Is it time access to free NHS care was age limited?

bugslet

Cakeguts wrote: »

I think you may be in a minority. At one time we had a next door neighbour who was a geriatric nurse and they had to keep very ill elderly people going as long as possible in order to stop relatives from suing the hospital if the ill elderly person died before the relatives thought they should. They had to revive extremely ill geriatric patients if their hearts stopped beating because younger relatives wanted everything done to prolong the life of their relatives.

As ever there's a mix of people. Given that a significant majority of the population support euthanasia, there must be some who don't go for life continuance at any cost.

Mr bugs died a few years back of dementia. His brother and I ended up in the frankly bizarre situation of a meeting about him have sub-cutaneous fluids when he stopped eating and drinking, with 8 people from macmillan ( he had cancer as well), social services, his Gp, nursing home. His brother and I were not keen on the sub-cuts, but were told it was best. It's very difficult as a non medical person ( and in my case beneficiary of his will) to say don't do this.

In the end, I wrote a stongly worded letter and they stopped the sub-cuts. I was pretty much at the point of putting a pillow over his face, it was a shocking and brutal death.

So whilst I think the OP really lacks a grasp of the concept of society, I do think there are times when we should be able to say that continuance of treatment is unhelpful for either the patient or to be blunt, the country's finances.

System

westernpromise wrote: »

I've got bad news for you: eugenics have been out of vogue since May 1945.

No, it ended in 1976 in Sweden. The laws were not finally abolished until 2013.

antrobus

Clifford_Pope wrote: »

No, it ended in 1976 in Sweden. The laws were not finally abolished until 2013.

What? How can that be possible? Sweden was being run by those-ever-so-nice Social Democrats.:)

On the other hand the Swedes do appear to have practiced 'forced sterilization' between 1934 and 1975, and at least some of those seem to have been carried out on eugenic grounds.

Here's a bit from the Guardian about Sweden offering compensation to the vicims.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/mar/06/stephenbates

And as the Guardian states;

As in Britain, where some of eugenics' most enthusiastic supporters were on the political left, liberals and Social Democrats backed the Swedish programme and sustained it for decades.

antrobus

bugslet wrote: »

..So whilst I think the OP really lacks a grasp of the concept of society,...

That's one way of putting it.

bugslet wrote: »

...I do think there are times when we should be able to say that continuance of treatment is unhelpful for either the patient or to be blunt, the country's finances.

Well yes, but there is obviously a difference between (a) wanting to withdraw NHS treatment from everybody over the age of 75 and (b) families and clinicians making a decision about the end of life treatment for one particular person, which might involve the withdrawal of one or more treatments.

The first is genocide, the second is just life.

westernpromise

It is quite clear that old people owe the young. There are calories in their bodies that should be given back. I propose that old people be rendered down into soap and the soap given to ruperts, solving two problems at once.

westernpromise

antrobus wrote: »

What? How can that be possible? Sweden was being run by those-ever-so-nice Social Democrats.:)

On the other hand the Swedes do appear to have practiced 'forced sterilization' between 1934 and 1975, and at least some of those seem to have been carried out on eugenic grounds.

Here's a bit from the Guardian about Sweden offering compensation to the vicims.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/mar/06/stephenbates

And as the Guardian states;

As in Britain, where some of eugenics' most enthusiastic supporters were on the political left, liberals and Social Democrats backed the Swedish programme and sustained it for decades.

If you go back to what GBS, HGW and other starry eyed socialists of 100 years ago thought, they were all for eugenics because it was the only way a welfare state would be affordable. If you had benefits for everybody then you'd go bust unless you killed off the disabled, feeble minded and elderly.

The OP is essentially arguing that the social spending of the last 150 years ago has all been a terrible mistake and that they had it right back in about 1800-odd.

Marktheshark

Why not limit the FREE NHS to those using it FREE.
Everyone else pays for it with a thing called national insurance.
Which of you pay it will know is about 4x more expensive on the average wage than private health care.


Go back to how it was set up, no NI stamps paid = emergency only treatment.
The elderly have usually paid theirs.
Problem solved.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

There is certainly a discussion to be had about end of life care, aggressive treatment in the final stages of terminal illness, and separately about how we fund the NHS going forward. An age cut-off is a lazy way of approaching this though.

the_flying_pig

Jack_Johnson_the_acorn wrote: »

Resuscitation is a violent and painful procedure. It's not just a zap em back to life procedure as portrayed in film and TV. If I'm already frail the last thing I want is to be Resuscitated.

Hospitals won't be sued if they're not allowed to give free treatment to ill geriatric patients. That's the point.

I think that at a minimum there could be a totally stigma-free 'opt out' from resuscitation for say the over-85s, something like a donor card that says, you know:


'look, I'm 87 years old, if my heart stops then that's it, I'm dead, please don't try & bring me back'.


it'd be interesting to know how many would sign up for it. I like to think that I would when I'm that age, though of course if I changed my mind then I'd hope that those wishes would be respected too.


I know that towards the end my granddad very much wished that he'd been able to do something similar.

antrobus

westernpromise wrote: »

If you go back to what GBS, HGW and other starry eyed socialists of 100 years ago thought, they were all for eugenics because it was the only way a welfare state would be affordable. If you had benefits for everybody then you'd go bust unless you killed off the disabled, feeble minded and elderly...

Oh, I know.

"The men of the New Republic will not be squeamish, either, in facing or inflicting death, because they will have a fuller sense of the possibilities of life than we possess. They will have an ideal that will make killing worth the while; like Abraham, they will have the faith to kill, and they will have no superstitions about death. They will naturally regard the modest suicide of incurably melancholy, or diseased or helpless persons as a high and courageous act of duty rather than a crime."


Anticipations: Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human life and Thought (HG Wells)

Marktheshark wrote: »

... Everyone else pays for it with a thing called national insurance.....

National insurance pays for benefits; mostly the state pension. Since 2002, a slice of NI has been hypothecated to health care, the NHS allocation, but the NHS is 80% funded by general taxation.

Marktheshark wrote: »

...Which of you pay it will know is about 4x more expensive on the average wage than private health care....

The NHS Budget is about £120 bn. There are 65 million people in the UK. So that's about £1,850 per person, per year. That's actually quite cheap.