How GPs are paid £50 bonus to put elderly on 'death lists'

BECAUSE ITS NONSENSE!

I was showing you that the MEDICAL PROFESSION thinks that living wills and/or pre=planning death is a GOOD thing for patients and their families.


do you always squirm when you're ideology has been trumped by fact?

 

Black and white world again eh hard driver.

There are no similarities between with two systems?

 

Sorry, you're wrong. Medicare covered the hospital stay. It just so happened the talk happened while your dad was there. But if he'd wanted to do some pre-planning, and gone for an office visit to discuss it, Medicare didn't cover that office visit prior to ACA.

 

I'm sure YOU think so. You haven't presented even a single fact that contradicts UK doctors taking money to enroll patients in the Liverpool Death March. Again, nice try.

 

Are you serious? OF COURSE they get paid just like they get paid for any other type of appointment.

What I provided you with,is the evidence that your interpretation of end of life planning is a "death march" is hyperbolic misrepresentation. I provided you with just a few sources describing the efficacy of such a program for patients, family and medical staff.

Tenaciously holding on to a readily disproven piece of propaganda suggests a deliberately maintained ignorance in order to defend an odious and truly stupid partisan position, or perhaps a deeper motivation that trumps pursuit of facts and truth.

 

I don't know about where you live, but in SoCal the advance directive talk is brought up during an existing visit to the doctor. It worked that way for both of my parents. But that's not the point in England.

In the U.S. SO FAR, no advance directive gives ambulance drivers the right to refuse transport to an ER and see if the person may "actually have a reversible condition". However, that is what we are trying to prevent. Even with it's crappy level of care Englands Universal Health care must cut corners on peoples health due to nearly out of control costs.

‘A doctor may not realise that, while the person appears to be dying, they actually have a reversible condition.’

It has happened many times as reported by UK News outlets, as many as 30,000 times reported by the NHS. How would you feel if one of your Mom/Dad or Grand Parents died at home because the ambulance wouldn't come to help, then you find out it was something reversible like dehydration caused their kidneys to shut down and being re-hydrated they would have lived? Do you consider that acceptable?

 

Look, if you have to desperately reach into other countries completely different system, can't explain how they are directly relevant to justify your opinion, then that gives zero credibility. So either explain the direct similarities and how this directly applies to the US system or just admit this is another huge right wing fail of a thread.

 

Sen. Harry Reid: Obamacare 'Absolutely' A Step Toward A Single-Payer System

Harry Reid said it my friend.

 

still doesn't provide any relevance to your "death panel" nonsense.

 

I believe his point whould be obvious, viz.: The proposed "advisory" commission, under ObamaCare (a.k.a. the "Death Panel") will be charged with reining in costs; and the most effective way to accomplish this task would surely be to restrict medical care to the elderly (who represent the least healthy portion of the nation, on average; and whose life expectancy is the lowest, on average, making it much easier to rationalize the withholding of expensive medical treatments).

Think about it: If the very finest medical treatments could prolong a senior's life for only, say, one more month; and if those treatments would cost upwards of $100,000, whereas palliative treatments would cost only a tiny fraction of that amount; how do you suppose such an "advisory" board would rule?

 

Q: What sort of health care system do they have in England?

A: A single payer universal health care system.

 

Single payer systems instantly reduce administrative costs in the doctor's office and hospital billing.

 

Yes, but it is also a nationalized healthcare system, which is not the case in Canada which also has single payer.

 

The right wing has worked tirelessly for 4 years to ensure that Obamacare fails, apparently without giving a single thought to what would happen next. Do you think we'll go back to what we had before? Not likely. And the GOP has never, to this very day, proposed a credible alternative (except, ironically, Obamacare which was first put forward by the Heritage Foundation and enthusiastically adopted by Newt Gingrich. Back then it was called "personal responsibility.") So yes, by intractably opposing ACA, the right wing is probably guaranteeing single-payer in the future. Thanks.

