Pensioner 'left to die in hospice after doctors wrongly diagnosed him with cancer'

[progressiveGI]

UK - A grandfather who beat cancer was wrongly told the disease had returned and left to die at a hospice which pioneered a controversial 'death pathway'. Doctors said there was nothing more they could do for 76-year-old Jack Jones, and his family claim he was denied food, water and medication except painkillers. He died within two weeks. But tests after his death found that his cancer had not come back, and he was in fact suffering from pneumonia brought on by a chest infection.

To his family's horror, they were told he could have recovered if he'd been given the correct treatment. Today, after being given an £18,000 pay-out over her ordeal, his widow Pat branded his treatment 'barbaric' and accused the doctors of manslaughter. Mr Jones was being cared at a hospice which was central to the contentious Liverpool Care Pathway under which dying patients have their life support taken away, although the hospice claims it wasn't officially applied in his case.
The scheme is now used by hundreds of hospitals and care homes, and is followed in as many as 20,000 deaths a year. Supporters say it brings dignity to a patient's final hours, but critics fear that some are placed into it incorrectly.

Excerpt from news story at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1219853/Father-misdiagnosed-cancer-dies-medics-death-pathway-stopped-feeding-him.html

______________________________________________


Evidently the people conducting the tests after his death were more thorough than the doctors charged with his care. This is the kind of stuff that is scary about systems such as Liverpool Care Pathway - the British government hospice program.

[Hello_Kitty]

1. Whereas similar mistakes never happen in our glorious American system. eom

[gleaner]

23. Actually things like that do happen here....

My mother in law had cancer. Atypical Carcinoid. It is very rare and not amenable to chemo. Her HMO, Kaiser, told her that they could not do surgery or radiation because of the tumor's location. That particular cancer is slow to grow, but when it reaches stage 4, as hers had, it metastasizes up into the patient's brain, into the throat and throughout the lungs. She was also beginning to develop small cell cancer and had decided that when the cancer became terminal, she would accept the hospice care described above to avoid the agony the death she anticipated from the cancer.

He oncologist had given her Sis Platen early on after her diagnosis. It was contraindicated in her case because she was elderly, diabetic and because Atypical Carcinoid does not respond to chemo, according to the National Cancer Society whom we called to find out more about the cancer. Kaiser was not exactly busting out with information for us.

Her chemo was truncated when her blood crashed. Her immune system was nearly destroyed and all of her blood values were impacted to the point where she was cautioned against getting even a small infection. That was the first thing. The second thing was that the Sis Platen caused a psychotic break. Kaiser would not admit it was the chemo, it was the American Cancer Society which told us that this is one of the reasons Sis Platen should not be used on the elderly. They kept her in the acute hospital for two weeks, forever by Kaiser standards, then stuck her into a convalescent hospital. She saw a psychiatrist and they kept shoving psychiatric drugs down her throat which she did not tolerate well. She had become paranoid, confused about what went on around her and who the people were that she had known for years. She pulled back from that after a time, but never entirely.

Every now and then she would call my husband in a panic because she had forgotten who she was or where she was or if it was day or night. He would comfort her as best he could and try to make sure she was never alone. She was terrified of being alone.

Shortly after this she moved into an assisted living facility with medical personnel on staff. She chose it and thought she would be safe there. But she wasn't. She fell on her way to the bathroom and broke her ribs. She was taken to Kaiser where they treated the broken ribs, then sent again to the convalescent hospital. At the convalescent hospital she developed pneumonia and was sent back again to the acute hospital. There she was treated with antibiotics which she began to respond to. There was only one problem. Somewhere along the line she had put or been persuaded to put a Kaiser employee on her Advanced Directive, a huge conflict of interest. Something happened to her at the acute hospital that we cannot find out about. She began refusing her food and medications. as her infection began to worsen.

One night my husband called her and was told she had been transferred back to her assisted living center and been put on hospice care. The doctor who signed the directive was a retired Kaiser doctor who had never been a doctor she had seen. He had worked on her husband's case before he retired, but he had never treated my mother in law. She had a personal physician and an oncologist, so why would someone so far removed from her treatment and semi retired suddenly have the last say? The hospice care was as described in the prior post. It consisted of no food, no medication by mouth or IV and hourly shots of morphine and ativan. We pressed the hospital very hard to tell us what had happended, but they would not. We called the assisted living facility and they echoed the hospital's comments, but did tell us that her cancer was not terminal at this point. She could have lived for perhaps three more years without experiencing a great deal of pain. Up until this point she had wanted to live. She told me that the two things she feared most were dying and dying alone. She discussed choosing death as a future issue only and said she had a lot to look forward to in the interim.

