Alfie Evans, right to life or needless suffering?

Discussion in 'Off-Topic' started by SireofSuns, Apr 24, 2018.

  1. SireofSuns

    SireofSuns I need me some PIE!

    So, okay, not gonna directly quote because there's a lot, and only to directly relevant and closest to on-topic things.

    Alfie is breathing without support. The UK doctors sincerely believed he would not be able to do so, and that he would suffocate to death. In addition, they also cut off sustenance for him.
    https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/la...latest-news-treatment-Italy-Alder-Hey-illness
    It's not a treatment that will cure his condition, but simply one that will allow him to live longer. Nothing painful or overly intrusive, nothing experimental. Just things that the UK hospital refuses to do.

    Suffocation and starvation are not "dignified". Get that "dying with dignity" stuff out of here, that's an overlapping but still unique discussion.

    This is different from something like abortion because it's an issue of whether or not more should be done to save a life, rather than "should the parent/s be allowed to prevent/destroy a life".
    That's a huuuge difference.

    When it comes to life versus death, I'm almost always in favor of life.
    When it comes to quality of life, etc. I tend to take it case by case. Though in general I want everyone involved to have a fair say and consent (child marriage, for example, is one case where I draw a very strong line as it's been historically shown to be a very bad thing).
     
  2. davre

    davre The Benevolent Technofascist

    The kid will not feel pain or suffer no matter what happens to it because its nervous system has disintegrated.
     
    Geressen likes this.
  3. SireofSuns

    SireofSuns I need me some PIE!

    Common practice outside of the UK is to help those suffers from Mitochondrial disease as much as possible. Why is the UK behind on this?
    Isn't it entirely possible that in simply taking care of him, the Italians (who seem more concerned with helping the child than the UK...) might gain even a small amount of info for helping future patients?
    That's what his parents hope at least.

    A quote from one of the Italian medical professionals regarding the case: "There are a lot of other more humane ways to deal with cases like this one. The way my English colleagues often deal with situations like this is shocking and inhumane."
     
  4. Geressen

    Geressen Forum Royalty

    The Italians are very catholic.
    They are so very catholic that they cannot gain enough human bodies for medical schools.
    in North Europe they stopped taking bodies because there is a 5 year surplus.

    the Italians cannot help the child, only extend the life of a near brainless husk.
     
  5. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    Actually, the UK doctors HAVE been doing it, they just decided recently that it was just prolonging the suffering.

    You just said it won't save his life. Now suddenly it's about saving a life again?

    Even the doctors they met WENT to the UK and said trying to find a cure was "futile." So clearly this isn't about saving a life.

    And it's a "huuuge difference" because YOU have drawn a line. So I guess the answer to my question of who gets to decide where the line is is you? You get to decide?

    The fact that you decided it's a huge difference unilaterally and wanting the government to stop abortion is the EXACT SAME THING as the UK hospital not allowing this child to be moved.

    They drew a line the same way you drew a line. You may disagree with their reasons or the conclusion, but the point is that someone has to decide.

    ~

    And so again, I ask, who should decide? You seem to believe parents should decide when it comes to deciding whether to save the child's life based on their beliefs, but that government should decide when it comes to abortion based on your own arbitrarily beliefs? Do I have that right?

    ~

    And is ANYTHING ok to try and save a life? Or is there a line? And who decides where that line? What is acceptable in an attempt to save the life?

    Let's talk about the reverse too:

    What if the parents do want to not try and save his life? Should the state step in and say "No, you MUST try this experimental treatment to try and save his life." What if the parents disagree with the treatment plan for religious reasons? Should we force the parents to try the treatment anyway?

    In all of these cases, the question remains - who decides? Is it always the parents and only the parents? If I decide that my sick and dying child will live if I throw her into a volcano and put it on Youtube and get 5 million views because God told me so, should anyone be able to stop me? I am trying to save her life, keep in mind - even if you disagree with my methods, if you are being consistent, you should support this... so do you? What about gay conversion therapy? Or exorcisms? Or "faith healing?" If someone believes that instead of giving antibiotics they should just give offerings to their ancestors, is that fine? Or does it depend on if the child ends up dying as a result? How many children would have to die before we ban certain types of "treatment?"
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2018
  6. Geressen

    Geressen Forum Royalty

    @Varthas so your position "in the medical field people with bloated egos play fast and loose with human rights"

    has the arguments
    1. Emergency care workers do not always understand the medical emergency or make the right diagnosis
    2. people in charge of triage and deployment in charge of making difficult decisions do not always make the right decision.
    neither of these seem to have any bearing on your position. you seem to relate them in that in the two instances the doctors were not prosecuted, if you were to do that I wish you good luck finding people willing to risk prison for just doing their jobs trying to help as much people as possible.
     
