Free Republic

Four patients are dying hungry and thirsty on hospital wards every day, shocking figures reveal. Dehydration or malnutrition directly caused or was linked to 1,316 deaths last year in NHS trusts and privately run hospitals. The revelation follows a series of damning reports accusing staff of failing to address the most basic needs of the vulnerable, particularly the elderly. Only this month David Cameron was forced to order nurses to carry out hourly spot checks of patients just to see whether they need help eating, drinking or going to the toilet.

"In a scarcely believable ­ruling, a panel of experts threw out a claim that regular water consumption is the best way to rehydrate the body. The bizarre diktat from Brussels has far-reaching implications..."

"EU officials concluded that, following a three-year investigation, there was no evidence to prove the previously undisputed fact."

<p>DALLAS (AP) — A 10-year-old Dallas-area boy who died of dehydration after his father and stepmother kept water from him was being punished for wetting the bed, authorities say.</p> <p>The boy, Johnathan James died July 25 after water was kept from him for five days while temperatures soared to 100 degrees or more each day, police said. The boy's dad, Michael Ray James, and stepmother, Tina Alberson, both 42, were jailed after being charged Thursday with injury to a child causing serious bodily injury.</p>

A 10-year-old boy who died of dehydration after his parents deprived him of water last month was being disciplined for wetting the bed, authorities said Friday. Documents obtained a day after Jonathan James’ father and stepmother were arrested in his death show how the boy suffered while he was denied drinking water for five days in July. And in an interview Friday, Jonathan’s grandmother said that he had called her in late June to say he was afraid to live with his father and stepmother for a month-long, court-ordered custody visit. Jonathan died July 25 after he collapsed at...

Julia Gross with her mother Estelle. LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, August 22, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A recently retired New York Times reporter has penned a book in which she details how she followed through on a shocking pact to help her 88-year-old mother, Estelle, starve to death. In an excerpt from the book, “A Bittersweet Season,� published recently in the Daily Mail, Jane Gross describes her mother’s increasing dissatisfaction with life as her health deteriorated, and her mounting desire to die, despite the fact that she was not terminally ill. “So here we were, my mother and I, wishing that she...

Doctors are prescribing drinking water for neglected elderly patients to stop them dying of thirst in hospital. The measure – to remind nurses of the most basic necessity – is revealed in a damning report on pensioner care in NHS wards. Some trusts are neglecting the elderly on such a fundamental level their wards could face closure orders. The snapshot study, triggered by a Mail campaign, found staff routinely ignored patients’ calls for help and forgot to check that they had had enough to eat and drink.

The number of euthanasia deaths in the Netherlands rose significantly in 2009 compared with 2008. There were reportedly 200 more deaths under the law, but pro-life advocates say those numbers are likely lowball estimates given the underreporting in the Dutch system. The Dutch News indicates approximately 2,500 people died via euthanasia in 2009, but the actual number is unknown because the government estimates about 20 percent of cases are not reported. The new government figures also include six registered cases of euthanasia on elderly patients with senile dementia, all of whom were supposedly in the early stages and able to...

Watching the ongoing relief efforst on TV, it is frustrating to know that people deserately need the basics and will probably not get them for days. The officials are offloading everything at the airport andit is stacking up. I am no expert, but IMO we need to be doing a 2 pronged approach to this disaster, and airstyle-type drop of World War II combined with the precise relief we are seeing set up on television. But why they are not doing the airdrops is beyond me. The peeople need the basics such as water and crackers and these could beeasily...

The doctor will kill you now Posted: July 23, 2009 1:00 am Eastern By Andrew Longman © 2009 I have commented before that the purpose of socialized medicine is not health care, but rather government-run death care. The choker bill presently being rammed down America's throat in the Congress is no exception. In light of the recent history where hospitals have forcibly dehydrated people to death, everyone should pay attention to their gag reflex. On page 430 of the 2009 Death Care Act we find: (B) The level of treatment …may range from an indication for full treatment to an...