We kept in touch with the assisted living facility and tried to get through to her room. They basically fielded our calls and told us very little about what was happening to her other than that her body systems had "shut down" and she was very near to death. She died yesterday morning at 6:00 AM after the facility had told my husband the night before that she was "doing fine" and that nothing had changed. No one called him to tell him she had died. He made his usual call to check on her at 9:00 PM, hours after her death, and was told, "Oh, she died." End of conversation.

If you are wondering why we did not go to her, it is because my husband is bedridden in a hospital bed after a bout of MRSA last year. He cannot travel. He can barely walk. I am his only caregiver and I have had MS for 30 years which limits my travels as well. His mother was 400 miles away in a suburb of Sacramento where she had retired with her husband who died in April of this year. Kaiser knew this. They knew that we could not come to check on them, or the assisted living facility or the veracity of their statements. I do support the right to die when the decision to do so is entered into freely by the patient who is of sound mind. I do not know this was the case with my mother in law. I do know she was depressed, disoriented, paranoid and suggestible. I know that Kaiser in the form of her Advanced Directive had the power to make decisions of life and death which affected her. I know that the only illnesses threatening her with imminent death were the untreated pneumonia and a bladder infection that she had come into Kaiser with. She had broken ribs. What she did not have was cancer pain, as she assured us, or the imminent threat that the cancer had become aggressive and was moving to the point where she had said she would seriously consider the actions that she took.

I hope that she is at peace and didn't suffer too much while they gave her "hospice." I think there should be a more humane way to tend to the terminally ill, if that is what they want and designate. This haunts me. Was she competent to make her own decisions? Did she make her decision or did Kaiser? The next time Kaiser has an elderly patient with treatable infections will they treat them or encourage them to choose to die? Was what happened legal or assisted suicide or what? We may never know.

I do know I will be contacting the state tomorrow when the holiday ends and asking them these questions and encouraging them to investigate. This is too close to the bone to let go and forget about.

[Hello_Kitty]

25. Wow. I am so sorry about that.

:hug: I hope you get some answers and justice.

[gleaner]

26. Thank you ....

You're most kind. I hadn't even meant to post about it, but when I read the account bashing the UK system, all I could think was Freeper post or insurance company slam, and I am so tired of that. All of this crap that our system does to us to make a profit, all the suffering and death they are causing to inflate their bottom lines and there seems to be nothing we can do about it.

I want my country back. I want it intact and less divisive and more hospitable and helpful to people in need. I want it to be the place the Founders intended it to be, not a dumping ground for the pet theories and increasing greed of the rich. The rich have never done much except to drain our vitality like a bunch of leeches. Now it seems like they want our blood as well. Looking for the mystery "death panels?" Look at the existing health insurance companies and the people who run them. That's where they are and have been all along.

Right back at you.:hug:

[Matariki]

2. He was denied water?

that's torturous.

[Howardx]

3. bye!

[katandmoon]

4. No more scary than the way Kaiser Permanente treated my mother when she was dying from cancer

[YOY]

5. Wow. One horror story that I am sure someone is bringing to our attention purposefully..

I have my own personal story about our system. No amount of BS socialized medicine scares can make me forget it.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[valerief]

12. Sure looks that way. nt

[progressiveGI]

13. N o - not an insurance company or any other type of troll

An ordinary citizen to whom this type of stuff still appears shccking.

This is sad - whether this happens in the British system or here in USA at Kaiser Permanente (as another comment suggested). It is still sad.

Simple as that!

[YOY]

16. Who me?

You know me Nikki! I have a story of how shitty OUR system is.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. The Daily Mail -- the British version of the New York Post

but even more right-wing and less reliable. They get sued for libel on a rather regular basis. Not saying this didn't happen, but it would be nice to have a more reliable description of it.

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. What is it with the rash of "death in the UK" articles? n/t

[Nikki Stone1]

14. The Times of London is Murdoch. Is the Daily Mail as well?

That would explain a lot.

[dixiegrrrrl]

18. Daily Mail is Murdoch's competitor.

Owned by Sir David English.
He and Murdoch are feuding.

