As a mother of a preemie I don't think I have ever been more offended. My water broke at 23 weeks but thanks to wonderful care and the grace of God I didn't deliver until 31 weeks. I suppose that too is unacceptable. While waiting to deliver my son, I was allowed a tour of the NICU. I saw a very tiny 24 week girl who was fighting for her life to survive. I suppose she "cost too much", tell that to her parents!

This is what terrifies me about a national health system. My son's medical bills were about 200,000 all told. Of course, he's alive and healthy but why should that matter? He was too expensive, i should have KILLED him.

I think that these people who value finances more than life should come down to the NICU and look every single one of the parents in the eye and tell them their child is just too expensive to save. This is just evil.
Lauren | Homepage | 04.05.06 - 9:02 am | #

The defense of those parents is that children are normal and healthy.

That's a bad defense: the OB's position is that preemies cost too much to keep alive and thriving. It's a flawed defense: their normality is not what gave them worth, it's their lives. It's an illogical defense to the argument: did their parents have to spend "three times as much to educate" them?

I wish someone had helped them frame their responses better, because they don't answer the evil proposed by the OB's.
Therese Z | Homepage | 04.05.06 - 9:41 am | #

Y'know, this is a theme that I see more and more in so many things "liberal"; that is, the planet's too small, resources are too limited, we've got to "trim the fat" (e.g., Margaret Sanger) and take care of ourselves, the elite. It seems a "progressive" would think, "Can't we enlarge the pie and help everybody?" Apparently not.
saint kansas | Homepage | 04.05.06 - 10:34 am | #

There's no getting around the fact that, in medical care, dollars (or pounds) spent caring for one patient are dollars not spent caring for another patient. We can't be indifferent to the implications of this fact, as some sectors of the medical profession seem to be, nor can we be satisfied being indignant about them.

I think Pope Benedict's encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, could provide some high-level guidance for dealing with this sort of inherent casuistry, which exists in any resource-limited assistance program.

In particular, he reminds us that the proper role of the state is justice, while the proper role of the Church is love. We can't expect the state to operate according to the principles of love, and at the same time our faith must refine our reason so that we can help inform the state's concept of justice, to keep it consistent with love.
Tom | Homepage | 04.05.06 - 11:17 am | #

Hmm conflict between sick children and the UK-NHS. I don't suppose it's occured to anyone to eliminate the NHS rather than the children? First step to sanity might well be getting the Government out of the health care buisness and putting it back in the private sector where it belongs.
Richard J. Stuart | Homepage | 04.05.06 - 12:02 pm | #

There is much wrong with the National Health Service however I have to say that my wife gave birth to two premature babies and we have had wonderful service including three other complicated procedures carried out by the organisation.Our elder girl was born at 34 weeks gestation weighing 3 pounds 12 ounces and the the younger was born at 28 weeks and one day and weighed 2 pounds 1 ounce.We would not have been able to afford private insurance and we will forever be indebted to our fellow citizen`s for the beautiful girls they (by their contributions) allowed to live.In addition my mother grew up in poverty and suffered a lifetime of bad health.She too would have had a very premature death were it not for the lifelong treatment provided by the British National Health Service.Whilst I dissagree with the policy proposed by the doctors mentioned in the article, I have to say that the British National Health Service rates 100% support from me.
Paul (in England) | 04.05.06 - 1:36 pm | #

n particular, he reminds us that the proper role of the state is justice, while the proper role of the Church is love.

So Tom, justice in your book is the jettisoning of the most helpless because of a strain on public resources?

What fun Screwtape would have had with that one, turning, with the twist of a word, a vice into a virtue.
Tony | Homepage | 04.05.06 - 2:01 pm | #

Tom didn't say that. He said merely that the state isn't always going to see how unjust such a proposal is, and that isn't particularly suprising. Nowhere will you find him endorsing that mode of thinking, any more than the Pope does.

He did say, however, that "our faith must refine our reason so that we can help inform the state's concept of justice, to keep it consistent with love." It was only the very next sentence, too. You should have kept reading...
Nightfly | Homepage | 04.05.06 - 2:49 pm | #

I used to think "the proper role of the state" certainly was not justice but rather to plow the roads and deliver the mail.

I've since rethought my position and no longer believe we need the government to deliver the mail.
Saint Kansas | Homepage | 04.05.06 - 3:11 pm | #

Why is it that self-proclaimed paragons of compassion care more about the worried well than about those most in need of care?

