Some Hospitals Refuse To Starve Or Dehydrate Patients To Death

Some good news. Some hospitals are taking a stand that they won’t starve or dehydrate patients to death. The very fact that some hospitals have to make this pronouncement, and that other hospitals allow this, is creepy enough.

Sunday: Catholic hospital policy criticized

Tulsa’s Catholic hospitals will abide by their patients’ end-of-life wishes, but will never allow them to die from starvation or dehydration, say two Tulsa physician ethicists.

“If a patient is not going to die of disease, we are not going to let them die of malnutrition or dehydration,” said Dr. H. William Allred, vice president of medical affairs and chairman of the medical ethics committee at St. John Medical Center.

The bottom line? Catholic hospitals refuse to starve their patients to death. more