Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Discrimination Against Handicapped People in the UK

The following story in The Mail On-line details widespread neglect of handicapped people in London hospitals. Now that eugenic abortion has been widely accepted in Western society, with arount 90% of babies diagnosed as probably having Down's Syndrome being killed by their parents and doctors by abortion, the logic of the lives of handicapped people not being worth protecting is being extended to handicapped children and adults. From the story:

"A vulnerable patient starved to death in an NHS hospital after 26 days without proper nourishment. Martin Ryan, 43, had suffered a stroke which left him unable to swallow.
But a 'total breakdown in communication' meant he was never fitted with a feeding tube. It was one of a number of horrific cases where the NHS fatally failed patients."


For the whole story, see: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1110054/Starved-death-NHS-hospital-Damning-inquiry-highlights-case-patient-left-food-26-days.html

The handicapped persons advocacy group, Mencap, has issued a damning report called "Death By Indifference," which details six cases of patients who died by neglect. All were handicapped. To see the report click here:
http://www.mencap.org.uk/case.asp?id=52&menuId=53&pageno=

Ann Abraham, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, has now begun to investigate the cases outlined in the report and The Mail On-line reports that sources close to the Ombudsman say that she will issue a "withering verdict" of a "devestating" overall picture of neglect.

Why are handicapped people being neglected? How does a 30 year old die of a broken leg in one of the richest countries of the world - one that has socialized medical care? What is behind this callous treatment of the weakest among us? If this is happening in London, what is the likliehood that this is the only place it is occurring?

Here is just a summary of one heart-rending story from the Mencap Report

"Emma was just 26 when she died. She had a severe learning disability, which meant she sometimes had difficulty communicating how she felt.

Emma was admitted to hospital for tests – she was upset and in pain. The hospital found her behaviour difficult to manage and sent her home without any help to control her pain. When Emma and her mum went back to the hospital for the results they were told Emma had cancer.


There was a 50:50 chance that she would survive if she was treated, but the doctors decided not to treat her. They said she couldn't consent to treatment. Again Emma was sent home with no way to help with her pain.

A week later Emma wasn't eating or drinking, so her mum took her back to the hospital and tried to make the doctors treat her daughter.

Still having to watch her daughter suffer from the cancer, Emma's mum went to the High court to force the doctors to treat her daughter, but by the time the order came through, the cancer had progressed too far.

Emma was admitted to a palliative care hospice where she died a month later."


I'm not sure who to feel sorry for the most: the mentally-impaired person who is being killed by neglect or the spiritually-impaired persons doing the killing. According to my theology, the former lose their physical lives, but will live forever with Jesus, but the latter lose their souls and will live forever cut off off from God in hell. I suppose the answer is that we should be most worried about what the culture of death is doing to all of us.

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