February 28, 2011 - 4:00 am
If you wonder why so many are against Obama’s health care law, simply replace the word “Canadian” with “American” in this true story involving a baby north of the border: “Canadian health care allocation officials already ruled that Joseph had to be taken off life support and allowed to die in the hospital.”
Health care allocation officials? Pass the Soylent Green please.
He’s dying and it doesn’t make a practical difference where he does, but they want it to be at the hospital because they say-so. Healthcare reform is good business, invest you freedom for higher taxes and worse care!
These things are always a lot more complicated than they seem. I work in a hospital and cases like this come up regularly.
Keep in mind that there are healthcare providers dealing with this baby every single day, providers who are paying a real price when they are forced to provide obviously futile care that may be doing nothing except prolonging suffering.
I’m not a fan of a state board making the final decision, but don’t kid yourself that the parents should get their way always on everything.
As a retired Canadian who has had robotic heart valve surgery, an ICD inserted in his chest to prevent and stop fatal V-tach events, whose mother in her 80s had a pacemaker implanted to better her quality of life (she had congestive heart failure and the pacemaker would only make her life better not all that much longer), whose sister in her mid 70s had hip surgery and a replacement knee operation, whose nephew is alive today because of the cancer treatment he received as a teen, whose other nephew is alive because of the brain surgery he was given, whose . . . well, you get the picture . . . I feel I should tell you that Canada does NOT have “Health Care Allocation Officials.” Hold the Soylent Green.