This Is What Government-Run Health Care Looks Like

Those of us who see Obamacare as a distinct step backwards are often branded as alarmist and out of touch. When we point to the regular horrors of government run systems, especially the UK, we’re shouted down with healthy dollops of “it-can’t-happen-here-because-the president-said-it-won't.”

Read on.

But before you do, look at this photo from London’s MailOnline:

Not pretty.

It’s a photo taken in a UK (government run) hospital of 84-year-old Clara Stokes. The photo was taken by her outraged daughter who discovered that her mom was living a nightmare – starved, dehydrated, and lying in her own feces.

Apparently, the ward was very short-staffed, to the point that Clara's family members were not only forced helped her, but also other patients who were in similar circumstances.

Here's a partial list of horrors. If this isn't clear, cold abuse of a person with a severe medical disability, I don't know what is:

Maltreatment 1:

Doctors and nurses who misplaced health notes even thought Mrs Stokes was a man for the first two days, after she was admitted on December 16.

Maltreatment 2:

A temporary nurse misread Mrs Stokes' notes and forced uncrushed tablets down her throat, almost causing her to choke to death.

Maltreatment 3:

She [Clara's daughter] added: 'We finally walked in and my daughter said what is that under her arm? We lifted it up and she was covered in her own diarrhoea.

Maltreatment 4:

Helpless and confused after suffering a stroke, the 84-year-old was left dehydrated, hungry and lying in her own faeces in a hospital bed for six hours. . . . 'She was paralysed and couldn't call for help. This was after 3pm in the afternoon and the last time she had been checked was at 9am.'

Maltreatment 5:

Just 24 hours later the family found a stricken Mrs Stokes' foot trapped between bed posts caused by a faulty bed pump. It was not known how long she was trapped and had to be freed by the matron.

The hospital, of course, denies, denies, denies. Here’s part of the snippy statement issued by the hospital spokesperson:

'We regret that Mrs Stokes' family have felt the need to complain about her care while she was on ward 17 and ward 15 and the hospital has apologised for any distressing circumstances recognising how upsetting some aspects of personal care can be for relatives.

Stay tuned, because I’ll bet my last dollar that the pro-death crowd will spin the horrible photo above as a case of people dying “without dignity,” and use it as a propaganda tool, captioning Clara’s abuse with: This is not dying with dignity: Support legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Euthanizing Children in the US – Yes, it’s Here

The latest edition of a prestigious medical journal, The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, has published a very disturbing piece of research. While the study is very small, the fact that it was done at all suggests that there might be a larger problem across the country: Euthanizing children right here in the US.

The study, of course, doesn’t talk about euthanasia. Here’s the title: “Considerations About Hastening Death Among Parents of Children Who Die of Cancer.”

I see. It’s not euthanasia, it’s hastening death. Sounds so much more, well, clinical, don’t you think?

Essentially, the researchers wanted to know, in terms of actual cases and presented possible scenarios, what parents’ attitudes were toward euthanasia when a child was terminally ill with cancer. No surprise, the more the actual case or scenario involved high levels of pain and suffering, the more likely parents were to consider euthanasia

Sorry, I meant “hastening death.”

Now, if the study only used contrived scenarios, the findings would be important, because they show, among other things, that parents are ignorant of palliative measures that can make terminally ill children comfortable in their final days.

However, among parents interviewed who literally had terminally ill children with cancer, there were several who actually discussed euthanasia for their child with their doctor, and, in three instances, where parents reported that the euthanasia was carried out.

Frightening, and even more so when you consider how small the study was.

And, it’s absolutely probable that if it‘s happening in the two hospitals covered by the study, it’s going on all over the country behind closed doors after whispered conversations.

Killing children because the are sick.

Here in these United States.

This is how things started in the Netherlands.

Let’s so all we can to make sure it doesn’t happen here.