  7. Varthas

    Varthas I need me some PIE!

    Right on Ger, Sok said it very well aswell.
     
  8. Varthas

    Varthas I need me some PIE!

    It is a difference between risking prison and taking consequences, and i think for sure it should be a focus on creating proper aftermath routines on incidents wich have gone wrong.

    It stretches out to psychiatry wich are under the medical system, and i find it likely that in my first example that guy should have receivied a proper care probably years before it got to the point that he died alone without help. I bet you that that guy sat alone every christmas, birthday, holiday, summer and winter the last 10 years. Wich is quite common for aging men.

    Instead they left him "on the rope" for years while he tried to call in for "long term" help to get to a better health, to avoid a higher risk of dying earlier than he should wich he ended up doing, dying alone. The fact that he was a frequent caller to the emergency services actually gave him a lesser chance of getting the rescue the day he needed it, because they was used to him calling in for years, and when he died they use that as a reason to why they didn`t help him the day he died, instead of admitting that this man should actually have gotten a proper healthcare years ago.

    Yet after years of clearly signaling that something was going in the wrong direction he didn`t get the proper care, "in Norway the worlds richest country", where social welfare, gender equalisation & justice is the foundation of what this nation is.

    If he instead of being a frequent caller(a lonely aging man), but lets say he was a rich & famous aging footballer with no history of calling in, i bet you they had deployed the ambulance within minutes. So as i said earlier, the fact that he was a frequent caller gave him a lesser chance of a ambulance rescue.

    Then i come back to consequences. This man died in vain, so should we brush the story under the carpet or should we look into his story to figure out who should have stepped in and helped him before it got to the point that he died of his situation?

    And if someone had the responsibility to listen to this man over the years, but they didn`t listen to him, should they face consequences?
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2018
  9. Varthas

    Varthas I need me some PIE!

    I can tell you another story, it is personal. My granddad, he was a engineer in this town he lived in, on his elder days he got a stroke and just about saved his life at the hospital, and then he was written out of the hospital but in a reduced state. He had a house with bed rooms upstairs(just a km from the hospital), and the medical personell immediatly realised he needed protection in the stairs, because it was nothing to hold his hands onto.

    So they left him there and then started the process with securing the stairs, wich ofcourse is a burocratical process. Before they even got to the question of who gonna pay for it, he fell down the stairs and died. Do you think anyone stepped up and took the blame and consequences for that one?

    So i tell you, even though the medical system is the best of the best, it is not without flaws, and it is practically without any risk of consequences.
     
  10. Geressen

    Geressen Forum Royalty

    your grandpa did.

    he literally took the fall.

    why did getting older and not having good stairs suprise him to the point where the doctors had to try and fix it for him? this sounds like a Norwegian problem.
     
  11. Geressen

    Geressen Forum Royalty

    he should have gotten psychiatric help which is not part of emergency workers and it sounds like the consequences of him not seeking psychiatric help caught up to the man, consequences happened where consequences were due.
     
  12. Varthas

    Varthas I need me some PIE!

    No, he was fine untill he had a stroke. Then he wanted to pay the stairs himself, but they don`t refund and it was requirements on the instalation because "in Norway" it must be by the book, and that takes time, and in the meantime he died.

    If it was just to mount a railing anyone could have done it, but it had to be by the regulations. Go figure.
     
  13. Varthas

    Varthas I need me some PIE!

    Well you nail it here, question is why didn`t he get the help? Is it because he didn`t ask for it?

    Shouldn`t medical workers recognise his symptons years before he dies of them and advice him into the system and follow him up?

    It is after all the psyciatri who have the overall picture of his life situation, so why don`t they act?