A horrifying investigative film, shot undercover in Zimbabwe, has exposed how prisons under President Mugabe have become death camps for thousands of inmates who are deprived of food and medical care. The documentary, shown last night on South Africa's state broadcaster SABC, documented the “living hell” for prisoners across 55 state institutions. The result, Hell Hole, was a grim account of a crisis in which dozens of inmates die each day.

Yahoo ran an interesting article this morning indicating a rise in the number of survivalist communities cropping up around the country. I have been wondering myself how much of the recent energy crisis is causing people to do things like stockpile food and water, grow their own vegetables, etc. Could it be that there are many people out there stockpiling and their increased buying has caused food prices to increase? It’s an interesting theory, but I believe increased food prices have more to do with rising fuel prices as cost-to-market costs have increased and grocers are simply passing those increases...

NIXZALIZ SANTIAGO failed to stop beatings......convicted of first-degree manslaughter in the 7-year-old girl's death at the hands of her abusive stepfather....Cesar Rodriguez Jan. 11, 2006...... jurors saw gut-wrenching photos of the little girl's emaciated and bruised body and heard that Rodriguez regularly bound her to a chair overnight, forcing her to use a litter box as a toilet. Rodriguez, convicted last spring, was sentenced to 29 years. Prosecutors said Santiago failed to stop the final beating after a famished Nixzmary took a yogurt from the fridge and accidentally broke a computer printer.

A Delaware woman has become the next Terri Schiavo as her parents engage in a massive legal and philosophical debate about whether to subject her to euthanasia. Richardson is a 23-year-old woman who overdosed on heroin in August 2006 while she was three months pregnant with a baby girl. Doctors kept Lauren on life support until she delivered her baby in February 2007. Shortly thereafter, her parents began a fight that is reminiscent of the battle over Terri's life and death. As in the Terri Schiavo case, physicians have been quick to label Lauren as having a persistent vegetative state...

A convicted Nazi war criminal arrived in Italy yesterday to start a life sentence imposed in his absence for the murder and torture of prisoners in the final year of the Second World War. Michael Seifert, 83, a Ukraine-born Canadian citizen dubbed the "Beast of Bolzano", has lived in Canada since 1951. He had been fighting extradition for eight years. The former SS corporal was a guard at a prison camp in Bolzano, northern Italy - used as a transit point for Jews, Italian resistance fighters and others - in 1944 and 1945. An Italian military tribunal convicted him in...

Liza Biggers blinked back tears and gently patted her brother Ethan's hand as he lay in his hospital bed, finally wearing the Purple Heart he earned in Iraq. Ethan's family had held off on the medal ceremony, hoping he would emerge from his year-long coma. When that didn't happen, his 22-year-old twin, Matt, made a phone call to make sure he received the award before he died. Last Sunday's private ceremony was a poignant moment in a tumultuous journey that began the day Army Spc. Ethan Biggers was critically wounded in Iraq. Biggers' family stopped trying to keep him alive...

Fred Thompson will pick up the support of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) tomorrow, according to two Republicans familar with the decision. For a candidate who came up empty-handed last week when three prominent Christian conservatives endorsed GOP hopefuls and is falling in both national and early state polls, the move comes at a critical time. NRLC is the most prominent anti-abortion group in the country, with affiliates in all 50 states and over 3,000 local chapters. A spokesperson for the organization declined to comment on their endorsement decision, but Thompson was likely rewarded for his strong pro-life...

Milan, Italy (LifeNews.com) -- An Italian court has denied a request by a disabled woman's father to remove her feeding tube and authorize her death by starvation and dehydration. Eluana Englaro has been a coma for 15 years after an automobile accident seriously injured her and, this year, her father asked a Milan court for permission to remove her feeding tube. This isn't the first time Englaro's case had been in court. In April 2005, the Italian Supreme Court confirmed a lower court ruling to keep her feeding tube in place. That case had also been brought by Englaro's father,...

