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Premature babies are 'blocking beds' - UK medical college wants debate on keeping them alive
Timesonline ^ | March 27, 2006 | Sean O’Neill

Posted on 03/27/2006 9:08:03 AM PST by NYer

PREMATURE babies requiring expensive hospital care have been described as “bed blockers” by one of the country’s leading medical colleges.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) says that the ability of doctors to keep alive babies born under 25 weeks presents difficulties for the treatment of other infants. Its comments were made in a submission to an inquiry by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics into the ethics of prolonging life in foetuses and the newborn.

The RCOG paper states: “Some weight should be given to economic considerations as there is a real issue in neonatal units of “bed blocking”, whereby women have to be transferred in labour to other units compromising both their and their babies’ care.

“One of the problems of the ‘success’ of neonatal intensive care is that the practitioners are always pushing boundaries. There has been a constant need to expand numbers of cots to cover the increasing tendency to try and rescue babies at lower and lower gestations.”

The college’s paper was submitted in July 2005 but its content has been highlighted as NHS trusts come under growing pressure to cut costs and use resources more efficiently.

The RCOG said last night: “There is a proper professional concern around the high death and handicap rate in babies born under 25 weeks. A wellinformed and considered debate is welcomed.”

Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, said yesterday that admitting patients who were unfit for surgery or arrived early for operations was blocking beds and costing the NHS up to £200 a day each.

Some trusts are admitting up to 60 per cent of patients the day before surgery. Ms Hewitt said that if all the trusts with above-average early admissions met the national average it would save at least 390,000 bed days a year at a saving of £78 million.

“Improved patient care and increased efficiency go hand in hand,” she said.

“Finding out a patient is unfit for surgery, which could have been established by a separate assessment before the operation, is another example of a wasted bed day.”

A pilot scheme in Croydon where orthopaedic patients waiting for surgery at Mayday Healthcare NHS Trust visited the hospital for routine pre-surgery tests and administration two weeks before their operationsaved 13 beds and £270,000 in the first year while treating the same number of patients.

Dr Gill Morgan, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “Reducing inpatient admissions and lengths of stay in hospitals will result in real savings, but only if capacity is reduced as a result — which may mean closing beds and wards.

“A fixation with hospital buildings is preventing the development of new and imaginative services. We will have to work hard to convince the public that, with technological advances and a shift to providing more care out of hospitals, the loss of beds and wards doesn’t necessarily equate to a decline in services for patients.”


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: bioethics; eugenics; euthanasia; infants; moralabsolutes; mrmean; omg; premature
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1 posted on 03/27/2006 9:08:07 AM PST by NYer
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To: Coleus; cpforlife.org

Ping!


2 posted on 03/27/2006 9:08:27 AM PST by NYer (Discover the beauty of the Eastern Catholic Churches - freepmail me for more information.)
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To: NYer
Devil in the flesh

These AH's are lower than reptile crap

3 posted on 03/27/2006 9:09:08 AM PST by vrwc0915
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To: NYer
Some trusts are admitting up to 60 per cent of patients the day before surgery. Ms Hewitt said that if all the trusts with above-average early admissions met the national average it would save at least 390,000 bed days a year at a saving of £78 million.

Yes, that makes perfect sense.

4 posted on 03/27/2006 9:11:55 AM PST by Tax-chick (May I suggest a restorative adult beverage? Perhaps something Australian?)
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To: NYer

Pity some merciless tyrant inflicted a socialized medical system on them or there would be enough beds.

In this country, hospitals close wings because there aren't enough patients to fill all of the beds.

Maybe we should Lend-Lease them to the Brits?


5 posted on 03/27/2006 9:13:45 AM PST by FormerLib (Kosova: "land stolen from Serbs and given to terrorist killers in a futile attempt to appease them.")
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To: Tax-chick

Yes, and we can also start euthanizing all seniors immediately upon their retirement from active work.

That would relieve an immense burden on society (no pensions!)

Plus all handicapped, blind, deaf, etc. (sorry, not enough resources to go around)

Only the young and healthy can be permitted to occupy space.

(now why did anything think that legalizing abortion would lead to this?)


6 posted on 03/27/2006 9:14:29 AM PST by CondorFlight
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To: NYer; Alexander Rubin; An American In Dairyland; Antoninus; Aquinasfan; BIRDS; BlackElk; ...
MORAL ABSOLUTES PING.

DISCUSSION ABOUT:
"Premature babies are 'blocking beds' - UK medical college wants debate on keeping them alive"

NONE of us are safe from the Culture of Death and their evil eugenics agenda.

To be included in or removed from the MORAL ABSOLUTES PINGLIST, please FreepMail wagglebee.

