Euthanasia?.

There has been a scandal in Spain, about the consensus among the Medicos, that they will administer barely concealed euthanasia. In that they have been quietly putting extreme cases of cancer, brought into emergency, to ‘sleep’!

A big investigation found that in some cases the Medicos had asked the implicit consent of the nearest and dearest.
In todays paper there is the big debate that is going on in medical circles. The article is titled “ Trapped in Technology”. It points to the many cases that exist where there is a body maintained on Intensive Care – but with NO inhabitant – the person is in fact dead! As they say that there are many cases where they fight and prevent death – but the victory is Pyrrhic !.

They also quote a Prof. Lorda of the School of Public Health in Granada who says that the Vatican finally accepted that it was purposeless to prolong the life of the Ex Pope and allowed him to die in the Vatican. Also quoting the case of Terry Schiavo , who they say felt no hunger ,because there was no living person in what was effectively a living corpse.

A similar but more difficult problem arose with a brilliant 28 yr old History Professor who had a fever and intense feeling of illness and spinal pain. At the hospital next day they found that he had gangrene in the arms and legs. Septic Meningitis in ALL the body. Under profound sedation he was stable and then they had to make a decision – what next?.

To save the life , but have a living torso – or ?. The Medicos wanted to amputate , but the parents said NO! – 29 days after admission he died. Was there such a thing as a “ Right” decision?,

Premature and malformed babies also come into the discussion. Some half of the cases , where there is every possibility of a very bad quality of life , they are allowed to die.

There is also the discussion where it is technically possible to resuscitate but ethically doubtful . As they point out , terminal patients are vulnerable to being shifted to the private sector where the treatment is very very expensive – chemotherapy costing 5,000 E a shot , “ and it is difficult to distinguish between the interest of the patient and the commercial interest of the Hospital !.”

As one medico pointed out “ the use of technology has changed the treatment of the sick and has dehumanized the relations with patients”.

A further interesting development in the treatment of Cancer is , most unusual , based on maths!. It says that the tumor only increases because there is ‘empty’ space at the boundry.of the tumor.

The idea is to fill this empty space with neutrophils [ granulocyte – white blood cell ] . The tumor unable to expand starts to contract !. It was tried out on rats, and now has been used on a case of liver cancer , with great success . At least the orthodox are realizing that their existing methods are bankrupt , and trying something new.