Saturday, June 19, 2010
Whack in the morphine
I read in today's DT of a doctor who has been struck off by the GMC for misconduct described as 'hastening the death of 18 patients in 'egregious, despicable and dangerous conduct'. As far as I can see from the DT report, the misconduct in question amounts to giving morphine injections to relieve the pain of people dying of cancer. Well yes, so the people did die before they might of otherwise. So do pets when they are suffering and we ask the vet to put them down. Their deaths are indeed hastened. That is the whole point.
And, going further, does it really amount to despicable behaviour if the GP is a bit quick about it. That he (or she) administered the fatal injection on day 14 rather than day 17. The subject of the injection is probably fairly much out of it either way. And is probably not going to complain too much about losing 3 days out of 25,000.
Have we got to the point where I have to lay in some private morphine supplies in case the NHS is too squeamish when it comes to my point?
PS my impression is that the DT takes much the same view as I do. So the world is moving in the right direction. Maybe that is what the GMC and the doctor are up to. They want to put the real world on a legal footing and have passed the buck to our shiny new House of Commons. If you want to help things along see http://www.dignityindying.org.uk/.
PPS I was reduced to asking Mr G. what egregious meant. The answer is big time, usually in a bad sense. From the Latin. I shall now go and check in OED. Maybe the people who follow the proceedings of the GMC are good at Latin.
# posted by Jim @ 12:34 PM 