7 posted on 03/27/2006 9:18:23 AM PST by wagglebee ("We are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom." -- President Bush, 1/20/05)
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To: NYer

That's what happens when you have the state providing health care.

The Nazis didn't start with the Jews or the gypsies. They started with terminal patients and the mentally ill.


8 posted on 03/27/2006 9:21:16 AM PST by weegee ("Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but Democrats believe every day is April 15.")
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To: NYer
Hey,if it weren't just about impossible to own a gun in Britain,you could just shoot these kids in the back of the head and the problem would be solved.
9 posted on 03/27/2006 9:22:09 AM PST by Gay State Conservative
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To: NYer

"Ethics" separated from morality is just a means of justifying the grotesque.

It becomes more and more plain to me that once you let go of God, there is no bright line to separate you from ghoulishness. If enough people let go of God the whole society is lost.


10 posted on 03/27/2006 9:22:45 AM PST by marron
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To: NYer
That's what Hildabeasts Medical Plan would have us discussing and implementing if her takeover of the nations health care had gone through. I know this because a year after she tried to do that, I delivered a premature baby...she was in the neonatal ward for two months. We often joke that they should be finishing our wing at the hospital any day now, because of all the money it cost our insurance company to pay...but she got the FINEST care and attention in Hermann Hospital. She had to be life-flighted there from the hospital where she was delivered because they didnt have the proper facilities.

Read Christian Josi's Tract on Hillary Clinton's record. He boils it all down for you. Its then you realize just what a monster she can be and how she has been able to foster such horrendous ideas.

She didnt get it through, but I have noticed in the last decade that the lawyers in the insurance companies have been working it where its less and less about the person needing medical support, and more about how much money they can steal without actually having to put back out.

11 posted on 03/27/2006 9:24:58 AM PST by Alkhin (He thinks I need keeping in order - Peregrin Took, FOTR)
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To: wagglebee
"What you do to the least of these you have done unto ME"
12 posted on 03/27/2006 9:25:19 AM PST by sr4402
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To: NYer

Gotta love that Socialized Medicine. Brought to you by liberals right here in this country if we let them....


13 posted on 03/27/2006 9:27:45 AM PST by TheBattman (Islam (and liberalism)- the cult of Satan and a Cancer on Society)
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To: 2ndMostConservativeBrdMember; afraidfortherepublic; Alas; al_c; american colleen; annalex; ...
as “bed blockers” by one of the country’s leading medical colleges.  >>>
and as future useless eaters who may use up time and reources for a lifetime of care.
 
We're living in a sick world
 
Communists boiled babies: Berlusconi

14 posted on 03/27/2006 9:30:43 AM PST by Coleus (What were Ted Kennedy & his nephew doing on Good Friday, 1991? Getting drunk and raping women)
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To: CondorFlight
Only the young and healthy tall, thin, beautiful, and rich can be permitted to occupy space.
15 posted on 03/27/2006 9:33:21 AM PST by Alouette (Psalms of the Day: 120-134)
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To: NYer
 Prayer Request for A Tiny Baby
FReeper Texas Termite!
(Logan)
 Logan then...26 weeks (24 weeks gestation)
1lb 9oz.
 
July 25th, 2003
 
Logan now
 
 
 
 
(and Here's Logan with Texas Cowboy...just cause I like the picture and miss TC)
 
 


16 posted on 03/27/2006 9:34:18 AM PST by M0sby (((PROUD WIFE of MSgt Edwards USMC)))
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To: marron

The only ethical thing to do is take all ethicists out and have them summarily executed.


17 posted on 03/27/2006 9:44:52 AM PST by thoughtomator (Pacifism is objectively pro-terrorist)
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To: NYer

Of course, the common sense solution would be to expand the hospitals, but I guess killing 'em all would be more cost-efficient. After all, who said hospitals are about saving as many lives as possible anyway. I thought they were just there to keep up appearances!

But wasn't socialism supposed to be about, you know, equality and fairness for all the people? Doesn't look likes it's working quite the way the intended it.


18 posted on 03/27/2006 9:49:35 AM PST by marsh_of_mists
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To: CondorFlight

I'm sorry, is this responsive to my post?

It makes sense to me that if people don't need to be in the hospital for a day before surgery, they shouldn't be there. If they're not in a fit condition before surgery, that should be determined by an outpatient checkup, not after admission and scheduling for surgery.

These are simple management issues that are the policy of any system with a concern for effective use of resources.


19 posted on 03/27/2006 10:04:02 AM PST by Tax-chick (May I suggest a restorative adult beverage? Perhaps something Australian?)
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To: wagglebee

Unbelievable sad. That is just sick.


20 posted on 03/27/2006 10:13:36 AM PST by TheresaKett
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