This was apparently on Sky… makes you sick to the
stomach…
Fury Over Baby
Comments
Updated: 14:38, Monday March 27, 2006
Doctors have provoked controversy by suggesting premature babies should not
always be treated because they are "bed blocking".
They said that in some cases, premature babies born under 25 weeks should be
allowed to die.
The Royal College Of Obstetricians And Gynaecologists said space in neo-natal
units was often in short supply.
They said this was the result of "bed-blocking" by very sick premature
babies.
The Royal College said such beds could be better
used to treat babies with a higher chance of survival than sick premature ones.
Professor Sir Alan Craft, of the Royal College of Paediatrics, said: "Many
paediatricians would be in favour of adopting the Dutch model of no active
intervention for these very little babies.
"The vast majority of children born at this gestation who do survive have
significant disabilities.
"There is a lifetime cost and that needs to be taken into the equation
when society tries to decide whether it wants to intervene."
However, premature babies charity Bliss described the idea as a "gross
abuse of human rights".
Chief executive Rob Williams said: "We might as well have a policy of not
treating victims of car crashes which occur at over 50 miles an hour, or
denying medical services to those over a certain age."
__________________________
Then this:
Premature babies are
blocking beds, says royal medical college
By Amy Iggulden
(Filed: 27/03/2006)
Premature babies who need months of expensive care have been accused of
"bed blocking" by one of Britain's royal medical colleges, it emerged
yesterday.
Sarah and James Cummings
Sara Cummings and her son James, now a healthy five-year-old, who was born at
just 24 weeks
In a consultation document, the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology
(RCOG) said that very premature babies were taking up intensive care space that
could be used for healthier babies.
The high demand from premature births means that some expectant mothers with
potentially healthier babies are forced into other hospitals at a late stage,
it said.
Premature baby campaigners and mothers attacked the language used as
"insensitive" and "a disgrace".
In a report to the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, which is running a two-year
inquiry into prolonging life in premature babies, the RCOG said: "Some
weight should be given to economic considerations as there is a real issue in
neo-natal units of "bed blocking"; whereby women have to be
transferred in labour to other units, compromising both their and their babies'
care."
In the July 2005 report, it added: "One of the problems of the
"success" of neo-natal intensive care is that the practitioners are
always pushing the boundaries.
"There has been a constant need to expand numbers of cots to cover the
increasing tendency to try and rescue babies at lower and lower
gestations."
A spokesman for Bliss, the premature baby charity, criticised the RCOG for
insensitive and "unhelpful" language.
"The care of premature babies is already an area that is under-resourced
and overstretched, and it is not helpful to suggest that their worth can be
calculated in terms of money," she said.
Kelly Sowerby, 29, from Tyne and Wear, Sunderland,
who has had three premature babies - one at almost 23 weeks - who did not
survive, said it was a "heartless disgrace" to suggest that premature
babies were "bed blocking".
"Even if the odds were tiny I wanted to fight for my son to have a single
chance of life," she said.
The RCOG statement reflects growing opinion among doctors and specialists
towards the withholding of treatment from babies born under 25 weeks.
Baroness Warnock, the leading medical ethics expert, has said that Britain should follow the example of Holland, the only
European country that says such babies should die. She believes that it would
prevent doctors from competing to keep alive babies that may not survive in the
long-term.
The UK
has the highest rate of low birth weight babies in western Europe. About 800
babies are born each year under 25 weeks but medical advances suggest that
almost 40 per cent of them can survive.
At 23 weeks - 17 weeks premature - only 11 per cent survive free of a disabling
condition, according to a report by EPICure, at Nottingham University.
A neo-natal intensive care bed costs about £1,000 a day and very premature babies
can require round-the-clock help for many months. Research by the Rowntree
Foundation suggests that it costs three times as much to bring up a child with
a severe disability (about £125,000) than a child without problems.
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) is expected to hear
at its conference this week that babies born under 25 weeks could cost three
times as much to educate by the age of six.
A spokesman for the RCOG said yesterday: "There is a proper professional
concern around the death and handicap rate in babies born under 25 weeks."
Best
Regards,
Kelly Zantey
Creator, BellyBelly.com.au
Gentle Solutions From Conception to Parenthood
BellyBelly Birth Support
- http://www.bellybelly.com.au/birth-support
