More horror stories about the NHS, from this Telegraph. (H/T Secondhand Smoke via ECM)

Excerpt

Patients with terminal illnesses are being made to die prematurely under an NHS scheme to help end their lives, leading doctors warn today. In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death. Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.

In a socialist system, you have value to the ruling government only so long as you are supplying the state with funds. When you start to drain funds from social programs run by the state without paying taxes, then you have no value. (This is also why socialists oppose stay-at-home mothers)

The best solution to this problem is to have everyone pay their own way – no one cares more about your safety than YOU. The best way to get quality treatment is for you to spend your own money in a market filled with service providers competing to provide you with the best health care for the lowest price.

More NHS links from the National Review. (H/T ECM)

BBC:  “NHS workers knit to stay healthy.”

BBC:  “A woman who complained about her father’s treatment after he died in a Devon hospital has said she is furious the NHS has denied any wrongdoing.”

BBC:  “Prison food ‘beats NHS hospitals’.”

Wales Online:  “NHS desperate for doctors as visa rule changes bite.”

BBC:  The NHS has apologised after writing to a man to address concerns over his treatment — three-and-half years after he died.

Independent:  “The NHS must stop hiding behind complex bureaucracy.”

Times Online:  “NHS consultants, including experts in palliative care, were consulted as part of Mr al-Megrahi’s care.”

Story from the UK Telegraph. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

In the last six years, the Patients Association claims hundreds of thousands have suffered from poor standards of nursing, often with ‘neglectful, demeaning, painful and sometimes downright cruel’ treatment.

The charity has disclosed a horrifying catalogue of elderly people left in pain, in soiled bed clothes, denied adequate food and drink, and suffering from repeatedly cancelled operations, missed diagnoses and dismissive staff.

The Patients Association said the dossier proves that while the scale of the scandal at Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust – where up to 1,200 people died through failings in urgent care – was a one off, there are repeated examples they have uncovered of the same appalling standards throughout the NHS.
While the criticisms cover all aspects of hospital care, the treatment and attitude of nurses stands out as a repeated theme across almost all of the cases.

I don’t think the sharp decline of religion in the UK has helped the character of the medical staff very much. Although some atheists are pretty good, I have argued elsewhere that it is pretty hard to rationally justify acts of self-sacrifice on atheism. It just isn’t rational to do good when it goes against your self-interest.

And here’s another terrifying one from the Telegraph. (H/T Secondhand Smoke via ECM)

Excerpt:

Thousands of women and older people who suffer heart attacks are dying unnecessarily because they are not being prescribed the gold standard treatment which could prevent another attack. One in five people who have had a heart attack in Britain do not receive all four drugs recommended to prevent a second, a study of 60,000 people have found.

[…]Lead author Prof Iain Squire, professor of cardiovascular medicine at University of Leicester and consultant at the Leicester Royal Infirmary, calculated that 2,000 out of the 5,000 deaths over the two year study period had been undertreated and ‘could potentially have been avoided’. He said: “The patients who are most likely to get undertreated are the elderly and females but they get incremental benefit for each drug they take so we should not be withholding these therapies based on age and gender alone.” People aged 65 to 74 were 20 per cent less likely to get all four drugs compared with those under 55; while people aged over 85 were three times less likely to get all four medicines.

Let’s be clear. The left believes in myths like overpopulation, global warming, survival of the fittest, etc. Their denial of God makes them terribly afraid of the future. So they begin to dream up ways to stop the unwashed masses from using too many resources or from wrecking the planet. Naturally, the first thing they want to do is to prevent people from having children, or living too long. Hence, abortion and eugenics.

Previous NHS horror story posts are here.