PHILADELPHIA, PA, September 25, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - As is the custom in the United States, the first Sunday of October will be honored by US Catholics as Respect Life Sunday.  In honor of this, Cardinal Justin Rigali, the Chairman of the Committee for Pro-Life Activities of the United States' Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), has issued a statement to be made available at all parishes nationwide.  The statement calls for US Catholics to "again pray for - and renew their resolve to bring about - a culture of life and an end to the killing of innocent human beings, especially...

Pope Rules Patients in Permanent Vegetative State May Not be Denied Artificial Nutrition and Hydration Response to certain questions raised by US Conference of Catholic Bishops concerning artificial nutrition and hydration By John-Henry Westen VATICAN CITY, September 14, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In most hospitals in North America, families of patients in permanent vegetative state are asked if they wish their family member to have their artificial feeding tube removed. According to a definitive ruling by the Vatican made public today, the withdrawal of artificial nutrition and hydration from such patients is immoral. The ruling from the Vatican's Congregation for the...

Brain-Damaged Man "Awakened" After Six Years of Semi-Consciousness By Elizabeth O'Brien NEW YORK, August 2, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A severely brain-damaged man who was in a minimally conscious state for six years has recently regained new levels of awareness and physical capabilities after receiving electrical brain implants. The unnamed 38-year old man had his head repeatedly kicked during a mugging in 1999 and was left unable to talk or move properly. In addition, he was kept alive on a feeding tube.In a study led by Dr. Nicholas Schiff of Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University in New York, researchers...

CLEARWATER, FL, July 25, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A North Country Gazette exclusive alleges, with evidence, that Michael Schiavo, who ordered the starvation of his wife Terry Schiavo in 2005, has a history of hostility towards co-workers, stalking women, vindictiveness and general unprofessional behavior. Last year, the Gazetter reports, Schiavo was involved in a complex tangle of accusations against co-workers at the Pinellas County Jail. The first alleged incident occurred on July 31, when co-worker Diane Cross illegally gave prescription medication, a muscle relaxant called Robaxin, to nursing supervisor David Richardson in order to alleviate his extreme back pain. Schiavo did...

PEACHTREE CITY, Georgia, July 11, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Marine candidate who nearly drowned four years ago in boot-camp met his death after his family agreed to let doctors remove his feeding tube. "He smiled all week [since the tube was removed]. It was the first time. He seemed so happy, not in pain," his mother, Melia Isaac said of her son, who had been reduced to a comatose or minimal conscious state. "I'm going to wonder for the rest of my life if I did the right thing. But I believe I did. He didn't have much of a...

Springfield, FL (LifeNews.com) -- The family of Terri Schiavo could have called it a day after Terri was starved and dehydrated to death by her former husband over a two week period. They endured constant international news coverage and waged a discouraging battle in the courts that left their daughter and sister with no hope. Instead, Terri's parents Bob and Mary, brother Bobby and sister Suzanne pressed on. Not wanting the same fate to befall other disabled patients, they reworked the foundation they created to help Terri and organized it to assist other incapacitated or minimally conscious patients. Since they...

A wilderness-survival school is allowing campers to carry a 32-ounce water bottle instead of a smaller cup during a grueling course in southern Utah, a change from last year when a New Jersey man died of dehydration. "They're allowed to carry them and drink as they go," said Andrew Wright, an attorney for the Boulder Outdoor Survival School, known as BOSS. Dave Buschow, 29, collapsed and died on the second day of a 28-day expedition in the searing heat of the Utah desert in July 2006. Participants were given a 24-ounce cup and told to drink water only from natural...

Family sues survival school after death of fit 29-year-old on wilderness course"Dave is dead." The words came at the end of the second day of what was supposed to be a character-forming experience, a chance for 12 people to "experience the wilderness to the fullest". Instead, the trek through the mountains and desert of Utah in the mid-western US left David Buschow, a fit 29-year-old US air force veteran and security guard from New York dehydrated and hallucinating, his eyes bulging and tongue swollen. Less than 10 hours after setting off from the group's overnight camp on the second day,...

