If you are elderly and blocking a bed, ...........

[woolybanana]

it may be cheaper to kill you off, but gently, without water ot food, and it seems legal. I always thought it was called murder.

Returning to UK may have some distinct disadvantages.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2161869/Top-doctors-chilling-claim-The-NHS-kills-130-000-elderly-patients-year.html

(But it is the DM)

[NormanH]

The patient’s extra 14 months of life came at considerable cost to the NHS and the taxpayer

ay, there's the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

[woolybanana]

Well, the next logical step, without wishing to denigrate Shakespeare, is to kill us all at, say, 70. Much cheaper. Your friendly local nurse could call, take your temperature, make sure your affairs are in order, gige you a cup of tea and a pill, and Abdul is your father, as they say in Bradford.

[powerdesal]

Killing a patient ( or letting them die ) by withholding food and water can be summed up in one word - Murder,

If parents were to starve a child to death, or a kidnapper starve a victim to death they would,rightly,be called murderers.

The Hippocratic oath says ( in part )....'' I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.''

The last 5 words say it all.

[Quillan]

Seventy Wooly, is that because you are younger than I and that will be your state pension age or do you think giving people five years of pension will stop them complaining about all the money they have forked out over their working life in NI stamps before they get euthanized. [:P] Perhaps we could start work camps for the sixteens and over when they leave school, a sign over the entrance such as "Work (labour) will set your free" would look nice. [:D] Also, what this fixation you have with Bradford? I am sure you have mentioned that place before.

[powerdesal]

Make sure the sign is very firmly fixed or someone will steal it and weigh it in for scrap value.

[Quillan]

[quote user="powerdesal"]Make sure the sign is very firmly fixed or someone will steal it and weigh it in for scrap value.[/quote]

They nicked the first one back in 2009 (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-5995217-504083.html ), but there is a copy.

[Gardengirl]

I do find it worrying, although I must admit

that my father was allowed to drift away (die!)

following a fall in his garden and lying outside overnight, which led to pneumonia, from which he never recovered consciousness. We felt

that he died in his beloved garden. If attempts had been made to bring him round and he'd not been able to get outside and garden, it wouldn't have been life to him; he learned to walk again on a false leg and gardened for several years after having a leg removed at the age of 80.

I take pleasure in this poem by Arthur Hugh Clough below, and in this connection was thinking of the underlined words:

THE

LAST DECALOGUE

THOU

shalt have one God only; who

Would be at the expense of two?

No graven images may be

Worshipped, except the currency:

Swear not at all; for, for thy

curse

Thine enemy is none the worse:

At church on Sunday to attend

Will serve to keep the world thy

friend:

Honour thy parents; that is, all

From whom advancement may befall:

Thou shalt not kill; but

need'st not strive

Officiously to keep alive:

Do not adultery commit;

Advantage rarely comes of it:

Thou shalt not steal; an empty

feat,

When it's so lucrative to cheat:

Bear not false witness; let the

lie

Have time on its own wings to

fly:

Thou shalt not covet, but

tradition

Approves all forms of

competition.

Arthur Hugh Clough

(1819-1861)

[NormanH]

I rather prefer Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

[Gardengirl]

Norman, that's another poem I enjoy reading and saying, and hope that I and those I love will do that. But I also think of my father and of my MIL, whose mind deteriorated; she thought she was a little girl, and used to cry for her mother and was frightened of the people she thought she saw in her room. When she was a little more with it, she never ceased calling for her husband, who had been dead for several years. Despite the care of medical staff and treatment, she had no pleasure in life in the last couple of years of her existence; nothing we could do for her or say/sing to her made any difference. It was so sad.

[woolybanana]

Right, Norman, so I take a nasty rottweiler to hospital to protect me against the system, plus a really cute little private nurse to ensure my care is adequate. Why go to hospital at all, then? That would unblock beds. Ooops, my house has been sold to pay for carehome residence which destroyed my health and therefore I have nowhere to go, so noone can get any value from me except as glue which Health and Safety says is unhygenic, so then what, the crematorium wont take me as that is bad for the environment and the graveyards are already full of homeless families. So, where do I go? The kids cant take me as they are renting and it says in their lease that they cant have pets, kids or old fa*ts.

Hmmm, where can I buy a machine-gun? No, no, not yet, as I have the right to an S1, so I'll go to France where they will have to keep me in wine, false teeth and those sweet warm incontinence pads that are all the rage these days. Did you know by the way that the NHS can save a fortune by using those and not cleaning patients so often, and that after they have been fouled, they warm up, thus saving of the hospital heating bill.....

One could go on but the sun appears to be approaching the yardarm, though damn slowly.

[NormanH]

"The Sun, the Sun" as Osvald says at the end of Ghosts  (since this has become a civilised literary thread)

But will Mrs Alving come through with her promise?

(Osvald has hereditary syphilis, and wants his mother to finish him off with morphine)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY8lddZz5Kw

[just john]

[quote user="NormanH"]I rather prefer Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 [/quote]

Good choice Normy, this was one of the readings at my wifes funeral . . .

I'm sure you'll all be aware of John Donne's poem

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

 

[NormanH]

I am very sorry for your loss, and salute your choice of a very fine piece of writing.