    With females the system are extremly adapted at helping them, especially if the female have a young kid, she can`t go wrong and she is as good as guaranteed help as long as her child is growing up. She is in no danger of developing any fatal lifestyle problems before she is 50.

    There is a common psyciatric pattern between Norway and Britain, where there are 4 times as many males as females who take theyre own life between 24 and 46 years old. The numbers are clear, and it is well understood how much worse the situation is for males than females.

    Males with psyciatric problems in this age faces far worse lifestyle problems than the female counterpart, it is well understood the underlying mechanics for this, but absolute nothing gets done about it.

    And you see it in the school system, the unemployment system, and in the jail system, where males are over-represented in all the bad statistics(and as i already said, the suicide statistics), and yet nothing is done, in these uber gender-equality societies.

    So i find youre "he should have gotten psychiatric help" quite interesting because it is not as easy as that for males with a certain life situation in example isolation.

    Females have far easier braking out of the problems and go on in life before the bad lifestyle get fatal, and this is also well understood at this point why that is so.
     
  14. Geressen

    Geressen Forum Royalty

    why didn't he have a railing?
    are you sure having a railing would have prevented him dying
    what does this have to do with our original premise of "People in the medical field play god over human rights with no consequences ?"
     
  15. Geressen

    Geressen Forum Royalty

    no, that is not their job.
    he clearly did not seek psychiatric help.
    How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb?
    just one, but the light bulb needs to want to change.
    regardless of you wanting to break down the doors of every isolated man and force them into therapy that still does no have anything to do with your premise of
    "Doctors want the doomed baby to die because they are bad people who know they can get away with it."
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2018
  16. Varthas

    Varthas I need me some PIE!

    You do know that a psyciatric ill patient might not recognise that he is ill? He might not be intelectual aware that he is sick, the easiest person to fool is yourself. This is also true for people with stroke and other immediatly fatal condition. Often will a patient notice the symptons but often the patient`s brain is not capable of processing it`s own damages and the criticality state of the condition it is in.

    If a hospital can`t recognise a psyciatric patient after years of calling in, maybe it is time to separate psyciatri from the medical world.

    All this got to do with a medical system wich are operating on the boundaries between justice and human rights, even human needs. If it wasn`t controversial we wouldn`t be discussing it in the first place, would we?

    The on topic case is well discussed here in Norway, and i doubt you gonna be surprised to hear that:

    1: The medical professionals speak voices wich are supporting the UK hospital and goverments position. It is normal for hospitals and medical workers to defend the position of a country in a public relations case like this, because it is after all how the medical system get money, from the goverment.

    2: Other people are pussled as to why his parents can`t choose the treatment, even with a dual passport situation the UK dig up some "force majour" laws and clamp it down with no possible way to challenge the desicion.
     
  17. Geressen

    Geressen Forum Royalty

    *facepalm*
    it already is, so is most of dentistry.
     
  18. Varthas

    Varthas I need me some PIE!

    Dunno where you are @, but here it isn`t, those are very much under the same system here. Same doctors, same employment, same building: Emergency, psyciatry, surgery, etc, everything is @ the hospital over here. They are even including dentistry more and more into the medical system(wich they should), it is all the same.

    So in my mind if they are even half serious they should for sure have asked this guy for a talk and got to the bottom of his problems, but i have a feeling it was cheaper just to let him ring in for a few years, and "the medical workers have more serious problems than this guy calling in to often..."

    I am sure(as was his family) that he could(and should) have lived on. We are the worlds wichest country. A climber who get stuck on a mountain always get a helicopter rescue over here, we are the worlds richest country you know. In many cases there are no limits to how rich and perfect we are over here, yet everything is not always what it seems.
     
  19. Geressen

    Geressen Forum Royalty

    i will repeat:

    you cannot force people into therapy or surgery in normal circomstances.

    you can tell a hypochondriac to seek therapy

    you cannot force him to go.

    in other words:
    you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
     
  20. Varthas

    Varthas I need me some PIE!

    Sure, but you can lead a horse to better drinking waters, and you can lead the horse to a better playing field.

    Wich would increase the horse`s quality of life, then you perhaps could reach a point where the horse didn`t need sheperding 7 days a week, but it became a more healthy and independent horse who maybe could reach a point of good health where it could be put to use.
     

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