Elderly Woman Left To Die Under Britain's Death Care System

Sarah-Kate Templeton
The Times Online
October 11, 2009

Editor’s note: Big mouth Ed Schultz and other so-called progressives say the “public option” is the only way to save health care. Some of them say the “death panels” were invented by rightwing conspiracy theorists. They often cite England’s health care system as an example of what we’ll get here in the states if Obamacare is passed.

Well, here is a story about Britain’s health care system. An elderly woman left to die because doctors determined she didn’t have long to live. Nine months later she is alive and her family is outraged.

Are we ready for this sort of death care in America?

An 80-year-old grandmother who doctors identified as terminally ill and left to starve to death has recovered after her outraged daughter intervened.

Hazel Fenton, from East Sussex, is alive nine months after medics ruled she had only days to live, withdrew her antibiotics and denied her artificial feeding. The former school matron had been placed on a controversial care plan intended to ease the last days of dying patients.

Doctors say Fenton is an example of patients who have been condemned to death on the Liverpool care pathway plan. They argue that while it is suitable for patients who do have only days to live, it is being used more widely in the NHS, denying treatment to elderly patients who are not dying.

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