April 3, 2020 - 3:39pm
Andrew Cannon is the Chief Executive of Voyage Care, an organisation that supports some 3,500 adults with physical and learning difficulties throughout the country. The people they help look after have a range of conditions: autism, learning difficulties, and brain injuries.
Many of their clients are perfectly healthy, physically. Having autism does not mean you are any less fit than anyone else. Yet despite this, a number of GP’s have contacted Voyage Care teams to say that all — N.B. all — the people that they look after would be subject to a Do Not Resuscitate order, were they to fall ill with the virus. Mr Cannon’s Twitter feed makes chilling reading:
And fight it we all absolutely should. I do not deny that the medical professionals have very difficult decisions to make when it comes to triaging patients with this terrible virus, and especially in the face of increasingly limited resources. I understand that there is a conversation to be had about whether patients who are less likely to survive should lose out to those who are fundamentally healthy when it comes to hard pressed medical attention and machinery.
But — the merits or otherwise of that argument aside — nothing about having a learning difficulty or autism makes that person any less physically healthy:
I read up on ReSPECT – or Recommended Summary Plan for Emergency Care and Treatment. The resus.org.uk website makes it absolutely clear that such care plans should be tailored to the needs of the individual — and not issued to whole categories of people. “The ReSPECT process is all about thinking ahead with patients about realistic care options in a truly patient-centred way,” wrote Dr Juliet Spiller, Co-Chair of the ReSPECT Working Group.
I have written this piece as calmly as I can. I am one of those people who gets quieter and calmer the angrier I get. GPs have absolutely no right to decide that some lives are less worthwhile than others when no medical issues are at stake.
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SubscribeThank you to Giles Fraser: I am reading this on Saturday the 4th, after listening too, with an increasing sense of despair and anger, the BBC Radio 4 programme -ANY ANSWERS-which for the first half was taken up with the questions and heartbreaking responses from people calling in regarding DNR forms and care plans re the virus. (I want to omit the word care here!) Looking briefly at today’s edition of Unherd , I felt that choosing not to talk about the Covid 19 might be a welcome break from the daily over whelming onslaught, which I feel must be leaving very many people feeling overwhelmed, but I could not help thinking, skimming through the issue, that Death, was the absent signifier!
There is so much that needs to be discussed and written about what is going on here, and it frankly makes me tremble- going down this route, for whatever reasons, that might seem ‘necessary’ now- will not be so easily forgotten later, nor should they be.What kind of country are we, do we want to be, who are we? In the week leading into Holy week-God help us all. (Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist)
Deluded, demented, irrational, virtue-signalling, sanctimonius, holier-than-thou, religious freaks should not be allowed to play God and decide whether doctors should play God.
It says it in your ridiculous name. MIS LED US. Coward . Give your real name when you are calling for Nazi social cleansing or shut your mouth. In case you haven’t noticed we are supposed to live in a Liberal Democracy. I will explain to you what liberal means. It is founded on the belief that every life is of equal value. Including pathetic coward’s like you. Even you are supposed to be worth saving.
Quite right. So why are you doing just that Tami??
What is that I am doing then, exactly. And by exactly I mean precisely.
PS. I’ll be back.
If anyone with a condition gets more help from the medical profession than someone without that condition, they are de facto less healthy.
The life of somebody else is at stake.
Perhaps you would like to explain why GPs are the best people to decide whose lives are worthwhile and whose lives are worthless? What exactly about a GP qualifies them to do this? Especially when they are likely to have zero knowledge of the life of the person they are treating. No one, not even you, believe it or not, has knowledge of the value of a person’s life. The Queen of England signed a Coronanation Oath. That does not allow for Nazi policies like the one you are calling for. It does not allow for social cleansing. I would be interested to know how worthwhile you think your own life is? No doubt you believe you are perfect. Perhaps we should get a Priest to decide who lives and who dies on grounds of sins that have been committed but not confessed. Where would you score on that one?
Doctors are under obligation to work for citizens of the UK in accordance with their contract.
