Doctor’s Diary December 14, 2018: Forcing ICU patients onto hospice

(Snippets from the frontline)

Forcing ICU patients onto hospice

Some elder senior patients admitted to the ICU are targeted by hospitals and placed on hospice care.  Why?  It saves money.  

Patients indeed can be at end-of-life, and medical care options are limited.  But others may survive with good doctoring and state of the art care.

Upon admission, some doctors and ICU hospital staff paint a self-serving dark cloud as to the patient’s prognosis.  Tactics are used (a future snippet) manipulating emotions of loved ones away from sound judgement. 

Once a patient or family agrees to hospice, transfer is immediate to a lower level of care, sometimes a nursing home.  If the patient is on medication sustaining blood pressure or has a breathing tube (intubated), these will be withdrawn resulting in death.

Some medical professionals have taken an oath to “cause no harm” yet have now buckled under the weight of HMO or hospital contracts.  If physicians do not, they can be labeled “money-wasters”, whereas those following hospital dictums are toted as “money-savers”, of course at the expense of patients.

Healthcare is costly, but tilting the balance of saving money against worthwhile medical treatment breaches any oath they have taken.

Gene Uzawa Dorio, M.D.