Liverpool Pathway in the UK ended over euthanasia implications

OneNewsNow - July 22, 2013 (Link to the original).

Alex Schadenberg

A dangerous policy in the United Kingdom and elsewhere that led to euthanasia is being dumped, but there's concern over what might replace it.

The Liverpool Care Pathway was designed as a protocol to help terminally ill patients die with the least amount of suffering. But Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition tells OneNewsNow.

“So what's happened is that people who are not dying have been put on the Liverpool Pathway,” he explains. “And of course with the Liverpool Pathway, it is going to be said, Well, this person is dying. So we will deny them any further medical treatment and even withdraw food and fluids. So people who were not dying were being dehydrated to death under the Liverpool Pathway.”

He contends the Liverpool Pathway was being abused in this way, and the U.K. decided it must change - but it is uncertain what will be its replacement. Schadenberg says the problem is that there should not be a one-plan-fits-all situation. Questions also need to be raised in this country because the policy was used worldwide.

“The fact is they're going to get rid of that, and I don't know what they're going to come up with,” Schadenberg says. “What I can say though is that this euthanasia mentality has certainly polluted the water, and it's made it very difficult to have good ethical care.”

He suggests that the policy that needs to be abandoned is euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide.