How to have a 'Good Death'!

posted on 22 October 2009 | posted in Family's Blog

To be LCP or Not to be LCP that IS the question?
Read here - Now the government must rethink palliative care

People have been dying for years but the Government (New Labour) try to control even death by putting in place guidelines for this inevitable event!

There are people who think that their loved ones have been 'put to death' by this 'new order Stalinist state' by being on the Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying:

Read here - Daughter claims father was wrongly placed on controversial NHS end of life scheme - the LCP.

In the case of my father Thomas Milner who was on a Palliative Care ward, he was NOT on the Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying or any other NHS end of life scheme! But we his family have grave concerns about this as well!

The Healthcare Commission was concerned that Thomas Milner was NOT on the Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying and made recommendations for the NHS Sheffield Teaching Hospital Foundation Trust to implement it in the future!

Then in the Telegraph 3/9/09 a Letter is published, written by some eminent Palliative Care Specialists, which criticises the Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying:

Read here - how this group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death

Quick to retaliate was Tom Hughes-Hallett, Chief Executive at the Marie Curie Centre, who wanted to protect the Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying which was created by his Institute, the Marie Curie Centre. He has said that it is not the LCP pathway that is at fault but the NHS staff who are NOT trained to carry out it's procedures!!!

Read here - Marie Curie Chief says Liverpool Care Pathway protects dignity of the Dying and that it's TRAINING of NHS staff which is needed!

Like a bolt out of the blue the NHS/Government Cancer Tsar, Professor Mike Richards, spokesperson OR puppet has jumped onto the band wagon and is now saying that training of medical staff who work on Palliative Care and End of Life Care wards should be Mandatory. Does that mean that up until now NHS staff 'caring' for the dying have NOT been trained? Was this not elementary? What has this 'Leader in the care of the Dying been doing for his salary?

Read here - NHS/Government spokesperson Professor Mike Richards, Cancer Tsar leads the way in Care of the Dying by saying 'Training should be mandatory!

Is New Labour and it's cronies spinning again?

So after all the guidelines, schemes, pathways and initiatives that the NHS spend time and money on creating, they seem to have missed out ONE basic requirement - TRAINING.

See CASE POINTS 'Palliative Care New Technique' at tomsanguish.com to read how the Palliative Care Ward at the Northern General Hospital, Sheffield give care to the dying.

Everybody is different. Some will slip away off into the next world peacefully and serenely. Others like my father will be in torment and anguish until the last breath.

Sedation can offer tranquility. Without it can be tortuous.

However how can you write basic care, compassion and kindness into a 'guideline'?

If we are in the hands of 'carers' who are working on a tick box system, God Help Us.

Perhaps now is the time to consider Voluntary Euthanasia or is that too controversial a subject? There again some would argue that the Liverpool Care Pathway is Euthanasia by another name!

All Tom needed was suitable medication to ease his dying 'condition'

The nurse that refused his medication on his penultimate day, we think, had some kind of personality disorder which likes to inflict pain.
Then of course there were the 'nurses' on duty 2 hours before his death. These nurses just watched as he twisted and turned on his death bed. I had to call the G.P. to summon help.

It now turns out, this medical staff were just NOT trained!

GOD HELP US ALL!

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