Welcome to the Free Talk Live bulletin board system!
This board is closed to new users and new posts.  Thank you to all our great mods and users over the years.  Details here.
185859 Posts in 9829 Topics by 1371 Members
Latest Member: cjt26
Home Help
+  The Free Talk Live BBS
|-+  Free Talk Live
| |-+  General
| | |-+  "Daughter saves mother, 80, left by doctors to starve"
Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: "Daughter saves mother, 80, left by doctors to starve"  (Read 1563 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Lothar

  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 255
    • View Profile
"Daughter saves mother, 80, left by doctors to starve"
« on: October 11, 2009, 11:49:16 AM »

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6869646.ece

AN 80-year-old grandmother who doctors identified as terminally ill and left to starve to death has recovered after her outraged daughter intervened.

Hazel Fenton, from East Sussex, is alive nine months after medics ruled she had only days to live, withdrew her antibiotics and denied her artificial feeding. The former school matron had been placed on a controversial care plan intended to ease the last days of dying patients.

Doctors say Fenton is an example of patients who have been condemned to death on the Liverpool care pathway plan. They argue that while it is suitable for patients who do have only days to live, it is being used more widely in the NHS, denying treatment to elderly patients who are not dying.

Fenton’s daughter, Christine Ball, who had been looking after her mother before she was admitted to the Conquest hospital in Hastings, East Sussex, on January 11, says she had to fight hospital staff for weeks before her mother was taken off the plan and given artificial feeding.

Ball, 42, from Robertsbridge, East Sussex, said: “My mother was going to be left to starve and dehydrate to death. It really is a subterfuge for legalised euthanasia of the elderly on the NHS. ”

Fenton was admitted to hospital suffering from pneumonia. Although Ball acknowledged that her mother was very ill she was astonished when a junior doctor told her she was going to be placed on the plan to “make her more comfortable” in her last days.

Ball insisted that her mother was not dying but her objections were ignored. A nurse even approached her to say: “What do you want done with your mother’s body?”

On January 19, Fenton’s 80th birthday, Ball says her mother was feeling better and chatting to her family, but it took another four days to persuade doctors to give her artificial feeding.

Fenton is now being looked after in a nursing home five minutes from where her daughter lives.

Peter Hargreaves, a consultant in palliative medicine, is concerned that other patients who could recover are left to die. He said: “As they are spreading out across the country, the training is getting probably more and more diluted.”

A spokesman for East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “Patients’ needs are assessed before they are placed on the [plan]. Daily reviews are undertaken by clinicians whenever possible.”

In a separate case, the family of an 87-year-old woman say the plan is being used as a way of giving minimum care to dying patients.

Susan Budden, whose mother, Iris Griffin, from Norwich, died in a nursing home in July 2008 from a brain tumour, said: “When she was started on the [plan] her medication was withdrawn. As a result she became agitated and distressed.

“It would appear that the [plan] is . . . used purely as a protocol which can be ticked off to justify the management of a patient.”

Deborah Murphy, the national lead nurse for the care pathway, said: “If the education and training is not in place, the [plan] should not be used.” She said 3% of patients placed on the plan recovered.
Logged

TimeLady Victorious

  • Aprilicious
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3837
    • View Profile
Re: "Daughter saves mother, 80, left by doctors to starve"
« Reply #1 on: October 11, 2009, 07:36:28 PM »

My mom's told me if this ever happens to her to let her die.

Time to move to /uk/
Logged
ENGAGE RIDLEY MOTHER FUCKER

Diogenes The Cynic

  • Cynic. Pessimist. Skeptic. Jerk.
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3727
    • View Profile
Re: "Daughter saves mother, 80, left by doctors to starve"
« Reply #2 on: October 11, 2009, 10:24:46 PM »

My mom's told me if this ever happens to her to let her die.

Time to move to /uk/

You could just move her to the UK.
Logged
I am looking for an honest man. -Diogenes The Cynic

Dude, I thought you were a spambot for like a week. You posted like a spambot. You failed the Turing test.

                                -Dennis Goddard

fatcat

  • Guest
Re: "Daughter saves mother, 80, left by doctors to starve"
« Reply #3 on: October 12, 2009, 10:15:21 AM »

What you don't mention is that these people are perfectly free to go pay a proper doctor and keep them on machines as long as they can afford.

What people here are bitching about is entitlements, and specifically the entitlement for a seriously ill 80 year old to be kept on artificial feeding and antibiotics.

If you take government entitlements, you don't get to bitch that they're not good enough.

You do get to bitch about them stealing your money in the first place.
Logged

Diogenes The Cynic

  • Cynic. Pessimist. Skeptic. Jerk.
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3727
    • View Profile
Re: "Daughter saves mother, 80, left by doctors to starve"
« Reply #4 on: October 12, 2009, 03:12:05 PM »

What you don't mention is that these people are perfectly free to go pay a proper doctor and keep them on machines as long as they can afford.

What people here are bitching about is entitlements, and specifically the entitlement for a seriously ill 80 year old to be kept on artificial feeding and antibiotics.

If you take government entitlements, you don't get to bitch that they're not good enough.

You do get to bitch about them stealing your money in the first place.


I see what you're saying, but they take so much money that its difficult to not opt into the system.
Logged
I am looking for an honest man. -Diogenes The Cynic

Dude, I thought you were a spambot for like a week. You posted like a spambot. You failed the Turing test.

                                -Dennis Goddard
Pages: [1]   Go Up
+  The Free Talk Live BBS
|-+  Free Talk Live
| |-+  General
| | |-+  "Daughter saves mother, 80, left by doctors to starve"

// ]]>

Page created in 0.019 seconds with 31 queries.