Category: United Kingdom

Fury after mothers get thousands in compensation – for healthy babies they tried to have aborted

 Daily Mail

Jonathan Petre and Stephen Adams

Women have successfully sued the NHS for hundreds of thousands of pounds – despite giving birth to healthy babies.

The mothers won the huge payouts after claiming that procedures to stop them having children – including abortions – went wrong.

The women received the cash for reasons including the pain suffered in childbirth and the discomfort of pregnancy.

Last night the former Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, hit out at the move, saying: ‘A healthy child is an occasion for thanksgiving rather than for taking the NHS to the cleaners and using up precious funds which could otherwise be more usefully employed.’

And TV presenter and mother-of-two Kirstie Allsopp, who has urged women to have children while they are still young, said she understood that people who had suffered a serious medical malpractice or had a disabled child needed support, but added: ‘It seems to me that to be able to sue the NHS after the birth of a healthy baby is simply not something the majority of people would agree with.

‘The NHS hasn’t got an infinite amount of money. I think parents in that position should think twice.’

The successful legal claims have been made by at least 40 women over the past ten years. . . [Full text]

Supreme Court of the United Kingdom to hear midwives’s case on 11 November

The Greater Glasgow Health Board has appealed to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom to overturn a ruling that two midwives cannot be compelled to participate in abortions by delegating, supervising and supporting those involved in the procedures.  The case is to be heard 11 November, 2014.

The midwives’ legal costs have been in excess of £250,000 ($396,758 USD) to date.  The appeal is expected to cost them a further £130,000 ($206,314 USD). The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children is assisting with their legal costs and has appealed for donations.

Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

Greater Glasgow Health Board (Appellant) v Doogan and another (Respondents) (Scotland)

Case ID: UKSC 2013/0124

Issue

Judicial Review – Abortion – Conscientious objection – Midwives

Does s.4(1) of the Abortion Act 1967, which provides that “no person shall be under any duty… to participate in any treatment authorised by this Act to which he has a conscientious objection”, entitle a Labour Ward Co-ordinator to refuse to delegate to, supervise and/or support midwives providing care to patients undergoing termination procedures?

Facts

From the outset of their employment with the appellant health board, the respondent senior midwives, both Roman Catholics, objected to and were exempted from directly participating in the treatment of patients undergoing terminations. Following a service reorganisation, the numbers of abortions performed at the hospital where they worked increased. They sought confirmation from the appellant that they would not be required to delegate to, supervise or support other midwives providing care to such patients. The appellant declined to give this assurance, rejecting the respondents’ grievance and subsequent appeal. The respondents challenged the latter decision by way of judicial review, contending that it contravened s.4(1) of the Abortion Act 1967. They were unsuccessful at first instance but succeeded on appeal to the Inner House.

Judgment appealed

[2013] CSIH 36

Appellant

Greater Glasgow Health Board

Respondents

  1. Mary Teresa Doogan
  2. Concepta Wood

Interveners

  1. Royal College of Midwives
  2. British Pregnancy Advisory Service

 

 

Lords back assisted dying providing judge gives final ruling

The Independent

Lewis Smith

Judges could routinely be given the power of life or death over patients who are determined to die to end their suffering.

Proposals to use judges as the final arbiters of who can be helped to die go some way to satisfying opponents to Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill. Lord Pannick QC proposed judicial oversight in amendments to the Bill which went before the House of Lords yesterday. The Lords, in the first Parliamentary vote on the Bill, gave it their approval.

Baroness Butler-Sloss, former head of the High Court Family Division, was among critics of the Bill who said giving judges a crucial role in assisted dying cases could provide the safeguards needed. [Full text]

Doctors refusing to prescribe statins

Two in three family GPs refuse to follow NHS advice to give statins to 40 per cent of adults, survey finds

The Telegraph

Laura Donnelly, and Edward Malnick

Two thirds of GPs are refusing to comply with controversial NHS advice to prescribe statins to millions more adults, polling has found.

Family doctors said guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), advising 40 per cent of adults to take the pills, were “simplistic”. They insisted they would not allow the “mass medicalisation” of the public.

The guidelines, published in July, say drugs to protect against strokes and heart attacks should be offered to anyone with a one in 10 chance of developing heart disease within a decade.

It means 17.5 million adults, including most men aged over 60 and women over 65, are now eligible for the drugs, which cost less than 10p a day.

A number of cardiologists have defended the guidance, which Nice says could cut 50,000 deaths a year from strokes and heart attacks.

But the advice has divided experts, with prominent doctors accusing Nice’s experts of being too close to the pharmaceutical industry. [Full Text]

Girl ‘aborted’ to save her mother’s life celebrates 10th birthday

Metro

A ‘miracle’ baby born weighing just 1lb 4oz after doctors tried to abort her has celebrated her tenth birthday.

Natasha Smith’s birth was induced 14 weeks early when her mother developed a life-threatening condition.

Doctors told Norelle Smith the abortion at 26 weeks was necessary or the pregnancy could kill her.

But her daughter was delivered alive – to the astonishment of the medical team at the former Queen Mother’s Hospital in Glasgow. . . [Full text]