Cancer Patient Commits Suicide When Told NHS Will Not Cover Chemo
This is a crucial issue involving the assisted suicide debate. We have already seen in Oregon a woman denied coverage for chemotherapy to extend her life, but told that Medicaid will pay for her assisted suicide. Now, that scenario played out in the UK. The melting down NHS denied a chemotherapy treatment and the man, in despair, killed himself. From the story:
A cancer patient killed himself a day after being told he had been refused a wonder drug by his local primary care trust.Terminally-ill Albert Baxter, 75, committed suicide hours after learning he had been turned down for a drug which could have prolonged his life and shrunk his tumour.
In desperation, the cancer sufferer offered to pay for the drug, only to be told that he would have to foot the bill for his entire treatment which he could not afford. The pensioner, who was diagnosed with renal cancer in January 2007, had been told by his oncologist, Dr Fiona McKinna that the drug Sutent was his only hope...
But when he learned that his appeal had been rejected he returned to his home in Eastbourne, East Sussex. He was found dead the next day by his partner with a bin liner over his head in June last year. His partner of 30 years, Barrie Curryer, 70, a retired nurse, hit out at the postcode lottery for cancer treatment.He said: "What really upset him was that he worked all his life and paid into the health system and was refused treatment."
What is amazing to me is that assisted suicide advocates would probably respond, "He should have had a doctor available to do it!" More to the point, this story again shows the money nexus between treatment denials and euthanasia, in which treatments needed by those with a low "quality" of life in order to stretch limited resources are denied--even if it would extend life--supposedly in order to allow greater access to the more deserving of care.
Look at the total picture that is emerging! Extending life is being redefined as medically inappropriate or not worth paying for, while at the same time, killing is being redefined into palliative care. This is abandonment: If we legalize assisted suicide, one consequence would be to make treatment denials more palatable--since we will always offer abandoned patients "death with dignity," which is really just another way of saying, "one-way street." Caveat emptor!
Look at the total picture that is emerging! Extending life is being redefined as medically inappropriate or not worth paying for, while at the same time, killing is being redefined into palliative care. This is abandonment: If we legalize assisted suicide, one consequence would be to make treatment denials more palatable--since we will always offer abandoned patients "death with dignity," which is really just another way of saying, "one-way street." Caveat emptor!
P.S. It is also worth noting that plastic bags used in conjunction with either drugs or helium are a favored method of "self deliverance" taught by fanatics such as Derek Humphry in books and on web sites. I wouldn't be surprised if such suicide counseling was involved in this case.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 11:03 AM
12 Comments
12 Comments:
I just don't understand.........
Any of it.....
Hugs..
I didn't used to. Now I do. I liked it better before.
Wesley, I don't think you're being entirely fair. Sutent is a monoclonal antibody against a protein promoting metastasis in kidney cancer, and it only works in approximately 40% of patients. So I don't see this as a case of "extending life being redefined as medically inappropriate." It's simply a matter of not wanting to pay for a treatment that has not yet shown a great deal of benefit.
Is that harsh? Probably. Do I wish we had unlimited resources that could be used for patients like Mr. Baxter? You bet. But unfortunately, we don't. Health care costs are spiralling out of control and we as physicians are forced to make tough decisions to hold things together as long as we can.
That translated to my Mind that you've just said elitist $$$ wins out over Life every time..
Sick is that IS a fact of Life in the realm these Shoes walk..
A realm where people don't have $$$.. Many are homeless.. Many more are destitute, barely eking by each day..
And then, when they turn to a resource Society deems they absolutely must patronize, absolutely must trust or be shunned as having not done absolutely all possible to continue to fit into same said Society, that resource.. medical professionals.. takes it upon themselves to play deity deeming whose Life is worthy of sustenance..
And whose is not..
Based solely on the [ailing] individual's societal ordained monetary Value..
Someone please tell these Fingertips precisely how that classifies as "Fair"..
That's not what I said at all. I said nothing about physicians being deities; believe me, I know we have feet of clay. Frankly, I think part of the blame here needs to go to the oncologist. Telling someone that a drug with a rather low success rate is his "only hope" is, frankly, falsely raising hope.
Physicians also not choosing whose life has worth and who doesn't. In the case of Britain's National Health System, it's true they didn't pay for the drug for Mr. Baxter, but they're not going to pay for anyone else, either. That's not choosing based on someone's "monetary value."
That being said, I do disagree with the NHS's position regarding buying one's own drugs. There was recently another person in the same situation in the U.K. She was also told that she couldn't buy any additional medicine or risk losing all of her NHS benefits. It's an all or nothing proposition over there, and for whatever is worth, it's receiving a lot of condemnation from the international medical community.
This just in. From this week's issue of the British Medical Journal:
"Government announces review of copayments in the NHS
The government is to review a longstanding rule that forbids NHS patients in England from topping up their treatment by buying drugs that are not available on the NHS.
The Department of Health is signalling that it may consider changing the rule on such copayments. Currently anyone who buys their own drugs has to become a private patient and thus pay for the whole of their care themselves.
Pressure has been building for a change after cases in which patients in the final stages of cancer wanted to pay for drugs that were new and had not yet been approved for use in the NHS by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence or had been rejected for reasons of cost or effectiveness."
I won't quote the whole article here, but it's good to see that there may be a change coming.
Am not able to immediately locate a resource that would be deemed fully worthy of reference, but am most often finding:
Atropos :: A female deity, the fate who cut the thread or web of life. Known as the "inflexible" or "inevitable" and cut this thread with the "abhorred shears".
Change is good.. Change is necessary.. Long time disclosed mismanaged care continues to cause reprehensible Death in my state.. Maybe the Federal Government's public Fickled Finger of Shame this time will by the [fulcrum] so desperately needed to stop Life loss..
Apologies.. Off to face a physical energies demanding, Life-affecting disaster, likely the rest of the weekend..
Be safe in your own Life.. :)
I am currently disillusioned with transhumanism... and I haven't posted here in months, but I came back to say that I appreciate your work. I used to believe in Peter Singer's ethics whole-heartedly, but you have given me some second thoughts.
Sutent is a monoclonal antibody against a protein promoting metastasis in kidney cancer, and it only works in approximately 40% of patients. So I don't see this as a case of "extending life being redefined as medically inappropriate." It's simply a matter of not wanting to pay for a treatment that has not yet shown a great deal of benefit.
Sutent (sunitinib) is a small molecule. It isn't a monoclonal antibody.
hkr: Welcome back. I appreciate your open mind.
If it works to extend life in 40% of patients, isn't that significant??
It works to extend disease-free survival for 6 months in 40% of patients. (It's also worth pointing out that we're not sure yet if overall survival is affected.)
It's significant enough that I agree the NHS should allow people to purchase it on their own if they want to. Like I said before, many people, myself included, do not think that the NHS's treatment should be an all-or-nothing approach.
What I don't agree with is saying that the refusal of the NHS to pay for the drug itself is equivalent to promoting euthanasia or assisted suicide. That's another all-or-nothing approach, and I think it does everyone a disservice.
Hkr: Yes, you're correct. It's a small molecule. My error.
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