Current status: everyone should have one of these. See here to order them. The cards address not only the possibility of patients' food and fluids being cut off on the absurd basis that they are 'treatment', but also the scandal of hospitals not passing on to Hospital Chaplains the names of Catholic patients, even when the patients have identified themselves as Catholic for this purpose.From SPUC: Tens of thousands of UK Catholics now have ID cards telling doctors not to withhold liquid from them if they become ill. The card, produced by the Association of Catholic Women, reads: "In case of my admission to hospital, please contact a Roman Catholic priest. I would like my nursing care to include fluids - however administered." The production of the card follows fears about an increased acceptance of euthanasia. [The Observer, 14 January]
1 comment:
Having worked in the medical field as an EMT and in 3 NYC area hospitals for over twelve years, I can attest to the fact that many hospitals employ DRG- Diagnostic Related Grouping. In fact, this forms the basis for deciding who lives-and who does NOT! I have seen care for the extremely elderly withheld because of a lack of insurance balanced out against a "quality of life" formula that can only pass for bad medicine if one strtches the meaning of the word to include homicide.
Unfortunately, we live in an age in which doctors and hospitals need to have their noses "held in the mess" forcibly and made to smell their own stench. It must be done by anyone with a conscience who is at hand.
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