BOULDER, Utah - By Day 2 in the blazing Utah desert, Dave Buschow was in bad shape. Pale, wracked by cramps, his speech slurred, the 29-year-old New Jersey man was desperate for water and hallucinating so badly he mistook a tree for a person. After going roughly 10 hours without a drink in the 100-degree heat, he finally dropped dead of thirst, face down in the dirt, less than 100 yards from the goal: a cave with a pool of water. But Buschow was no solitary soul, lost and alone in the desert. He and 11 other hikers from various...

TORONTO, September 20, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – At last week’s Toronto conference of the international Right to Die movement, speakers laid out the course of the movement’s strategy for legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide around the world. Of particular note is the emphasis on the “right” to be starved and dehydrated to death, especially for patients suffering from dementia or cognitive disabilities. Seeing a “catch-22” in the dementia and euthanasia problem, the Right to Die movement says the problem is that some, while unwilling “to end life prematurely,” know that “it requires mental competence to take personal responsibility for choosing...

***This is a story about a baby born at 23 weeks*** Today Emmie-Rose’s Hospital has hit a major blow against us. I believe some of the staff believe we are not providing the correct care for her and had us meet with the “Ethics” committee. At most hospitals the Ethics committee is usually made up of staff, social workers, clergy, and parents of other children. We had a room full of the staff, 1 surgeon, 2 social workers, and Stephanie and I. Let’s just stack all the cards against us. After wasting 2 hours going over the issues, it is...

  NORFOLK, U.K., August 8, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – At the same time that the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital is being investigated for allegedly starving and dehydrating a woman to death in 2003, the wife of a former patient treated on the same ward is calling for another investigation into the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of her husband. Kate Speed claims that although her husband’s death certificate states that he died from pneumonia, that in fact he died because of a hospital-ordered dehydration, an ultimately fatal measure that neither she nor her husband approved. “The whole of my husband’s...

Charlie Crist Let My Daughter Die by Robert Schindler, Sr. Posted Jul 31, 2006 As most Americans know, on March 31, 2005, my daughter, Terri Schindler Schiavo died of starvation and thirst after having her feeding tube removed by court order. The sad chain of events that concluded with Terri’s death ignited a media firestorm nationally and internationally. What few saw or heard was the callous inaction of aspiring governor Charlie Crist. Florida Atty. Gen. Charlie Crist let my daughter die. He had it within his authority to save her life, but he turned a blind eye to her suffering....

THE explosive story of Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged woman who became caught in the middle of a US battle over the right to die, could become a Hollywood movie, industry reports said. A year after Schiavo died following the removal of her feeding tube, Hollywood has bought the rights to make a movie from husband Michael Schiavo's book Terri: The Truth, Daily Variety said. Schiavo died in March last year after a bitter and divisive years-long battle between Michael Schiavo and Terri Schiavo's parents over whether she should be removed her from life support. The family feud exploded into a...

The end of this month marks the anniversary of the judicially-ordered killing of Terri Schiavo, age 41, carried out at the behest of her husband who was living with another woman and his Scientologist lawyer. She was not brain-dead. She could breathe on her own. Yet despite the best efforts of Terri's family and the pro-life and disability-rights communities, the courts ordered Terri Schiavo to be killed by dehydration. Rush Limbaugh described the day as "the day our country hit rock bottom." One year later, it is still an apt description. Terri Schiavo left no written instructions nor a living...

Article Last Updated: 12/19/2005 08:18 AM a denver post special report Letting go: Dylan's last days Two parents face an agonizing test of faith and love for their son By Kevin Simpson Denver Post Staff Writer DenverPost.com Dave Walborn lifted his son upright, all 32 pounds of him, slipped one hand behind his lolling head and gazed into the open but vacant blue eyes. He spoke out loud the words that would move him and the boy's mother, Kerri Bruning, one step closer to an excruciating decision. "Dylan, it's OK if you want to go," he said. "I don't want...