When JFK Jr.'s plane crashed, we spent half a million dollars searching for his corpse. Then we begrudge a preemie half that much to have an entire lifetime.

Some people are just heartless bastards.
Christina | Homepage | 04.05.06 - 3:18 pm | #

Well, I suppose the best we all can do is pray, especially the Rosary.
mia | 04.05.06 - 3:50 pm | #

"There's no getting around the fact that, in medical care, dollars (or pounds) spent caring for one patient are dollars not spent caring for another patient...I think Pope Benedict's encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, could provide some high-level guidance for dealing with this sort of inherent casuistry, which exists in any resource-limited assistance program."

Tom, I think this is a bit over-refined; we don't need an encyclical to tell us that grass is green, and referring to this brutal thuggishness as "casuistry" is an insult to casuists; it's much plainer than you are making it out.

If they really don't have the resources to keep all these preemies alive, why isn't it presented simply in that fashion? In other words, would oncologists, similarly pressed for resources, start saying "we need to ask ourselves if cancer patients are always worth saving"? I suspect they would just say, "we need more resources", as would any other good doctor in any field. Only in caring for the very young and the very old, is it acceptable to say instead, "we're low on resources, so let's see who we can do without."

And consider this sentence which "the RCOG writes" (whatever that means):

"One of the problems of the 'success' of neonatal intensive care is that the practitioners are always pushing the boundaries"

This is impossible to misread; they are not saying "because of limited resources, our life-saving activities are getting unsustainable". By "'success' of neonatal intensive care" they can only mean saving preemies; by the scare quotes, they can only mean that this is a dubious achievement. They would certainly not say this of saving a cancer patient. Therefore, what they mean is, "because of limited resources, we need to stop saving people that are not very important, like preemies.

That is confirmed by the disgusting bit about the high cost of education for preemies. This is not an argument for triage based on limited resources; by the time their education begins, they're out of intensive care. They're just saying "a lot of these kids are stupid anyway, so why bother saving them?"

This murder-peddling is so blatantly indefensible, that I do not understand why you think reference to Deus Caritas Est is necessary, and to say that this sort of thing "exists in any resource-limited assistance program" is not true.
Charles Wynn | 04.05.06 - 8:32 pm | #

Paul, I think you would be very surprised at how much lower the cost of healthcare would be if the Governement was not at all involved.
Richard J Stuart | Homepage | 04.05.06 - 10:41 pm | #

Sorry, but this has nothing to do with a public versus a private health care system. This has to do with putting money above lives. This happens in the States, too.

Please remember, dear American friends, that women with high-risk pregnancies in the US are often called at their hospital beds by their HMOs every day, reminding them of the cost of their care and their "right" to have an abortion.

I suffer from hyperemesis gravidarum (a pregnancy complication) and many US women on my support site are badgered and hectored by their insurance companies.

No one has ever called me to offer me an abortion because my drugs cost $1,000 a month. This is unheard of in Canada.

Please leave the health care politics out of this, please.

Cindy in Canada (I've had great, free treatment here)
Cin | 04.05.06 - 11:51 pm | #

Next will be the asthmatics. We all know how much air those wheezers take out circulation. Every morning when I run my shortness of breath is because there is someone out there unfairly taking my share. We're thinking very carefully about one-lung smokers and the lungers as well.
Pat Patterson | 04.06.06 - 3:34 am | #

Charles:

I don't think reference to Deus Caritas Est is necessary. I do think it's relevant.

We must absolutely oppose murder peddling. But we must also recognize the larger context that gives rise, or at least cover, to this peddling. It's not too hard to say what must not be done, but that leaves unanswered the question of what should be done.
Tom | Homepage | 04.06.06 - 9:00 am | #

Fair enough; I misunderstood your suggestion.
Charles Wynn | Homepage | 04.06.06 - 9:13 am | #

What happened in England? First they stopped doing cardiac surgery on down's babies because they didn't have a normal life span (as if that actually MEANS anything) and now this.

Do you think that millenia from now they will unearth codecies of a legendary island civilization West of Europe whose culture became so "high" in the absence of tradition and old religion they cannibalized themselves into extinction? What a statement. Bed Blockers. Wretched.
Lauren | 04.07.06 - 6:22 pm | #