The "Liverpool Care Pathway" (LCP) is a system of hospice/palliative care in the UK. In the last few years, the system has come under fire as "stealth euthanasia" in which patients are put on the LCP "without consent" and without "being allowed, food, fluids and medication." See the BBC article set forth below: “Liverpool Care Pathway: Your experiences.”
I periodically receive similar complaints from people in the US and Canada. Consider, for example, this letter by an elder care facility owner in Washington State where assisted suicide is legal:
"Since the [assisted suicide] act passed, we have . . . noticed that some members of the medical profession are quick to bring out the morphine to begin comfort care without considering treatment. Sometimes they do this on their own without telling the client and/or the family member in charge of the client's care."
http://www.montanansagainstassistedsuicide.org/2012/07/dear-montana-board-of-medical-examiners.htmlConsider also, this letter published in a Montana newspaper:
“If these terrible deaths happen when aid in dying (assisted suicide and euthanasia) is not legal, what will happen if these practices are made legal? Doctors will have even more power to take away patient choice."
http://www.montanansagainstassistedsuicide.org/2013/04/dont-give-doctors-more-power-to-abuse.html
Margaret Dore, Attorney at Law
President, Choice is an Illusion, a nonprofit corporation
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"Liverpool Care Pathway: Your Experiences"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23301360
The LCP was developed to support dying patients
The Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) should be phased out, an independent review is expected to say.
The system was designed to allow terminally-ill patients to die peacefully and with dignity.
However, the LCP has come under criticism with some believe
it is being used to speed up the process of dying. There have been some
reports of patients being put on it without consent and not being
allowed, food, fluids and medication.
Here, [three] family members of those who have been on the Liverpool Care Pathway, share their experiences of the programme. [There are two unfavorable views and one favorable view of the LCP]
Two years ago, when I was 22, I lost my 56-year-old mother to cancer.
During the six months from her diagnosis in January 2012
until her death, she was unknowingly to us put on the LCP. She was
deprived of fluids and any source of nutritional supplement without even
the slightest consent or conversation with me or my family.
It was only after my absolute insistence and persistence that
my mother received fluids and that was after over 36 hours without any.
It scares me that people who do not have bossy and demanding
families, like me and mine, to fight for them will be left or even
encouraged to die via the LCP.
My mother survived another three months. We got to hear her
laugh and joke again and importantly my mother got to say her goodbyes.
Had the enforced LCP been allowed to continue, those few important
months of time with my mother would have without a doubt been taken away
from me and my family.
I can't stress how important me and my family feel about the
process of the LCP. It needs to be readdressed - the memories it could
have deprived me of are invaluable. She wrote me a letter that I will
have forever and it will always be the most treasured item I possess.
"The Liverpool Care Pathway aided her in a gentle and thoughtful way”
My mother passed away from
cancer just three months ago. The Liverpool Care Pathway was used and I
have nothing but praise for it. We had help from night nurses through
the NHS Beacon program, Marie Curie and Macmillan, all of which gave
exemplary care. Leaflets on the LCP were given to us and time was taken
by all to fully explain why and how it would work.
Towards the end, my mother couldn't swallow and didn't want
food - this was her body getting ready to die. It was slow and peaceful,
and she was my mother until about the day before when we all knew she
was leaving.
There was no prolonging of life. She was ready to go and the
Liverpool Care Pathway aided her in a gentle and thoughtful way. It
wasn't the refusal to give her food and drink; she no longer wanted it.
She had as natural an early death as can be and I am thankful
as it helped me and my family cope as we saw her slip away. This is
something that should be offered and explained to patients and family
and I have nothing but support for it.
My father Professor Robert Hughes was subjected to this
technique without my or his consent. When it became clear that his
cancer of the prostrate became untreatable I was asked what I wanted to
do and I told them clearly that I wanted him to die with dignity.
I was assured by the staff at the hospital that would happen,
that he would have died a dignified death. He didn't. He was sedated,
unconscious and died within three days looking like something from
Belsen concentration camp.
He was not given water or food but instead put on a driver syringe containing diamorphine, midazolam and cyclizine. The first two of those drugs would down a horse. . .
Sadly there is no going back. I didn't know that once started, it's irreversible.
No one makes this clear. This is the main part, if not for some the final part, of the LCP.
In the new scheme when that comes out, if they allow these
two drugs to be continued to be used, it is euthanasia, plain and
simple.
