NORTH’S HEALTH BLOG

British doctors now have the legal right to let patients die. If their case is deemed hopeless, the new Mental Capacity Act enshrines in law a House of Lords precedent that has allowed them to withdraw food in such cases for the last 14 years.

This right sits uneasily with what a doctor is supposed to be. At the fundamental root of medicine is the Hippocratic Oath which demands that a doctor does no harm. What has happened to this ethic?

One obvious answer is that medical science is fast drawing back the veil of death. Technology is now able to keep someone alive who would naturally die. The argument is that it is useless to keep people in an unnatural state of life with no hope of recovery. However, it is not known what medical breakthrough is round the corner.

There is, though, another factor that must be taken into account – a factor that sits uncomfortably with the medical profession. The resources do not exist to keep people alive indefinitely.

This takes the problem out of the realm of science and places it squarely in accounting. People are being allowed to die because we cannot afford to keep them alive. Placing such decisions in the hands of doctors doesn’t just lie uncomfortably with the Hippocratic Oath. It decimates it.

 © Anthony North, Feb 2007

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