Scots dementia expert says coronavirus outbreak could be 'quite useful' as it will kill off hospital bed blockers

janipat I will take your name off that list

In all seriousness though, overall people who seriously overweight and obese utilise more services, have poorer disease prognosis, have a higher rate of certain diseases and conditions, have poorer outcomes for certain surgeries and require a higher level of intervention in both secondary and primary care. Can you imagine, however, if one of the senior dieticians or public health figures in the SG or national boards suggested that taking them out of health services would be quite useful?

Enough elderly people feel like they're a burden because they need care and can no longer live fully independently. Speeches like this just endorse that feeling. It's cruel to use the word useful in the same sentence as elderly people dying of coronavirus. What next, people thinking they're such a burden they "should" opt to alleviate the world and their family of their useless lives?
SirChenjin, if your list was to be implemented, could you please remove overweight as a criteria, I am trying, honestly

jura yes, interesting for another thread.

But a health professional putting forward the hypothesis that the deaths of elderly patients (people!) would be useful is indeed chilling.

Why did someone who thinks like that ever go into nursing which is a caring profession?

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

A FORMER Scottish Government official believes a coronavirus pandemic “would be quite useful” in clearing delayed discharge levels because “people would be taken out of the system”
“If you’re on the board of a care home company, a pandemic is one of things you think about as a potential damage to your business because of the number of older people it’s going to take out of the system.

“Curiously, ripping off the sticking plaster, in a hospital that has 92 delayed discharges, a pandemic would be quite useful because your hospital would work because these people would be taken out of the system.”

These are quotes from the article. There is no mention of people with dementia.
She is talking about all elderly people (that's us) who are otherwise healthy but who in the future might need care, but who might get coronavirus now.

In this context, the word 'useful' implies expediency and the expression 'taken out' has connotations of people being got rid of.

Again - Prof Andrews wasn’t talking about people with dementia

Calli ''Why not just give them all a lethal injection AlltheLs if you think they'd probably prefer that?''

perhaps many would, actually. For another thread- but what 10s fo 1000s would like, is proper advanced directives that give them a choice in this matter. And not to be trapped for years in a body without sense. But for another thread.

Anyone remember the Hippocratic Oath ?

Witzend

She wasn’t actually talking about patients with dementia. Perhaps we should start to make wider judgments about who should live and die in order to free up health services during this approaching epidemic?

How about:
Smokers
Obese and overweight people
Older people over the age of 75
Children and babies with life limiting conditions
Adults with life limiting conditions
People with underlying health conditions
People who haven’t paid taxes at any point in their lives
Children with disabilities
Adults with disabilities
Anyone else?

Goodness me SueDonim, easy peasy, just shut 'em all up in an airless room with someone (preferably old) who has the virus and leave them to it.

That'll sort the wheat from the chaff!!
No food or water will sort the rest.
Only the strongest should survive.

That’s not what it’s about, though, AllTheLls. This is about someone gleefully anticipating your death, by whatever means. It’s also about the slippery slope. How about those with disabilities that require life-long support?

Why not just give them all a lethal injection AlltheLs if you think they'd probably prefer that?

A good solution to bed blocking and no need for nursing homes
It would solve so many problems.

How to discriminate though?
Old people who voted Brexit?
Old folks who don't believe in climate change?
Anyone who voted for Boris, whatever age?

That would sort out a lot of the world's problems, leaving more room for real criminals and warmongerers

Having seen far more than I would ever wish to of late-stage dementia, quite frankly I think that anything that finally lets them go would probably be a mercy. Instead, people with a pitifully poor quality of life are so often kept going just because it’s possible to do so.

Of course it’s not ‘done’ to say so, but I bet a good many people who’ve witnessed the same, would agree.
Feel free to flame me.

Hospital is in any case so often a terrible place for anyone with dementia, when they can’t understand what is going on or why, and so often pull drips and catheters out, or try to, over and over.

And even if she were it’s still offensive and needless at this time.

AllTheLs

The ‘fuss’ is because she’s not talking about people with dementia.

Been sitting on my hands not to say that AllTheLs

Not sure what all the fuss is about. If it was me I'd rather go quickly through coronavirus than suffer years of dementia (and put my family through years of suffering, too).

I echo Curvygran, SirChenjin thank you for your posts on this subject.

Granny23 I’m all in favour of a bit of extra tax being paid to benefit others. I’m not arguing as to whether those who can, should pay more as it seems self-evident to me that in a decent society, we should.

What I’m saying is that it doesn’t seem to have benefited people where I am, with deteriorating public services in schools, the NHS, transport and so on. Yes, my youngest dd has benefited from no tuition fees, but that was in place before the new tax rates. Unfortunately, the 14,000 well-qualified Scottish youngsters who were denied places at Scottish universities last year aren’t benefitting from free tuition at all.

We also do have free prescriptions and so on, but all these were in place before the new tax rates. What is the extra money being spent on? That what I want to know.

I am not that easily offended but I find her statement offensive.

Losing weight

Yes Hetty she was certainly right in saying that we need to look at how services are funded and delivered but as I’ve said numerous times, this was not the time to make political capital out of older, vulnerable people dying. The NHS is under a huge amount of pressure at the moment and everything is ramping up several gears to mobilise the workforce and put emergency planning measures in place - the focus is very much on reducing the impact of the epidemic. Prof Andrews has contributed absolutely nothing to this and has simply perpetuated the view amongst some that older people (also known as people who have paid taxes all their lives and are just as entitled to good care as the rest of us) are nothing more than dispensable bed blockers.

If we want to free up beds in readiness for this epidemic then we all look more closely at our own behaviour, which means reducing our alcohol intake, long weight, stopping smoking, taking regular exercise and so on - and not focusing on older people as the only group that it would be “quite useful “ to lose.

Can you imagine anyone else in a similar position elsewhere in the health or care sector talking about their patient or service user group in such a similarly dismissive and offensive way? Or it is only OK because it’s older people?

And the pollution in China is well down, Hetty58
Greta must be thrilled.

She was just talking facts - no diplomacy at all but never mind, better than a load of rubbish.

It did occur to me that a pandemic really might keep the annoying worried well away from GPs and A&E, allowing the truly ill shorter waiting times.

Another thought is that anything that discourages people from flying can't be all bad - (sorry).

SirChenjin, thank you for your excellent posts on this thread.

You've renewed my faith in humanity .

I speak as a mum of someone who is on the frontline of an ED at the moment.