Comment: Euthanasia in England – Far-left advocates of socialized medicine are still running cover for Britain’s National Health Service after top physician Patrick Pullicino admitted that the U.K.’s government-run medical system “euthanizes” as many as 130,000 patients every year. The respected neurologist and university professor told the Royal Society of Medicine in London that an end-of-life care method known as the “Liverpool Care Pathway” (LCP) used in British hospitals had actually become an “assisted death pathway rather than a care pathway.” Shortly after the news exploded into the global headlines, the opening ceremony for the Olympics in London was dedicated almost entirely to what critics called pro-NHS propaganda. It featured sick children being saved from demon-like characters by “heroic” NHS workers in an esoteric spectacle that attracted global criticism from across the political spectrum. Analysts say Obamacare will mean a similar fate for American medicine: rationing, euthanasia, long lines, and death.
“Professor Patrick Pullicino said doctors had turned the use of a controversial ‘death pathway’ into the equivalent of euthanasia of the elderly.”
“He claimed there was often a lack of clear evidence for initiating the Liverpool Care Pathway…”
“It is designed to come into force when doctors believe it is impossible for a patient to recover and death is imminent.”
“There are around 450,000 deaths in Britain each year of people who are in hospital or under NHS care. Around 29 per cent – 130,000 – are of patients who were on the LCP…”
“Professor Pullicino revealed he had personally intervened to take a patient off the LCP who went on to be successfully treated.”
“‘Very likely many elderly patients who could live substantially longer are being killed by the LCP. ‘”
“The LCP was developed in the North West during the 1990s and recommended to hospitals by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in 2004.”
“…Experts…, warned of ‘backdoor euthanasia’ and the risk that economic factors were being brought into the treatment of vulnerable patients.”
Top doctor’s chilling claim: The NHS kills off 130,000 elderly patients every year
June 19, 2012
By STEVE DOUGHTY FOR THE DAILY MAIL