Healthcare in the United Kingdom

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How does everyone feel about rationing healthcare or involuntary euthansasia .

Any comments welcome
Yours sincerely
Dr Rita Pal www.nhs-exposed.com

Rationing healthcare is not something that any medical person would wish to have to do. BUT, it is always going to be neccessary when the demand for treatment outstrips the NHS' ability to provide it. I personally would have no difficulty giving a liver transplant to a young, otherwise healthy individual rather than a 50 year old former alcoholic. However, I suspect that such an obvious situation would be a rare occurence and many different moral and medical opinions would be involved. What does anyone else think? Is the situation different where there is no National Health Service?

I don't like rationing but I think it's here to stay, and as Britgirl said, there's not a lot to be done about it with the present NHS system. Mind you, there's a lot of talk (implicit and explicit) on ER about rationing, so even in a completely privatised system (where in theory the money is there) you get rationing, though I guess it's less dependent on your postcode.

As for *involuntary* euthanasia, that's one to be tiptoed about very carefully. Voluntary Euth is all well and good - there's a certain degree of control over what is happening to you and all, but with invol euth you are opening up all sorts of potential for meddling in a Pxs wishes. Basically, if the Px has made a living will and they state under what circumstances a DNR should be issued under etc, go with it. But I think there needs to be a big ethics discussion here, especially because things are rarely black and white in medicine.