"...if 25 per cent of the population were infected that could cause major problems for the health service."Breezy Marsh and Davis Derbyshire of the Daily Mail reveal a horrifying (and dehumanizing) development within the wonderful world of government health care.
Thousands of patients could be denied NHS treatment and left to die under 'worst-case' emergency plans for a swine-flu epidemic.The blueprint would force doctors to 'play God' and prioritise intensive-care treatment for those most likely to benefit - ruling out patients with problems such as advanced cancer.
More than 100,000 cases were diagnosed last week alone in the UK. Although the disease has claimed 30 lives, many sufferers have experienced little more than a bad cold, raised temperature and cough.
However health experts are concerned that the H1N1 virus could mutate into something more severe. The scale of their concern is highlighted in the Department of Health's report: Pandemic Flu - Managing Demand and Capacity in Health Care Organisations.
Detailing plans to ration hospital treatment, the report warns that if half the population were infected, 6,600 patients per week would be competing for just under 4,000 intensive-care beds. Around 85 per cent of those beds could already be full with day-to-day emergencies.
To allocate ventilators, beds and intensive-care equipment doctors would have to 'score' patients on their health and prognosis as well as seriousness of their conditions. Those who failed to respond to treatment would be subject to 'reverse triage' - in which they were taken off ventilators and left in NHS 'dying rooms' with only painkillers to ease their suffering. (Read the full unedited story here)
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