Quote Originally Posted by Peter View Post
Well, the view of another doctor who thinks he can help. Comfortable dead kid vs tiny glimmer of hope? What would you do?

It isn't me sitting here saying the other treatment didn't have a chance of success. Of course, now we will never know.

I cant help but wonder how this squares with your view of the NHS last week. Careful consideration, due process and a dead kid. So quality care and decision making can have a poor health outcome?
I don't think much of the NHS as you know, but this has little to do with last week's stats. The child's health outcome was never going to be anything but bad. His doctors have a duty not to 'strive officiously to keep alive' and are also required to undertake triage based on the likelihood of survival. We entrust them with these decisions because they know a fúck sight better than we do.

The doctor at no point said his treatment would help. He said it had shown some limited signs of success on a purely experimental basis in a related, but significantly different disorder. One can understand why the parents would clutch at such a straw, but equally understand why clinicians and physicians required to make a dispassionate decision weighing the likely benefits against the chances of unnecessary distress to the child would come down against it.