Health

U.K. Professor: Doctors Using ‘Death Pathway’ to Euthanize Patients

U.K. Professor Claims Doctors Are Initiating the Liverpool Care Pathway too Early and Euthanizing Patients

Professor Patrick Pullicino (Photo: University of Kent)

Patrick Pullicino, a professor of clinical neurosciences at the United Kingdom’s University of Kent, has some disturbing news for terminally ill patients within the U.K.’s healthcare system: it is that up to 130,000 patients may have been killed before their time.

The Daily Mail reports Pullicino saying the Liverpool Care Pathway, a protocol doctors can use when patients are not expected to recover which he likens to a “death pathway,” was used on 29 percent of the 450,000 people who die in National Health Services hospitals each year.

According to the Marie Curie Palliative Care Institute, LCP is “used at the bedside to drive up sustained quality of the dying in the last hours and days of life.” A patient’s/family member’s guide to LCP states that this pathway could involve the following: stopping any medication that is no longer helpful or prescribing new medication; stopping unnecessary testing; and, depending on the situation, stopping administration of food and water.

According to a healthcare provider’s guide, LCP has been recommended in several prominent papers and by organizations throughout the 2000s. Before enacting LCP, a “multidisciplinary team” evaluates the patient’s situation and all the possible options. If the patient is “diagnosed as dying” then LCP can be enacted after communication the diagnosis to all those involved.

Pullicino though has said that too often patients could live longer before they are put on LCP, citing the claims that they were within their last hours and days as “palpably false.”

Here’s an example Pullicino provided to the Daily Mail:

In the example he revealed a 71-year-old who was admitted to hospital suffering from pneumonia and epilepsy was put on the LCP by a covering doctor on a weekend shift.

Professor Pullicino said he had returned to work after a weekend to find the patient unresponsive and his family upset because they had not agreed to place him on the LCP.

“I removed the patient from the LCP despite significant resistance,” he said.

“His seizures came under control and four weeks later he was discharged home to his family,” he said.

[...]

The patient’s extra 14 months of life came at considerable cost to the NHS and the taxpayer, Professor Pullicino indicated.

He said he needed extensive support with wheelchair, ramps and nursing. 

After 14 months the patient was admitted to a different hospital with pneumonia and put on the LCP. The man died five hours later.

To Pullicino, the lack of evidence used in some cases for initiating LCP makes it an “assisted death pathway rather than a care pathway.” Pullicino said that predicting someone’s last days is scientifically impossible.

The Daily Mail reports that Pullicino is not alone in his concern for LCP. Three years ago, it states, other prominent professors and healthcare professionals said LCP was a “backdoor” for euthanasia.

The Daily Mail does note a spokesperson within the Department of Health saying they don’t recognize any of the figures cited by Pullicino.

Life News and National Right to Life News, among other pro-life sites, have reported on the “shocking” claims made by Pullicino. Life News reports American bioethicist Wesley Smith saying this only serves to who that the U.K.’s National Health Service is collapsing and is “only going to get worse.”

Featured image via Alex@Faraway/Flickr. 

Comments (73)

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  • Chromo200
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 11:29am

    Why should people get upset about this .. We allow the killing of babies and talking about killing children up to three years old and we don’t bat an eye. Why should we worry about the old/terminally ill. Just kill them and save money. Let us harvest their good body parts for the highest bidder.

    We have raised a crop of doctors that have no ethics or compassion. The ones that do are chased out of the hospitals, or take jobs for little or no money in poor countries.

    Most of the doctors became doctors to make money, nothing else. I’m not saying that they should not be paid for their skill, just that they do this for money only and have no feelings nor compassion for their patients.

    Report Post »  
    • JimL
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 11:58am

      And your profession?

      Report Post »  
    • lukerw
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 1:47pm

      Whom are the We? The only Liberals here are Provocateurs!

      Report Post » lukerw  
    • 3monkeysmomma
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 2:41pm

      At age 82 my grandmother suffered a stroke. It was the first time in her life she had been seriously ill. As her designated medical decision-maker, the hospital tried to pressure me to with hold food and water saying she’d never recover. I refused!

      She left the hospital a week later and lived another 10 years.

      RIP Granny. I miss you, you tough old lady!

