One of the issues raised within the current debate over legal euthanasia is the question of whether the Liverpool Care Pathway is being used appropriately by hospitals and care homes. The Pathway was introduced in 2007 as part of the Government’s National End of Life Care Programme, with the aim of ensuring that patients and their families receive the highest possible standards of care during the terminal phase of a patient’s illness and immediately after their death. One aspect of the Pathway requires medical staff to identify cases where further treatment is inappropriate and to withdraw it accordingly. However, a national audit undertaken by the Royal College of Physicians and the Marie Curie Palliative Care Institute indicates that in some cases, patients who are not terminally ill are being put on the Pathway and having drugs, food and water withdrawn – leading to death by dehydration. Typically, patients in this situation are suffering from serious, long-term illnesses such as Parkinson’s, dementia or stroke, but would still benefit from ongoing medical treatment. There is a growing concern that, within the 300 hospitals and 560 care homes where it is used, the Pathway is being used for ‘involuntary euthanasia’ – made more worrying by the audit’s discovery that 28% of relatives are not informed that the patient has been transferred to the Pathway. Peter Milliband, emeritus professor of geriatrics at the University of London, comments on the report: ‘The risk…is that elderly people with chronic conditions like Parkinson’s or respiratory disorders may be dismissed as dying when they could still live for some time. The Government has said let’s develop a service to help people die at home – what they should be doing is helping them live. Only when death is unavoidable should you start withdrawing treatment.’
posted by Cheselden Continuing Care at
10:34
