UK Doctors Withholding Treatment Information From Patients

The August 26, 2008 Telegraph reports yet another example of the
corrosive effect that nationalized health care on the doctor-patient
relationship.

The paper reports that many British oncologists deliberately don't
tell their patients about all possible treatment options because
some of those options would not be permitted under the government
system, even though they may be available in other countries.

Most of the time, these treatments are unavailable in England
because of the expense.

Some of the British oncologists rationalized their policy on the
grounds that, "there was 'no point' in discussing treatments their
patients could not have" and that such a discussion might "distress,
upset or confuse" their patients.

But whether these doctors intend it or not, they've stopped being
advocates for their patients and instead become agents of the
government.

If a patient is willing to spend his savings for a medication that
might help him live longer, he should have that right.

Patients rely on their physicians for information about the full
range of alternatives (including an honest appraisal of the various
risks, costs, and benefits) so that they can make fully informed
decisions about their lives.

For a doctor to fail to provide that information would be a massive
breach of his or her ethical responsibility to the patient.

But this is the predictable result when the government pays the
doctors' salaries, rather than the patients.

The physicians are then beholden to their employers and start
working in the best financial interests of the government, not the
patient.

And what makes the system especially evil is not the fact that it
allows a few doctors to act badly, but rather that it takes good
doctors and turns them into bad physicians willing to betray their
patients.

American advocates of "universal health care" should ask themselves
if this is what they really want...

http://www.westandfirm.org/blog/2008/09/uk-doctors-withholding-
treatment.html