Heroin addict dies in Hospital after overdose

[The PIT]

Amazing the national health service. They won't operate on an elderly person becuase they're too old yet they'll do a bypass operation on an addict.
Soon after the operation the addict got his fix and fixed his ticker permantly. The money should have been spent on an old dear like a hip operation so she/he could walk around for a few months.

[Ssin]

It's because it's politicaly correct to help an addict getting back on the right side instead of spending money on an already dead horse.

DONT flame me, I didn't say I did agree. I was just making an observation.

[TransformX]

True. But politicians love forgetting that those "dead horses" did their share of work , paid their taxes and moved the country forward while those stupid addicts are nothing but a waste of resources .

[The PIT]

Politicians need to get re-elected and they only can do that by being PC and not by telling the truth.

No doubt in this case there was someone needing an operation who got shoved down the list for this waste of space. The delay in their operation may kill them but what the heck it's just another stat.

[Wulfman]

maybe it's just me, but if I was a doctor and had sworn this hippocratic oath I couldn't let the person die - which is usually the case if no bypass is made.
I mean - how should the doctor know that the addict will be dead within weeks? He might have lived on, cheering the lucky cirumstances & praising "the new life"... afterwards it is easy to blame someone.

mfg
wulfman

[TransformX]

Yes, but many doctors see an old man and think it's a dead horse anyway so he's not worth the pain of going through this and that operation...

[KvHagedorn]

You know, no demographic votes more religiously than these "dead horses" you are talking about. If politicians had any brains, they would see to their needs better. And the hippocratic oath should work as far as the old people as well.

[UtwigMU]

Did he have health insurance?
What's the health system like there?

A friend (will be doctor in about a year) told me about this poor homeless sob who cut his veins a few times and was sewn up for free by the doctors, expenses squeezed in somehow.

IMO hypocratic oath is hypocratic oath.

[Paddy]

Age is not a contraindication for most procedures. On the other hand, co-mobidity is.

In a world of limited resources, you have to try and choose those with a highest chance of success. In reality, a lot of these 'transplant' procedures require a close degree of matching between donor and host and therefore the choice isn't always that great.

I do feel that simple, life changing procedures, like joint replacement should be higher on the list of priorities...

[Brian Ellis]

I'm not exactly the youngest (well past the biblical span of three score and ten), so perhaps I can give my view. I have cancer (currently in remission) and have had a total AV heart block for which I wear a pacemaker. I still do what I hope is useful professional work and am active and, I hope, fully compos mentis..

Up to now, I have had excellent service from the medical profession and I see no lack of will from them to keep me going. My feeling is that I'm treated exactly the same as a younger person would be, because I'm not yet a "lost cause". However, the time will probably come when something will happen which doctors will believe would be a waste of resources to continue treatment or the risk involved in conducting a treatment would be too high to justify it (e.g., the chances of surviving a surgical intervention being too low). In that case, all I ask is that the resources be given to a younger person, but that I be made as comfortable as possible, so that I can die with dignity, even if the price of comfort is a potential acceleration of the end. I have already given instructions not to resuscitate if, by so doing, the quality of my life will be diminished.

OTOH, I agree that no one is too far gone to justify medical treatment, if there is a chance that (s)he will or even may just possibly contribute something to society in the future. How many ex-addicts give their all, now, to try and prevent others from becoming addicts? Were these people worthy of life-saving medical treatment when they were super-junkies? Of course they were. And they now do more good for humanity than an 85-year old in an advanced stage of Alzheimer's who is given a new hip joint.

Let me recount the case of my mother. At 92, she was active, sprightly and "all there", playing championship level bridge twice a week and doing charitable work for "old people" (most of whom were younger than she!). She had some cardiac difficulties and was given a pacemaker, under the NHS, which allowed her to continue as before. At 96, she suffered a severe stroke, which left her comatose and she was on life support. The doctors said she would probably be hemiplegic and have severe mental handicap if she recovered. I suggested that life support be removed to let her die naturally, if that be God's will, but my brother opposed it (he was there, while I was thousands of miles away at the time), so she was kept "alive". She came out of the coma two weeks later and "lived" two further years before a pneumonia thankfully took her. In those two years, she was almost a vegetable and extremely irascible, making life hell for all around her and especially the staff of the home, where she was put. Her last words to me were, "Who are you?".

Now I ask:
1. was the implantation of a pacemaker at 92 justified, giving her 4 more years of quality life?
2. was the continuing life support at 96 justified, giving her, and those around her, 2 years of hell (and much expense for the NHS)?

I use this case as an illustration that there is treatment and mistreatment of old patients under the NHS. I believe that the same exists for younger persons, as well, in all countries.

As for the Hippocratic Oath, just read what it says:

I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfil according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:

To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this art - if they desire to learn it - without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken an oath according to the medical law, but no one else.

I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.

I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.

I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work.

Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves.

What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself, holding such things shameful to be spoken about.

If I fulfil this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.


Translation from the Greek by Ludwig Edelstein.

It does not say that I shall take all measures to prolong suffering, does it? Incidentally, note that surgeons are not included, which is why, in the UK, they are not addressed as Doctor, even where the surgeon is better qualified as a physician than most doctors who are so addressed. Personally, I see no hypocrisy in Hippocrates; some doctors (hopefully a minority) may practise their black art hypocritically and that is a question of their conscience and their relations with their patients and the BMA (or the equivalent in other countries) and its disciplinary procedures.

Just my 22 cents worth...

[TransformX]

I see you're working quite hard to be the "debater of the month" eh ?

[RedRed]

Wise words from Brian!

[The PIT]

Sadly I know one or two people who have had their care delayed or put off becuase they're to old. So they're now hobbling around in pain sadly unable to afford to go private.
It's possible they met get the operation next year depending on waiting lists and funding levels.

[az]

Brian is VERY right. I have nothing to add, except this: Pit, if the NHS wouldn't have to pay lots of money to prolong suffering at the end of life, there would be more than enough money for those people that can still live (as opposed to merely exist). The goal should not be to keep death away for the longest time, but to keep life worth living for the longest time, and then a qick death, at home (or wherever you want to be when you die, surely not in a hospital).

AZ

[KvHagedorn]

Originally posted by az
Brian is VERY right. I have nothing to add, except this: Pit, if the NHS wouldn't have to pay lots of money to prolong suffering at the end of life, there would be more than enough money for those people that can still live (as opposed to merely exist). The goal should not be to keep death away for the longest time, but to keep life worth living for the longest time, and then a qick death, at home (or wherever you want to be when you die, surely not in a hospital).

AZ

Well, I think hip replacements might fall into that category. Nowadays, if you need one of those at 75, you could well live another 20 years with greater mobility and quality of life, while being less of a burden upon others. It's a judgement call, but really, what did the doctors know about the heroin problem? Did they realize they were throwing away their efforts on the guy? Did he look like a zombie with track marks up his arm? There are all sorts of things I would want to know about this particular case.