Elderly update

I want to go and watch Chelsea downstairs in my centrally heated lounge (Well someone else's lounge that I rent) so I'll have to keep this short.

I was watching Panorama on Sunday night and it seemed to enforce my core belief about care for the elderly (See 'Knocking on heavens door' post below).

While I find it truly appalling that the elderly are forced to sell assets they have worked all their life to accumulate (My grandmother did not own her home so she did not have to sell anything) I did also notice that the elderly patients shown in the program were still receiving medical care.

So I would like to reinforce my earlier stance that when an elderly person has deteriorated to the point where they are no longer capable of looking after themselves, we shouldn't seek to extend their lives further through drug treatments, life support systems etc. but we MUST instead provide them with all the necessary social care (I referred to this in my previous post as physical care, this was an incorrect term) to keep them comfortable until the point where their body gives up... FREE OF CHARGE.

Feeding a patient (Via I.V. if necessary) and supplying them with pain relief is not what I would regard as medical care as it does not prolong the inevitable. Starving someone to death is not the same as a Do Not Resuscitate policy, in my opinion it is barbaric in comparison.

On a completely different note, I was pleased to see that the European Court of Human Rights upheld the decision for Natalie Evans not to be able to proceed with IVF treatment without the would-be father's consent.

As anyone reading this blog may have noticed (all one of you), I have somewhat of a bug-bear about the enormous gender inequalities in our society and particularly in how the media reports stories.
I would have felt the same way about this issue if a women wanted to refuse her ex-partner from having her child (via a surrogate mother) because he lost his fertility through cancer treatment. I don't see why this hasn't been pointed out as a comparison.

My wife and I plan to have children in the future but does this mean that if we were to divorce I could be taken to court for breaching an oral agreement? (No jokes please)

Whatsmore, if Ms. Evans had been allowed to proceed with the treatment without Howard Johnston's consent would he still have been liable for child support when the baby was born?

Anyway gotta go, I've already missed the first half an hour of the game.