 

Have you ever heard of P.O.L.S.T.? This is a form which a patient or his/her designee can complete and sign which directs the level of care they wish to have at the end of life. I'm familiar with this because I just signed one for my dying father last weekend. He's currently in a nursing home, and the staff there knows that he is ONLY to have comfort care. He is NOT to have resuscitation or CPR. They know that if he develops ANY condition, reversible or not, they are NOT to treat it. And I checked the box which says he is NOT to be sent to the hospital unless it is necessary to keep him comfortable. They will do everything in their power to make sure he's not in pain or other distress. But at this point, any medical treatment would only prolong his dying process, and by law, they may not do that because of the P.O.L.S.T. form that I signed.

If my father develops kidney failure, which he has twice before, and the nursing home calls the EMTs against our wishes, the first thing the EMTs would do is ask to see the P.O.L.S.T. form. If it says not to treat him, they won't. If it says not to hospitalize him, they won't.

BTW, lest you think I'm a cold-hearted parent-murder, I have discussed this with no fewer than 4 doctors, including his primary doctor. I've also talked with the Director of Nursing at the nursing home, who has seen a lot of patients like my father. And I have talked with Hospice. ALL of those medical professionals concur that it is time to stop trying to hang onto Dad when he's clearly ready to go.

 

Go back and re-read the OP's linked article, we're not talking about folks truly in an end of life cycle. Myself I chose to care for my Dad at home. I've been in plenty of nursing homes before, including one high class joint where the care givers assn I belonged to placed folks like my Dad for 10 days so my wife and I could get away. When I got back he had bed sores and the skin where he sat was all tore up by sitting in urine soaked bedding. He told me he'd ask for a urinal and they would bring it to him way too late, then get mad when he made a mess. That's why I took care of him myself at home. I understand the end of life cycle. He couldn't digest food any longer and the doctor suggested a feeding tube. My Dad declined and chose Hospice instead. But, it was his choice because his demise was certain. This isn't so with the folks in the article I posted.

 

^^ That's precisely what the article is talking about -- elderly people who are nearing the end of life.

This is from the article:

Which is precisely what I have stipulated for my father. I want him to die someplace other than a hospital. I don't want him to be resuscitated. I want comfort drugs given in his final hours. And the ambulance service and doctor on call will be informed of those wishes when the time comes. I fail to see the difference between the directions which I have voluntarily given and the so-called "death list" in Britain.

ETA -- It's lovely that you could care for your dad at home, it really is. In a perfect world, that's what I would do. But I have a full-time job, and he needs round-the-clock care. The cost of 24-hour in-home nursing care is prohibitive.

 

My father in law was 83 and having mini strokes.. so he was on blood thinners and failing.. In hospital they discovered that he also had lung cancer but they couldn't take him off the blood thinners to operate.. We took him home and ten days later he passed quietly ...

 

1 Doctor thinks they are going to die within a year and that's it, ambulances will refuse to respond?

You are comparing apples to oranges. Your Dad is in a care facility, he can be examined to see if his condition is reversible or not. The folks in the article live at home with a caregiver and not. That's the difference.

I had a full time job lined up as I just graduated from a technical college 3 weeks earlier when I found him on the floor. It was a tough decision not to take the job, stay home and take care of him myself. It's one I will never regret.

 

The way it should be. I applaud you for doing so. The difference from those in the article I posted is he was already diagnosed and shown to truly be in the end of life cycle. The folks in the UK don't get that chance.

 

People do go to DNR unless they have been diagnosed.

You can sue an ambulance company or a hospital or a hospice for heroics if the patient is DNR.

 

Plus a substantial private healthcare option if you want it.

 

Dementia victims 'have twice the risk of dying in hospital while a third are not properly diagnosed by staff'

University professor, 37, dies from lung cancer after string of doctors dismissed symptoms as 'anxiety and depression'

Premature twins died after being given 10 times too much morphine, nursing tribunal hears

Failings in NHS cost 30,000 lives every year

Inspections highlight 'barbaric' home care failings

NHS watchdog to tackle malnutrition in hospitals

Elderly warned of growing isolation as face-to-face care cut

Family of RAF's finest who shot V1 rockets out the sky forced to sell medals to pay for care home

Closing the Independent Living Fund shows how low the government will go

Elderly patients diagnosed with 'acopia' - a disease that does not exist

Mid-Staffs scandal: Sir David Nicholson could face corporate manslaughter and misconduct charges