They are under no obligation to save every life they can.
Perhaps our Giles would like to give up his the opportunity of being treated in order to benefit those with “learning difficulty or autism” who need to be resuscitated? Or maybe he would like to volunteer one of his children? Or perhaps he could ask his congregation if they would like to see their life chances reduced in order to try to save the life of someone who was virtually dead.
Giles. Thank you for this. Ever since the BBC announced this appalling new policy really quickly, then moved on to try and hide it as if they hadn’t said anything, I have been trying to find out more. If I was to get ill I would go nowhere near an NHS hospital because I have Autism and mental health issues myself and they would just leave me to die on the floor without oxygen. And neither would I do any Soviet style forced clapping for the New Nazi Hospital Service of the UK. THis is exactly how these kind of policies work. Doctors and nurses are led to believe that ‘they have no choice’. That they have to do these atrocities for ‘the greater good’. But they don’t. If there are two beds, one patient, no need to make a choice. It should be random. Toss coin. No one should be deciding who gets life saving treatment and who doesn’t. It is utilitarianism, the philosophy of Jeremy Bentham, at its worse. Also after years of reviewing the Mental Health Act because it has been too coercive and abusive of human rights, supposedly to make it less so, something that I was involved in, they now,, through the back door of this virus excuse, have changed things so that only one doc is needed to section someone and then that person can be locked up indefinitely. No time frame . No questions asks. THis is just a back door to detaining people they don’t like without trial. It is beyond belief that people are not fighting this. We need to keep raising awareness. Get it out there, the NHS is already a sickness service. It does little to improve health other than handing out toxic drugs. And the mass corruption and waste is appalling. The French have a great health service. We should follow their example.
And do not forget that the behaviour of the God worshipped by the author is far more reprehensible than that of any doctor.
This piece takes only two minutes to read. Imagine how much damage the author could create in a ten minute piece.
Serious conversations about CPR in the new situation we now find ourselves in need to take place.
This post is not part of that serious conversation.
The claims made by Andrew Cannon, the main source for the post, are accepted uncritically by the author. Andrew Cannon fails to provide any independent verification for his claims. The company website makes no mention of the allegations, or the steps that the Andrew Cannon claims the company is intending to take in order to resolve the alleged issue.
Pointing out one of the insidious ways in which the author biases his post.
Let me rephrase a little.
“Giles Fraser has absolutely no right to kill his mother”, assuming he has one.
I can get away with making such a statement even though Giles Fraser has never (to my knowledge, anyway) killed his mother, nor declared his intention to, nor even thought about killing his mother. Similarly the author can make the this statement without providing any genuine evidence to prove his claim. But here it leaves behind more than a faint suspicion that it might just be true, especially when backed up as here with a whole panoply of little more than doubtful circumstantial evidence. Of course it is not really evidence at all it is insinuation.
Some have, without evidence, accused doctors and me of proposing Nazi policies, which I do not support and neither I believe do doctors.
This is quite ironic (unintentionally, I assume).
Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda chief, would have been proud to have produced a piece such as this. An insidious piece shot through with innuendo, with claims that are anecdotal, unsupported by genuine evidence, full of misdirection, half (often not even that) truths, biased, dishonest almost to the point of lying, misleading, and an attack on those trying to do a good job in trying circumstances.
Due to Corona panic, life changing operations for people are being delayed to make available treatment for Corona virus patients. As a result many (generally older) people are suffering longer, and even dying earlier than they would have before the onset of Corona. One might almost conclude that someone has decided, with the connivance of the NHS, that old people are worth less than younger people. I have heard no bleating from the author about this far more serious, far more widespread problem.
Now for some related issues.
The representatives of this company are in no position to be giving lessons in morality
Andrew Cannon
More facts than those given in this piece are necessary to come to this conclusion. I would be most unhappy if someone employing this kind of logic were looking after my welfare. I advise anyone using the commercial services of Voyage Care to consider looking elsewhere.
Voyage Care is a commercial for-profit company. Its strap-line is “We have over 30 years of experience in providing specialist care and support.”
