Posted by
Boaz on Friday, October 17, 2008 11:00:40 PM
The healthcare currently available in the United States has as it's primary focus the saving of lives. That's OK as far as it goes, which in some cases might be too far. In the U.K. the government runs the healthcare system in such a manner as to allow otherwise perfectly healthy individuals, who may be two knots shy of a well tied sholace, to choose to die by
drinking anti-freeze. While the death of the person in question is both sad and regrettable, the fault it seems does not lie with the person who succumbed to the mental illness which led her to make the choice to pursue this course nine times in the past year. Each previous time Miss Wooltorton who was 26 had made the choice to accept dialysis as treatment for the ingestion of the ethylene glycol poison.
The latest attempt though took a very different course when Ms Wooltorton chose to bring along a living will which 'intimidated' the medical staff at Norwalk & Norwich University Hospital in the U.K.
The consulting renal physician Alexander Heaton made a statement at the inquest into the death of Ms. Wooltorton that the medical director and legal advisor had made a judgement of competent capacity and to disregard the wishes of the lady would be tantamount to assault.
- Asked what would have happened if he had intervened, he said: 'It's my duty to follow her wishes.
- 'I would have been breaking the law and I wasn't worried about her suing me but I think she would have asked 'What do I have to do to tell you what my wishes are?'
- 'She had made them abundantly clear and I was content that that was the case.
Despite the practise of euthanasi still being illegal in the U.K.
Despite the previous nine attempts which to any 'competent' physician would have pointed to a mental imbalance severe enough to warrant intervention in the tenth attempt.
- Dr Heaton added: 'She was in no state to resist me and I could have forced treatment on her but I don't think it was the right thing to do.
- 'I feel it would have been assault.'
I'm not certain Hippocrates would have agreed with that statement.
My point in this is that as government intervention in medical care increases, so does the concern of physicians who have no desire to be charged with malpractice in a litigous society. There may well be no over-riding connection between the two, but they have both been increasing apace and it does seem difficult to completely separate the two. In the past, the malpractice concerns of physicians would have been more limited to actual malpractice. As in treating a patient and doing a bad job of it. Now with more government regulations and the scrutiny of politicians trying to appease the proponents in favor of euthanasia, doctors are more likely to make choices dictated by legal concerns rather than the Hippocratic Oath.
It seems trial lawyers such as former Sen. and former VP candidate John Edwards have also played a tremendous part in the degradation of the medical profession in the United States in my opinion. But they do that with the conivance of judges and a willing governmental establishment.
For me and mine, turning over the health system to a government which couldn't even run The Mustang Ranch in Nevada without going broke doesn't seem like a good idea. If they can't make a go of it in Nevada running a whorehouse and selling booze why should I believe they can do better with cardiology, oncology or any other medical process?