Liverpool Care Pathway Investigated After Doctors Euthanize Elderly Patient

International   |   Wesley J. Smith   |   Jul 9, 2013   |   5:51PM   |   London, England

I have written often about the Liverpool Care Pathway and how it has led to backdoor euthanasia. Now, an official inquiry is being made into one death that may be LCP related.

From the Telegraph story:

Jean Tulloch, 83, died in March last year at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh where she had been treated for a urinary tract infection. Her son Peter, from Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, believes there is evidence to suggest doctors actively attempted to hasten her death by withdrawing her food and fluids for 30 hours. He reported the matter to police and it is now to be investigated by the Scottish Fatalities and Investigation Unit (SFIU), a branch of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, which orders criminal prosecutions and investigates deaths.

The hospital has denied wrongdoing:

NHS Lothian has previously strongly denied allegations of wrongdoing, saying that the care Mrs Tulloch received in hospital was not “anything other than compassionate, professional and in her best interests”.

“Best interests” according to whom and judged by what criteria? Equality of life?  ”Quality of life”? Cost of care? In that term–contemporary events demonstrate–lurk a myriad of possibilities.

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LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith, J.D., is a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture and a bioethics attorney who blogs at Secondhand Smoke.