[Nikki Stone1]

19. Good Lord. A couple of feuding rags.

LOL!!!!!!!!!!

[Howardx]

20. trolls

nothing but.

[kestrel91316]

9. Shameful. Isn't it good to know that NO ONE IN THE US HAS EVER BEEN

MISDIAGNOSED and died as a result?

I'll sleep much better tonight knowing we have a far superior medical system, even though I haven't seen a doctor in 5 years and am afraid to go now because I may have developed some sort of "pre-existing condition" in the meantime which will make me permanently uninsurable.

BTW, no one in the US can be placed in hospice against their wishes, last I heard.

Oh, and my mom is in hospice care at her assisted living facility. With her mental functions virtually gone, a broken hip that surgery fixed but she can't walk anyway because of said lack of mental functions, blind in one eye and can't see out of the other, hundreds of mini-strokes, a disecting aortic aneurysm, and blood pressure that randomly soars and crashes, at least we have medical power of attorney and can (my sister and I) make medical decisions for her. We decided on hospice. if she eats, fine; if she doesn't eat, fine; if she drinks, fine; if she doesn't drink, fine. She is on anti-psychotic meds so she is not afraid (did I mention she is a chronic schizophrenic?), and if she has pain she will get pain meds in abundance. When she quits eating and drinking, no one will force her. It's called dying. It's normal for the elderly. If the RW had its way, she would be kept alive artificially until long after her assets were completely gone so as to enrich the medical industry. Fortunately, we get to say NO to that BS.

[hedgehog]

24. I'm sorry you and your sister are going through this, but am

glad to see that you've been able to think through what should happen and be able to enforce your wishes. My grandmother in her last days stopped eating and drinking. My aunt could have had her hospitalized, could have had a feeding tube surgically implanted. She did neither. Instead she and my mother watched over her the last few days, kept her clean and comfortable as she left us.

I am a Catholic and I believe that part of us is immortal, call it a soul or whatever.
I also believe that our physical bodies are animals just like any other animal. I've had seven cats and dogs die either of simple old age or illness or injury or some combination. In each case, the creature stopped eating and drinking and looked for some place to be warm and safe. It would have been cruel to force these animals to keep living. It's cruel to hold someone here when the body is ready to rest.

[pipi_k]

27. You were lucky to be able to decide on hospice

After my MIL broke her second hip in 2004 she could no longer function on her own, at the age of 93 so we took her in.

Same as your mom, she started having mini strokes, plus breathing problems, and disturbing bouts of dementia.

Half the time she hardly ate anything at all.

Her regular doctor, when we asked him, REFUSED to refer her to hospice care, which in this state (I don't know about others) is allowed if a doctor gives a six month prognosis. The six months can be renewed as necessary, and often is, because...strangely enough...hospice patients often do better because the care is more intensive.

Anyway, he would not allow hospice for her. We had to place her in a nursing home for one month because she was acting so crazy we didn't know what to do with her.

At one point she caused such a ruckus in the nursing home they had to call the police, and she was brought to a hospital ER, where a doctor there, whom we didn't even know, said she had renal failure and signed her up for hospice care. I don't know if she was "misdiagnosed" like that poor man in the OP was, but it doesn't matter. Mom was 93 and very tired. She no longer wanted to be here. When told she was in hospice care, she became almost happy.

anyhow, I seriously think that ER doctor saw a patient, and a family, in pain, and gave us all a gift when he put Mom in hospice so she could die with dignity...which was what she wanted to do.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

10. PLONK!

[valerief]

11. Even scarier is not getting ANY CHANCE for care at all, like here in the US.

Those doctors were negligent but probably most UK doctors are not.

[MissMarple]

15. I am so so sorry for the family. This will be very difficult, if not impossible, to forgive.

And, yes I get the point about comparing the efficacy of various health care systems. It is quite difficult. Here, however over 44,000 people die every year directly because of lack of access to health care. We can do better than we do now, and we have the ability to create a better model than exists in many other countries. Right now, overall, many of them have us trumped. Check the data at the OECD site.

[Vickers]

17. Just think how much longer he would've lived if his care would've been denied

by an American "health" insurance company.

:patriot:

[Beaverhausen]

21. 45,000 americans die each year because they have no insurance

that is scarier.

[proud2BlibKansan]

22. Your name doesn't fit you at all

But I am thinking you would prefer pepperoni?