Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

British Court: Patient Can Be Denied Life-Sustaining Treatment Against Her Will

jonathanturley.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 24 posts

Re: British Court: Patient Can Be Denied Life-Sustaining Treatment Against Her Will

#11

Post by kmlx »

Detrytus wrote: post #5
splittydev wrote: post #2

Well, this is absolutely crazy... I hope she and her family manage to fight this decision somehow. I get that she's seriously ill, but denying her the option to live for even a day longer is absolutely insane and should be illegal.

Well, that's the downside of publicly funded healthcare: government pays for your treatment, so government gets to decide if you are worth the expense. Which of course is completely fucked up.

that person can still go private. no one will deny her that right.

but state funded healthcare makes sure even the poorest get some form of care. and yes, they will triage.

Re: British Court: Patient Can Be Denied Life-Sustaining Treatment Against Her Will

#12

Post by kmlx »

master_crab wrote: post #7

It’s not clear if she is being supported by NHS or fully private insurance. The UK does exercise triage on long term cases. The flip side is no country can afford to maintain every patient with a terminal condition indefinitely and doctors are allowed to exercise judgement.

it’s the NHS: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-66673511

of course they implement triage. but if the person has enough money they can go private.

Re: British Court: Patient Can Be Denied Life-Sustaining Treatment Against Her Will

#13

Post by viraptor »

splittydev wrote: post #2

Well, this is absolutely crazy... I hope she and her family manage to fight this decision somehow. I get that she's seriously ill, but denying her the option to live for even a day longer is absolutely insane and should be illegal.

Kind of, sometimes, but not always. On the other side of this is the "daughter from California" scenario https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daughter_from_California_syndr... which you also don't want to end up in. There has to be some threshold for the doctors to say "I get what you're trying to achieve but the choice is to die today or in a few days while medicated like crazy with tubes everywhere because you they can't breathe/eat/move".

Re: British Court: Patient Can Be Denied Life-Sustaining Treatment Against Her Will

#15

Post by jabradoodle »

Detrytus wrote: post #8
BitPirate wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And with privately funded healthcare, there may be no treatment at all. That's even more fucked up.

Well, there's always a treatment if you have money to pay for it. And if you don't you still have options like various charities, crowdfunding, etc. That's still a better scenario than the court ruling that the best thing for you is to die.

Well then they have that option in addition to state healthcare, so what on earth are you talking about?

Re: British Court: Patient Can Be Denied Life-Sustaining Treatment Against Her Will

#16

Post by tengwar2 »

master_crab wrote: post #7

It’s not clear if she is being supported by NHS or fully private insurance. The UK does exercise triage on long term cases. The flip side is no country can afford to maintain every patient with a terminal condition indefinitely and doctors are allowed to exercise judgement.

According to the article, this is not simply a matter of cost, but of actively preventing her travelling to Canada for an experimental treatment. There is still probably a cost element involved in preparing her for travel, but no open-ended commitment to funding ICU care.

Re: British Court: Patient Can Be Denied Life-Sustaining Treatment Against Her Will

#17

Post by EdwardDiego »

Detrytus wrote: post #8
BitPirate wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And with privately funded healthcare, there may be no treatment at all. That's even more fucked up.

Well, there's always a treatment if you have money to pay for it. And if you don't you still have options like various charities, crowdfunding, etc. That's still a better scenario than the court ruling that the best thing for you is to die.

GoFundMe as a form of accessing healthcare isn't great.

Re: British Court: Patient Can Be Denied Life-Sustaining Treatment Against Her Will

#18

Post by tengwar2 »

Detrytus wrote: post #8
BitPirate wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And with privately funded healthcare, there may be no treatment at all. That's even more fucked up.

Well, there's always a treatment if you have money to pay for it. And if you don't you still have options like various charities, crowdfunding, etc. That's still a better scenario than the court ruling that the best thing for you is to die.

Private healthcare is available in the UK (or in this case in Canada). It appears that she is being actively prevented from using it.

Re: British Court: Patient Can Be Denied Life-Sustaining Treatment Against Her Will

#20

Post by EricE »

RecycledEle wrote: post #9

We could fix this by making it a human right to have access to any healthcare you can afford. That would include the ability to import, buy, own, and use anything considered healthcare (including prescriptions, durable medical equipment, consumables, and training to use it) in any of the world's 20 largest nations. This would end the war on drugs as well. If I could import Novopen 6 insulin pens from overseas, it wou…

Not greed - over regulation. There is money to be made on selling generics - it's that none of the entrenched providers have much incentive to do so and barriers for new companies to form and get established are ridiculously high, further disincentivizing new players from entering the market.

The FDA has been smacked down pretty hard in a few recent court decisions for overstepping their bounds; maybe we'll see more people start to enter the fray and push back against the entrenched establishment.

Post reply on HN