Tuesday, October 25, 2005

BBC NEWS | England | GP 'deliberately killed' patients

Another doctor in the UK is on trial for allegedly deciding when it was time for certain of his patients to die.

Dr Howard Martin, 71, is accused of murdering Frank Moss, 59, Stanley Weldon, 69, and Harry Gittins, 74, by giving them overdoses of morphine.

Update: See also this article by Paul Stokes in The Telegraph, Oct. 26.

2 comments:

Bookworm said...

One wonders if there is something hinky about the British medical system that leads to this God complex. Perhaps rationing care enough leads you to think you can make the ultimate rationing decisions.

Kathryn Judson said...

I suspect that plays into it. I think there's also been a huge push in the medical professions to bolster the idea that suffering can be eliminated, and should be at all costs. That patients become mere ciphers under such a system, movable from the living to the dead column to keep the living column free of marred or struggling specimens, hasn't seemed to sink in at enough levels, I think.

That surviving family members are finally fighting back, and that prosecutors do see it as murder, gives me hope.