      Report Post » 3monkeysmomma  
    • seresmary
      Posted on June 22, 2012 at 12:05am

      Unfortunately the Hyppocratic Oath that doctors take has become the Hypocritical Oath.
      They go to medical school to learn how to make people well and save lives and then when it suits
      them they use their knowledge to “kill” those same patients

      Report Post »  
    • Amarath01
      Posted on June 22, 2012 at 9:40pm

      A bit radical, But people need to die.
      There is the truth.
      Listen we keep people alive far past what they would normally live (so its not about gods will, so shove off), but at many points you have people dieing slow deaths that should end in a few months with some pain lasting 1 year with tons of pain stuck in a hospital draining resources without any hope or chance for recovery… but you know if we.. we can make them live a bit long… even tho THEY SHOULDN’T. And our society in particular doesn’t even confront or discuss death, life eternal is the philosophy and creed.. what a joke people need to start choosing to die, choosing for their parents to allow them to die. Because weather its today, 1 month 4 months they are stuck in an hospital bed, in pain, pooping and ******* on themselves, with low functionality , possibly not conscious (even worse if they are) diing a slow death .. that we keep pulling away from them.
      Now not every situation is this way… but quite a few are. And we need to have pathways to death.. because no one is talking about natural ways to death.

      Report Post »  
  • rrrrea
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 11:14am

    It has happen here in the usa -utah with a relative of mine in hospice care. The doctor took away all medications from my relative and gave him powerful pain killers and he died a few weeks later.

     
  • another mimi
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 10:55am

    In order to keep the fed. gov. noses out of our “end-of-life” issues, we as individuals must take more responsibility for this aspect of our lives.

    Make sure you have a living will and an advance directive about what you want when you are dying, and discuss this with your family. Everyone I talk to say they do NOT want futile life sustaining efforts made when they are terminal, and that they only wish to be kept comfortable as they die. This would eliminate a lot of the problems we now face as a society.

    Report Post »  
    • JimL
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 11:33am

      Appoint a lawyer who will represent you- your values.

      Report Post »  
    • US-First
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 1:04pm

      How many of those you questioned were actually faced with the knowledge that they were in the last days or hours of their life? Easy to say when you are healthy and vital as you look down at old age and illness by comparison. When you get old and closer to the grave you will find its all a matter of prospective and relativity. I work in a care setting that serves those terminally ill in the last supposed hours, days of their lives. Unless someone has been living under palliative care for months they almost all wish they had more time. Anecdotal, about 25% of the patients that have been told their end is quite near recover enough to go home and live months or in some cases even years longer. I don’t know how that plays out nationally. If you could spend that time watching your grand kids grow-up you would probably chose to have that time. If you have nothing to go back to you likely are happy to be moving on but that is not a decision that should be legislated.

      It also should not be a matter of fairness in that I can see some groups deciding that because so and so had such an empty life an does not wish to live longer with illness that other so and so who has a supportive family and loving friends and a reason to live must be subject to the same life depreciating care.

      We are giving up too much to government. Too much of our lives are determined by too few. When government can legislate itself power over life and death what do you think are going to be the results?

      Report Post »  
    • mikem1969
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 1:34pm

      Ahh, the death panels cometh with obahitlerstalinmao kill ya care.

      Report Post »  
    • iblvingd
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 5:22pm

      With Obama Care your doctor has to have an end of life discussion if you are on medicare, and decide for you how you are going to die. This is what Obama has in mind for anyone over 65.

      Report Post »  
    • Lt_Scrounge
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 11:47pm

      Medicare is already telling doctors that for patients over the age of 75, the doctors have to get permission for certain procedures from a medicare panel, even if the procedures are needed immediately. This includes dialysis for people with kidney failure. Whether the person can afford the procedure or has insurance to pay for it or not doesn’t matter. If the medicare panel says, “let them die”, the doctors aren’t permitted to perform the procedure or face losing their license.

      Anyone else ready to march on the White House if Obamao doesn’t step down gracefully after the election? Anyone else got their feather pillows, buckets of tar and torches and pitchforks lined up?

      Report Post »  
    • bigdaddyt46
      Posted on June 22, 2012 at 9:32am

      you are sooo right on this i sat down with my elderly mother and then an attorney redid her will and also set up power of attorney both medical and financial.plus on my own crafted a legal living will. so when she does get seriously ill, or the Lord in his infinate wisdom calls her home, i can step in and take over and the government can go pound sand(no probate) i get everything and will distrubute according to her wishes, instead of some judge saying this goes her, and this goes there ect. i encourage everyone to do the same with themselves, their spouces and their parents.

