A recent incident that came to my knowledge kept me thinking for hours. The facts of the case were these: A patient who was suffering from an advanced stage of cancer was admitted in to the intensive care unit of a hospital. The hospital was a welfare hospital run for and by war veterans. The patient was beyond the stage of medical help, but was in acute pain, because of a fluid collection in the body, that could only be relieved my drugs (medical). One of the attending doctors advised the relative to remove the patient from the hospital citing the following reasons: That the patient was old and beyond help and that it would free up a space in the intensive care unit.
Since i was acquainted with the patient personally i was enraged at first to hear these words from a doctor. I started to wonder if there was any feeling left in the community of specialists who cut and sew flesh all day. I did not quite understand what made a human life so dispensable, whether he/she was too old or not worth the time. But in while i wondered why anyone would give such a suggestion, if there was a reason behind it. That was when the utilitarian concept or the idea of 'the greater good' came to mind. Was the doctor right in looking out for the general welfare (i.e. the availability of beds) of the other patients? Was it alright to let one spend their last living moments in agony so anther's life could be saved? But what about the end-of-life care of the dying individual? In the days of raised awareness of death and dying and the psychological trials that patients undergo was it right for the doctor to place the interest of a potential life above the interest of one in the present? Did he make an ethical choice when he sugegsted the patient be removed in the interest of another and because the patient was old?
Maybe because I am emotionally involved with the situation it is difficult for me to view it objectively, but no matter how many times i revisit the question it seems to me that the doctor lacked an important quality that I would look for in my physician, humanity.
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Preethyr, I think anyone involved in this decission would feel the same way as you. This is more about dignity and respect for an individual in pain and facing an increasingly debilitating and advanced cancer. "Being so easily disposable" is tragic.
These medical decisions have to be tough. The healthcare system has become the battlefield of "triage", going for those who benefit most or who have the cash or power. It's going to take public protest to move this cash machine. Jane Luke
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