Assisted suicide is illegal in the UK, but on the 10th anniversary of the first British citizen visiting Dignitas a senior NHS consultant claimed doctors are prematurely ending the lives of thousands of elderly patients because they are difficult to manage or to free up beds. Professor Patrick Pullicino said hospitals use a controversial ‘death pathway’ (equivalent to euthanasia) when there was no clear evidence for initiating a method of care designed for use when death is imminent. ‘Far too often elderly patients who could live longer are placed on the pathway and it had now become an assisted death pathway rather than a care pathway.’ The professor revealed he had personally intervened to take a patient off the pathway to be successfully treated and then live a further 14 months.
Pray: that this issue will continue to be highlighted in the media until action is taken to implement more appropriate techniques of care for those terminally ill in NHS hospitals. (Mat.25:36)