I certainly can't imagine having to make such decisions!
However, in the face of failing power, failing backups, depleting supplies, locked-down pharmacies, increasingly-unsafe conditions, along with the fact that many of these patients simply wouldn't make it...I'm glad they gave these patients the opportunity to die in at least a painless manner.
Truth be told, doctors make this kind of decision every day. We just don't like talking about it. When a cancer patient's treatment options run out and s/he is transferred to hospice for pain relief / to die, it is the SAME decision. It just takes longer for death to occur.
I'm torn on whether I hope that investigations occur and the people involved are prosecuted - I think that each case needs to be taken on an individual basis. Certainly there have been doctors in the past who did this kind of thing for a power-trip. We need to look at each of the patients' histories & see if there really was NO HOPE for them in the medium-term (say, 8 days without support). If so, then let it go. If not, then prosecute for negligence/homicide.
__________________
A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take from you everything you have.
-Gerald R. Ford
GoogleMap Me
|