A self verifying man sits astride the world, surveys all he can see, and pronounces it good. This is a terrifying thing because the man doing it is none other than Judge George Greer of Florida and the thing he was pronouncing good was the excruciatingly legal murder of one Terri Schindler, formerly Terri Schiavo. We have to grasp this. A tin-pot, swamp water embarrassment from the brackish backwater of former jurisprudence pronounced to both houses of the Congress of the United States of America that their subpoenas weren't worth a damned thing and that he, the new godhead, had...

Family members are investigating what they consider to be suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of a nursing home patient at the center of a life and death tug-of-war reminiscent of the Terri Schiavo tragedy. Seventy-nine-year-old Jimmy Chambers died in the early morning hours of Oct. 24 after the tracheotomy tubes that deliver oxygen from a ventilator to a hole in his neck became unhooked. Family members were told Chambers, a resident of the Anne Maria Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in North Augusta, S.C., apparently pulled the interlocking tubes apart. "We're having it investigated. We're just incredulous," Chambers' daughter, Deanna Potter,...

He says he wants to live. But his wife, caregivers and South Carolina state officials are so focused on carrying out a decade-old, out-of-state living will that 79-year-old Jimmy Chambers can't get a word in edgewise. That's the account of 10 of Chambers's children and their spouses who signed sworn affidavits in an attempt to block their mother from removing his life-sustaining ventilator, which would cause his death. It's a case that's reminiscent of the Terri Schiavo controversy which captured the attention of millions around the world, in which a fault line opened up in the middle of a formerly...

by Fr. Frank Pavone Other Articles by Fr. Frank Pavone Blessing the Grave 10/29/05 I recently had the privilege of blessing the grave of Terri Schindler-Schiavo, who was murdered on March 31, 2005 by dehydration. Her grave is not far from the place where she died, and where people from around the world had gathered to protest and pray. Those who visit the gravestone, however, will notice something highly unusual. While on most graves there is an inscription of two dates — when the person was born and when he or she died — on Terri's there are three. Here's exactly...

The only issue that David Gibbs can ever remember Jesse Jackson and Rush Limbaugh agreeing on was the fact that Terri Schiavo should remain alive. ... Gibbs called removing Schiavo's feeding tube "barbaric and uncivilized." Florida law does not allow the starvation of animals and the constitution does not allow the starvation of convicted murderers, he said. ... Felos said faith-based organizations, religious leaders, priests and rabbis distorted the facts in the Schiavo case. ...

LifeSiteNews.com Wednesday August 31, 2005 Ten Year Old Arrested for Giving Food to Terri Schiavo Apologizes TAMPA BAY, August 31, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Ten year-old Joshua Heldreth, the eldest of eight children, was arrested on Good Friday of this year for trespassing while attempting to bring a drink of water to Miss Terri Schaivo.  Days later Schiavo died of intentional dehydration.  In court Joshua pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 hours of community service and ordered to write an apology for his actions.The boy whose arrest photo was splashed on front pages of newspapers across the nation wrote in...

BRISTOL, August 16, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Kelly Taylor, a 28-year-old woman who is not terminally ill, has ended her attempt to starve herself to death after 19 days because of the pain of the effects of starvation. Mrs. Taylor claimed that she had chosen self-starvation as the only method of suicide that would not leave her husband Richard liable for prosecution. Nevertheless, after 19 days, she said, “It has become too uncomfortable and I would not wish what I have been going through on my worst enemy.” Taylor suffers from a congenital heart condition known as Eisenmenger Syndrome which, despite...

THE high court ruled today doctors do have the power to withdraw food and drink from terminally ill patients - even if it is against their wishes. The General Medical Council (GMC) was appealing against a previous ruling that gave Lesley Burke - who suffers from a degenerative brain condition - the right to insist on nutrition during the final stages of his illness... The appeal judges were told {that]a patient did not have the right to demand any particular form of treatment... Joyce Robins, co-director of human rights campaign group Patient Concern, said the decision was a disappointment. She...