Why were they not directly involved in deciding whether a DNR notice was in the best interest of the patient?
Voyage Care is a commercial company.
Of course it might just be a coincidence that God has created a world where those needing specialist care have played a key role in enriching the directors of Voyage Care.
Voyage Care is a commercial company.
One of its directors received £400,000 (four hundred thousand pounds) in pay and benefits. By comparison, the Prime Minister of Great Britain receives less than half that in salary.
Voyage Care is a commercial company.
One of its directors, in a single year, received £400,000 (four hundred thousand pounds) in pay and benefits. That is over £10,000 for each of the 3,500 people it claims to be helping.
That’s just for ONE of the directors.
Andrew Cannon is the Chief Executive of Voyage Care,
Voyage Care is a commercial for-profit company. Its raison d’Ä“tre is to make profits, just like Amazon, Google, Facebook.
Voyage Care is NOT a charity.
Further relevant facts on the dramatis personae.
Fact #8
There is no allegation (or evidence) against any specific individual. Of course such an allegation would leave the author open to legal proceedings. So much easier to make general accusations, with no specific individual mentioned, such as these here which are much harder to disprove.
Fact #7
There is nothing here (or anywhere else to my knowledge) to suggest that doctors will not give these patients the best treatment that can be reasonably be offered, as under more normal circumstances. This though has not stopped those reacting to this flimsy report of what doctors are alleged to be doing as if they were parallel to Nazi policies.
Fact #6 (and this is key)
Doctors are not deciding whether to kill their patients.
They are deciding with the patient, who can also involve anyone s/he likes in the decision, whether to spend effort in trying to keep them alive after a serious, sometimes irreversible, medical incident.
Fact #5
Doctors are part of a process to decide what is in the best interests of the patient. Some times, this decision needs to be made in advance. The decision is taken in consultation with the patient with or without a competent representative as decided with patient. I see no valid sign that this has not been happening. The fact that a person has a DNR is not proof.
Fact #4
Doctors must obtain the written consent of the patient.
Fact #3
Some of those who do survive are less healthy than before the incident
Fact #2
Only one in five actually survives CPR. This is unlikely to be the weak.
Fact #1
The need to perform CPR only comes into play after a very serious medical incident, so serious that the patient is more dead than alive. CPR is not performed on someone because they behave autistically, or because they have limited mental capacity.
But now some facts to set against this post.
Contrast these with God’s behaviour.
But before we start on the contents of this post, as it is (allegedly) about doctors behaving like God, it is appropriate to see a little (but key) of how God behaves when God behaves like God.
First, God created a universe containing those who are poorly equipped to deal with the world, who suffer and are so disadvantaged that they are partially, sometimes totally, dependent on others.
Second, although God is omnipotent, God does nothing to redress the suffering that exists in the world that God has created.
Third, it would appear that it is God’s desire that this suffering exist. “Deus Vult” as some Christians say.
Finally (?) he allows this suffering, allegedly, so that virtue signallers can show how virtuous they are. That is some justification for allowing suffering, isn’t it?
So we can see that God, to whom the author owes allegiance, shows far more evil than that of any doctor criticised in this piece.
The author says he is very angry. It would have been better if he had been driven more by his brains than his emotions.
My comments below are a level-headed response to this one-sided emotional outburst.
This is A-P-P-A-L-L-I-N-G! Have we devolved to Nazi-level calculations of human worth? ( and I don’t throw that word around blithely ) Please, God stop this idiocy before it’s too late!
Comparing the decision not to spend a significant amount of citizens’ resource on resuscitating (which would mean worse outcomes for others) with Nazism is A-P-P-A-L-L-I-N-G.
Please stop this idiot before it is too late.
Would you rather doctors tossed a coin to see which of two people gets the one available ventilator?
Comparing the decision not to spend a significant amount of citizens’ resource on resuscitating (which would mean worse outcomes for others) with Nazism is A-P-P-A-L-L-I-N-G.