      Report Post » bigdaddyt46  
  • HelloWorld
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 10:53am

    Here comes the abuse folks. When you take medicine out of the hands of the ethical individuals and place it in the hands of the bean counters or the government it isn’t so difficult to kill people.

    Report Post »  
  • abbygirl1994
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 10:52am

    The only reason the costs are so high is because the medical society is so greedy.. stop charging your high prices so all people can afford healthcare! These people like Hollywood think they are God’s, they are not! This is a global problem.. it can be fixed.. but first these people have to get off their pedestals! I feel very sad for people who have died early because the UK who created LCP… evil in all its glory! Shame!

    Report Post » abbygirl1994  
    • JimL
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 11:56am

      Replace Healthcare (undefinable) with Medicalcare and costs will come down.

      Report Post »  
  • davetrav
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 10:50am

    THIS is the same thing OBAMA HAS IN OBAMACARE. I ask you this—-Is this what America is coming
    too ? America wake up and ring the damn phones off the hook in Washington–ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
    America is still –WE THE PEOPLE—- If we kept allowing Obama and friends to stay in power–SHAME ON YOU. —– Obama wants to tell you how to think, eat, walk and talk, HE is a commie bastard
    hell bent on controlling America. Congress and senate are already to stupid to see what is going on.
    Obama cares not about US—WAKE UP—VOTE HIM OUT.

    Report Post »  
  • scuba13
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 10:47am

    So that’s what a Death Panel looks like, a death pathway.

    Report Post » scuba13  
  • MRMANN
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 10:43am

    I can only hope that when these doctors’ time comes, they get placed on LCP.

    Report Post »  
  • shogun459
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 10:34am

    I am sure that under Obama Care I will quickly be determined as subpar in my quality of life and snuffed for my own good.
    And the fact that I am a Bible believeing Constitution Quoting Anti-Leftist won’t have anything to do with the Leftists decision to murder me.

    Report Post » shogun459  
    • Kelly Henderson
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 10:36pm

      When obama-care kicks in,white people are going to be on the endangered species list. The goverment is all about making the whites a minority and the death panels are going to be an excellent way to bring it about.We have screwed up by letting this P>O>S> in the white house.I am white and 62 years old with health issues. I know what is in store for me. But i am so worried about my kids and grand kids future. The only thing they have going against them is the fact that they are white. But that is the elephant in the room.Mark my word. We are being set up. Protect your young ones.

      Report Post »  
  • Cabo King
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 10:27am

    Obama, try this bed out!! just your size

    Report Post » Cabo King  
  • BlackCrow
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 10:16am

    If Obamacare is allowed to stand this will be coming to hospitals and nursing homes near you.

    Report Post » BlackCrow  
    • rickc34
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 10:34am

      Agreed the panel that will be making decisions does not even have a medical training. Hospice also does this stopping medications like heart, blood pressure ect medications that can shorten a patients life by up to months. I have seen patients started on hospice given weeks to live and taken off after one year. Doctors are not God this is population control. A sort of planned parenthood

      Report Post »  
  • samurai2112
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 9:57am

    The professor for my Healthcare Econ class that I took for my masters had a really interesting set of slides. For some reason healthcare effectiveness is always linked to average lifespan with the US firmly in the middle of industrialized nations. What no one shares is the next set of data. When you look at average lifespans to age 85 the US grows and the rest of the countries decline. When you look at 85 and up the US is still growing and the other nations are flat line.

    In European countries they are so conditioned and accept the word of the doctors(government) that when they are told there is nothing anyone can do they simply go home to die. They accept that they do not want to take resources from their kids or grandkids to have a chance to live longer. In the US that is not the norm and many want to do anything to continue to live because the will to live has not been removed from them completely.

    This is simple black and white statistics with a lot of ethical debate in the middle. I simply see it as a clear example of how socialism eats away at individuals in so many ways they would accept this type of care.

    Report Post » samurai2112  
  • slr4528
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 9:54am

    Palin was right-US healthcare will have death panels if Obamacare is upheld. I am sure the liberals will mask the name of death panels and reference the process as a Quality of Life Index. People had better wake up in this country!!!!!