The end of the June 15 autopsy report on Terri Schiavo states that it is the policy of the medical examiner's officer "that no case is ever closed and that all determinations are to be reconsidered upon receipt of credible, new information." Whatever new information, if any, comes to light, the facts of who she was and how she died will inevitably change the way many of us confront our own deaths. Pat Anderson, for a long time the attorney for Terri Schiavo's parents, said the day Terri died of dehydration — as ordered by the courts and her husband...

US examiner concludes that brain damage was irreversible An autopsy on Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman whose condition sparked a legal, medical and political battle that divided America, has backed her husband's contention that she was in a persistent vegetative state before her feeding tube was removed. The report, released yesterday by a medical examiner in Florida,found she had massive and irreversible brain damage, and was blind. It found no evidence she had been strangled or that Michael Schiavo, her husband, had abused her, as her parents had claimed. But the cause of her collapse 15 years ago remains...

We all watched Terri Schiavo die. Now former LAPD homicide detective and New York Times bestselling author Mark Furhman investigates to find out what really happened. Later this month, Furhman's newest book, Silent Witness: The Untold Story of Terri Schiavo's Death, will be released. It will prove the controversy over Terry Schiavo's death is far from over. And it's not over yet. Despite her death, the controversy lingers. In Silent Witness, Mark Fuhrman applies his highly respected investigative skills to examine the medical evidence, legal case files, and police records. [NewsMax will have among the first copies.] With the complete...

The case for starving and dehydrating Terri Schiavo to death was built on hypocrisy and deception.The culture of death revealed its face in the propaganda campaign for Terri Schiavo’s demise. Perhaps the most noteworthy fact of the entire ordeal, other than the killing of an innocent woman by starvation, was how thoroughly the American people were lied to throughout the entire affair. Consider, for instance, the major media claim that death by starvation and dehydration is painless. According to the New York Times: “Patients who are terminally ill and conscious and refuse food and drink at the end of life...

Many who support Terri Schiavo's threatened dehydration assert that removing a feeding tube from a profoundly cognitively disabled person results in a painless and gentle ending. But is this really true? After all, it would be agonizing if you or I were locked in a room for two weeks and deprived of all food and water. ======= So, why should we believe that cognitively disabled patients experience the deprivation differently simply because they receive nourishment through a feeding tube instead of by mouth? An accurate discussion of this sensitive issue requires the making of proper and nuanced distinctions about the...

If you want to reduce the likelihood of yourself, or a loved one, suffering the cruel fate that Terri S. suffered, then please do something right now. The New York State legislature is considering Assembly bill A07009, and Senate bill S04083 which state that no patient shall be denied artificial nutrition and hydration unless he or she has specifically consented to such in writing. I received a letter from my Assemblyman on 22April05 indicating that the Assembly bill is in the Health Committee for review. A check of the Assembly web site today, indicates that it is still there. http://assembly.state.ny.us/...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A U.S. soldier serving in Baghdad died after collapsing while on guard duty, the American military said Monday. The soldier in the 1st Cavalry Division lost consciousness and stopped breathing around 11 a.m on Sunday. Medics attempted to resuscitate him and took him to a military hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The soldier's death is under investigation. Daytime temperatures are already over 100 degrees in Iraq.

LONDON (Reuters) - The General Medical Council (GMC) went to court on Monday to clarify how much treatment should be given to terminally ill patients. Last year 45-year-old Leslie Burke, who has a degenerative brain condition, won a court ruling to stop doctors letting him starve to death should he become too ill to feed himself or communicate. Lawyers for the GMC told the Appeal Court on Monday that there was no reason to suppose that Burke would not be allowed to die naturally. "There is nothing to suggest that Mr Burke will not be provided with the artificial nutrition...