the BMA introducing ‘backdoor euthanasia’?

Bioedge

Is the BMA introducing ‘backdoor euthanasia’?

by Michael Cook | 17 Aug 2018 | 1 comment

The British Medical Association is studying whether doctors should be allowed to “pull the plug” on patients with severe dementia or other degenerative diseases.

Confidential draft guidelines are being circulated after a recent ruling by the High Court that NHS staff and officials do not need a court's permission to withdraw artificial nutrition and hydration from a patient who is incapacitated and unable to speak or feed themselves.

They say that doctors should be able to end the lives not only of patients in vegetative or minimally conscious states but also of those with common degenerative conditions, like advanced dementia, provided that it is in the patient’s best interest.

The Daily Mail quotes the proposal:

“Due to the degenerative nature of their condition, these patients are on an expected downward trajectory and will inevitably die, usually as a result of their underlying condition, although perhaps not imminently and could, potentially, go on living for many years.”

Other patients who could have treatment withdrawn would include stroke patients and patients with “rapidly progressing brain injury”.

After withdrawal of nutrition and hydration patients would die of thirst and starvation.

Dr Peter Saunders, of Care Not Killing, has seen the proposal and says that it is a disguised form of euthanasia:

British parliaments have consistently refused to legalise euthanasia or assisted suicide for people with a quality of life they would not find ‘acceptable’ or would not ‘have wanted’. But the BMA is saying that to end these lives by starvation and dehydration, rather than with a lethal injection or drinking poison, is perfectly acceptable. This is actually nothing other than euthanasia by stealth – euthanasia by the back door ...
What is largely disguised here in a lengthy and turgid 77-page document that few doctors or carers will ever read is a simple mechanism for ending the lives of dementia, stroke and PVS patients who are not imminently dying and who otherwise could live for months, years or even decades.

The BMA draft guidelines also set down that doctors should record the underlying condition as the cause of death on the death certificate. Professor Patrick Pullicino, of East Kent Hospitals University NHS Trust, another critic, says that this is tantamount to falsifying death certificates. “It will totally conceal the statistics of patients who are being dehydrated to death.”

Saturday, August 18, 2018

It’s not an original thought, but with every amazing technological advance comes an unheard-of and very dangerous drawback. Smashing the atom gave us nuclear power and the atom bomb. The automobile gave us hitherto unimaginable mobility and tens of thousands of deaths on the road. The Pill gave women control over their fertility and led to birth rates so low that some countries are in danger of disappearing.

And the mobile phone? Where do we start? This week, with selfies. They give Millennials a buzz, but according to cosmetic surgeons, they also can lead to a psychological disorder which has been dubbed “Snapchat Dysmorphia”. Young women (mostly) are so used to altering their images with apps that they demand the same service from cosmetic surgeons.

“This is an alarming trend because those filtered selfies often present an unattainable look and are blurring the line of reality and fantasy for these patients,” report the authors of an article in JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery.

It would take a sharper mind than mine to define the problem, but our relationship with technology is problematic. We don’t foresee the problems and we can’t control our dependence. Since so much of contemporary bioethics revolves around the proper use of technology, this is something we always have to bear in mind.