    Report Post »  
  • SOUNDTHETRUMPET
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 9:54am

    This is Obama Commie care.

    Report Post »  
    • calisun
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 10:14am

      We already have this type of care here in the US. My mother passed away a couple years ago. She had a stroke and was in a coma like state. My mother had no insuance so the hospital was quick to pull the plug. They pressured my family to “do the right thing” They deprived her of food and water and she was gone in a matter of a couple days. How is this any different?

      Report Post » calisun  
  • teddrunk
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 9:44am

    Is it any wonder the left, already comfortable with killing children, are equally comfortable killing the elderly or ill? One’s “quality of life” will be measured on ones ability to be productive in the commune. It’s the U.S.S.R. the libs dreamed about, pure Communism. Only the modern version doesn’t use work in a Siberian gold mine to do it.

    Report Post »  
  • RightUnite
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 9:39am

    Coming to a hospital near you….

    Report Post »  
    • objectivetruth
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 10:06am

      Its already here/Its genocide thats about to be launched on a scale you can’t even begin to fathom.It starts with the least able to protect themselves.When they run out they will come for everyone else.How you may ask?They will switch something thats totally treatable with something that either isn’t or has a poor prognosis.Where the treatment kills [cancer].Head and spinal trauma patients will be given the label of being retarded or insane as a excuse not to treat,They positively love this one.The false diagnosis will give them the right to actively kill.If the pain doesn’t drive the person to take their own life first.[This has already been used by enemys of the state against certain people]
      They will ensconce it in medical legaleze and send it through courts that you aren’t legally subject to.They will keep it hidden as long as possible.
      If you disbelieve me just check your own states laws.They have considerably stepped up the medical professions powers to life threatning levels.Oh and after 911 the city of NY and the State of NY took the lead.They allowed just about anybody to commit[for both physical and mental]anyone else.Wiithout oversight.It became the terrorist criminal haven central for medical crimes against the state and the people.

      Report Post »  
    • JimL
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 11:37am

      Otruth: Hospital board is the authority.

      Report Post »  
    • objectivetruth
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 12:25pm

      @JIM
      I could write you a book on how the enemy within has destroyed lives and how they will continue to do so if they aren’t stopped.I’m a graduate of the school of hard knocks.The methods they use span every area and include backfeeding.They have infiltrated every area of government.It would be easier for me to tell you what they haven’t done.
      You and everyone else needs to learn what backfeeding is all about.Backfeeding is the process of creating multiple false allegations identifying info into multiple government agencies.Its used to get the agencies to perform forms of surviellence harrassement torture on the target.It almost always involves interjecting some supposedly hidden clandestine or horrific crime the target alledgedly commited.The need to keep it secret.This will be coupled with other allegations also involving other agencies.These will be the medical profession usually.They will in turn claim that the person has supposedly dimished capacity.They may claim to be the parents spouses and or kids of the target.[Fiduary fraud and life insurance fraud]The alledged crime is the excuse for keeping contact with the target.Need to know when they die to collect.They will manufacture false backgrounds, to be for court purposes ,the relative.It will always go into a court the individual isn’t legally subject too.Or in a hospital court with no oversight.Translated a kangaroo court.Almost always it involves treatment for a non existant condition.

      Report Post »  
    • objectivetruth
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 1:00pm

      @JIML
      Continued
      They will ignore the conditions the target actually have.Most of the made up conditions either have a cronic or life threatning quality to them.Or they are connected with false accusations of violent horrific crime.[Demonization]Both allow the target to be treated at home.The later to be drugged ahead of time.The drugging is done to prevent the target from identification of perp.The medical treatment is just a cover for torture.The marks left aren’t those of medical devices alone.Although they may include the marks left by insulin syringes and 18 gauge needle marks[usually used for plasma donation].They are in fact the marks of mechanics tools and carpentry tools.The genitals ears and mouth are the preferred spots.There are a wide variety of items injected as well to include but not limited to iodine postasium pomegranite plastics slivered grains of rice seeds plastics glue exc.
      Truly sad is the fact that they will do anything to isolate the target.They will go to any degree to do so.In the old days when long distance phone service was expensive many young adults who moved away from home couldn’t afford to call much.They could afford to return even less.This was usually when they would bring the false accusations of a alledgedhorrific crime to the familys attention.They ensconced it in the need to know bs[both investigative and/or ns].Its how they rooked many of the targets real family into the fray.
      Impact of this is beyond your wildest nightmares.