Growing fears of Bolton hospital death rate 'cover up'

Patients 'are still in danger from nurses who can't speak English' say MPs, as they call for urgent action

Older diabetics are suffering 'needless' amputations and blindness because they get the worst care

Pensioner placed on Liverpool Care Pathway WITHOUT family's permission dies after spending eight days without food or water

‘Basic errors in care cause kidney deaths’

Choosing a GP means gambling with your life – this must stop

Seventeen NHS hospitals have dangerously low numbers of nurses

Hospital patients won’t complain for fear of retribution

New avoidable-deaths scandal to put more pressure on NHS chief

Nurse linked to the death of premature twins killed by '10 times too much morphine' is allowed to keep working

NHS neglect: elderly patients ‘denied help with food’

Hip fracture patients suffering 'indefensible postcode lottery'

Snap inspections expose scandal of 'institutionalised abuse' in care homes and hospitals

Children's lives are being put at risk by a 'chronic shortage' of hospital doctors on weekends and evenings

Hospital that left patients lying in soiled sheets and shivering with cold is given a stark warning to improve by health watchdog

Mother-of-three dies of meningitis just five days after being admitted to hospital with EARACHE

A&E patients being forced to wait in ambulances for up to eight hours because of lack of beds

An unprecedented crisis is approaching, say the health service’s most senior figures

Number of patients being tied up and locked in rooms by care staff DOUBLES as MPs issue warning about hospital abuse

Thousands dying of thirst on NHS: Watchdog forced to issue guidelines on giving patients water

Woman who was sterilised is horrified to discover metal surgical clip had travelled from her groin to her CHEST

'My daughter was sent home from A&E to die of croup': Grieving mother to sue hospital after one-year-old's death

The little girl who could have been saved from meningitis - by jab NHS refuses to fund

Concerns over nursery worker who raped child 'were not investigated'

GPs predict longer waiting times - survey

NHS waiting lists are longest in five years

Pensioner died in agony after developing a horrific bedsore in hospital which left her spine exposed

Grandmother, 55, died from cervical cancer after her GP dismissed her symptoms as the MENOPAUSE

Children left disabled by meningitis after GPs failed to diagnose them are paid £28m in compensation

Girl, two, 'died after doctors failed to talk to each other about MRI scan that showed she had water on the brain'

Surge in elderly abuse and neglect claims

'I would worry if my family was taken to hospital at weekends': NHS boss admits he is concerned about staffing levels

How GPs are paid £50 bonus to put elderly on 'death lists'

Christian missionary, 49, died of heart failure and brain damage after waiting more than an HOUR for ambulance to arrive

We can all see how much better that is.

 

No, he will not be examined to determine if his condition is reversible or not. There is no point, since regardless of what the problem is, he will not receive treatment for it. The only medical care he is getting from now until he dies is comfort care -- pain management, non-invasive breathing assistance, treatment for anxiety if there is any, etc. If one wanted to be lurid about it, he's on a "death list."

The P.O.L.S.T. form is just as valid at home as at a nursing home; it's the governing document no matter where he is (it literally travels with him if he's sent to ER, or when he's discharged from the hospital or SNF). In fact, in a few days we hope to move Dad out of skilled nursing and into a Residential Care Facility for the Elderly. This is a small home-like environment where he will be cared for, but it is non-medical. No doctors, no nurses, no LPNs. A Hospice nurse will visit regularly to make sure his comfort needs are being taken care of. But she will not be diagnosing or treating him if he gets an infection or develops kidney failure. Her job, along with the rest of the Hospice team, will be to make sure he dies as peacefully as possible at the RCFE.

I envy you that you were in a position to care for your dad in his final chapter; I'm not so lucky (and I don't want to be a burden to the taxpayers or my employer ). My most fervent prayer these days is that I'll be with Dad when he passes, and in the days/hours beforehand. I guess that'll depend on what happens. If he has a heart attack or stroke, I won't make it. If it's an infection or respiratory failure, or simply the culmination of the dying process which he's already begun, I will. Either way, it gives me a good deal of comfort to know that he will never again be hospitalized, or have blood drawn, or have a nasal gastric tube, or intubation of any kind. As my mother says, it's time to "let nature take its course."