Tag: physicians

Good News and Bad News

Presentation to the Catholic Physicians’ Guild of Vancouver

North Vancouver B.C.

Sean Murphy *

Introduction

Thank you for inviting me to speak this evening. I have never been asked to give a three hour presentation to a group of physicians. You will be relieved to know that I have not been asked to do that tonight.

Those of you who saw the BC Catholic headline may have been expecting a “lecture on medical ethics,” but, thanks to Dr. Bright’s introduction, you now know that I am an administrator, not an ethicist, and that my topic is freedom of conscience in health care.

Protection of Conscience Project

The Protection of Conscience Project will be 15 years old this December. Although a meeting sponsored by the Catholic Physicians Guild provided the impetus for its formation, the Project is a non-denominational initiative, not a Catholic enterprise. Thus, if I mention the Catholic Church or Catholic teaching tonight, it will be as an outsider, as it were, though an outsider with inside information.

One more thing: the Project does not take a position on the acceptability of morally contested procedures like abortion, contraception or euthanasia: not even on torture. The focus is exclusively on freedom of conscience.

Context

Supreme Court of Canada, OttawaThe context for my presentation is provided by the passage of the Quebec euthanasia law1 and the pending decision in Carter v. Canada in the Supreme Court.2 Physicians are now confronted by the prospect that laws against euthanasia and physician assisted suicide will be struck down or changed. If that happens, what does the future hold for Catholic physicians and others who share your beliefs?

Will you be forced to participate in suicide or euthanasia?

If you refuse, will you be disadvantaged, discriminated against, disciplined, sued or fired?

Will you be forced out of your specialty or profession, or forced to emigrate if you wish to continue in it?

What about those who come after you? If you avoid all of these difficulties, will they?

In sum, will freedom of conscience and religion for health care workers be protected if assisted suicide and euthanasia are legalized? [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]

There’s no “mushy middle” on euthanasia

Mercatornet

Margaret Somerville*

Many know the saying “You have to fish or cut bait”. Many fewer know the law’s equivalent, “You can’t approbate and reprobate”. But the Canadian Medical Association’s recent dealing with their 2007 Policy on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide makes it seem they are unaware of the warning and wisdom these axioms communicate.

That CMA policy unambiguously declares: “Canadian physicians should not participate in euthanasia or assisted suicide.”  Despite that, a motion passed at the recent CMA General Council meeting, which ostensibly was meant only to ensure freedom of conscience, has allowed the CMA to make the following statement in its intervener factum in the upcoming appeal in the Supreme Court of Canada in the Carter case:

“As long as such practices [as euthanasia and assisted suicide] remain illegal, the CMA believes that physicians should not participate in medical aid in dying. If the law were to change, the CMA would support its members who elect to follow their conscience [either to refuse or to undertake euthanasia and assisted suicide].”

[Full text]

GP crisis as soaring numbers refusing to take patients

Investigation finds hundreds of GP surgeries are closing their lists to new arrivals, forcing out existing patients or facing closure

The Telegraph

Laura Donnelly

Soaring numbers of GP practices are demanding to close their doors to new patients and force current patients to go elsewhere as doctors warn that services are “teetering on the brink of collapse”.

New figures show that last year 104 GP practices applied to NHS authorities for permission to stop accepting patients – more than twice as many as two years before.

A further 45 surgeries asked to “shrink” their practice boundaries, throwing existing patients off their lists, while 100 more practices are threatened with closure, an investigation by Pulse magazine found.

Doctors said they were unable to cope with “vast numbers of people” moving into some parts of the country, forcing them to close their lists to newcomers, or divert existing patients to new surgeries.

Dr Maureen Baker, chairman of the Royal College of General Practice, said the situation was “extremely distressing” and having a “severe impact” on patient care. . . [Full text]

Increasing resistance to assisted suicide among U.K. physicians

Daily Mail

Press Association

Fewer than one in five doctors would be willing to help patients end their  lives, according to a new poll. . . . a survey of 600 doctors by the Medix consultancy found that 60 % are  against a change in the law to allow physician-assisted suicide.

This is a rise of 17 points from the last time the same question was asked –  just 43% were against a change in 2004 . . . [See full text at Most doctors oppose assisted dying.]