      Report Post »  
    • janmil200
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 1:27pm

      Been going on for a long time.

      Report Post »  
    • JimL
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 4:10pm

      Otruth: Trust in the Lord and wise as serpents.

      Report Post »  
  • Tax Revolt
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 9:39am

    Coming soon to a hospital near you. I hope the SCOTUS realizes that the individual mandate is nothing more than a tax for being alive and kills obamascare.

    Report Post »  
  • HorseCrazy
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 9:37am

    I read this yesturday and it reinforced what I already knew to be happening having relatives and parents that are doctors. you must fight for good care for your families both here and overseas. no to socialized medicine and if you are breathing, God isn’t done with you yet. There is a purpose for you here. Life is so fragile treat it with care.

    Report Post »  
    • JimL
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 11:42am

      Thank You

      Report Post »  
    • netmail
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 12:23pm

      And take A LOT of personal responsibility for your own health. The majority of the time, YOU make the biggest difference!! When it comes to managing symptoms, I think the “path way” is quickly turning in to the ‘Expressway’ to death. Ineffective and often harmful treatments do lead to predictable end results which are then twisted statistically to support an obvious death agenda. At least it seems obvious to me.

      Report Post »  
    • alesak
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 2:57pm

      Exactly, well said.

      Report Post »  
  • hauschild
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 9:34am

    This report should make Cass Sunstein blush with pride.

    Report Post »  
    • objectivetruth
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 10:09am

      Actually I think he gets a tingle up both legs at this one.What gets me is that after ww2 they would have been seen for what they are.Accomplices to the Enemy of the State.Dealth with accordingly.

      Report Post »  
  • BobtheMoron
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 9:29am

    Most of Congress is brain dead. Can we put them on LCP?

    Report Post » BobtheMoron  
  • LeadNotFollow
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 9:20am

    …
    Euthanasia…..coming soon to America. It’s called ObamaCare.

    Report Post »  
  • SREGN
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 9:19am

    Socialism is genocidal. Whether it be babies, the elderly, the infirm, or the disagreers, they just love to jump on the killing people bandwagon.

    Report Post »  
    • progressiveslayer
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 9:41am

      It all leads to the death cult that is communism,that is after all the plan of our POS Marxist president.

      Report Post » progressiveslayer  
  • lukerw
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 9:16am

    Ah, yes…. The FABIAN Society… Socialist… Mentality!

    Report Post » lukerw  
  • progressiveslayer
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 9:07am

    End of life issues should be handled by the patient and the doctor,government has no business in it because when they are you end up with a situation like Germany in the 30′s.

    Our Marxist POS president has been for single payer for years,there’s a clip of the Marxist advocating this position on the net.This so called Obama care is a path to single payer but I’m confident that SCOTUS will strike down that abomination of a law.Government stay the hell out of end of life issues,it’s too dangerous to have government involved in this.

    Report Post » progressiveslayer  
    • Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 9:11am

      This is exactly what Obama intended, as do the Progressives with the passage of Obamacare; and now the White House has announced, no matter the decision of the SCOTUS crushing Obamacare, that it will continue in the Human and Health Services Department.

      Report Post » Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}  
    • Vickie Dhaene
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 9:15am

      Government is already in “The Business”. Hospice is subsidized through Medicare/Medicaid and Donations.

      Report Post »  
    • progressiveslayer
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 9:35am

      Yes government is involved through medicare and medicaid but our Marxist leader wants to spread that joy to the entire population and do away with private health insurance entirely.

      Report Post » progressiveslayer  
    • NHwinter
      Posted on June 21, 2012 at 10:01am

      This accomplishes the goal of fewer and fewer people in the world. This is pure evil.

      Report Post » NHwinter  
    • vanman4446
      Posted on June 23, 2012 at 3:44pm

      Are you kidding the SCOTUS voted for abortion, do you think they will knock down Obummercare. No way

      Report Post »  
  • JACKTHETOAD
    Posted on June 21, 2012 at 9:04am

    Maybe he could come over here and do the Beltway. :)

    Report Post » JACKTHETOAD  
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