In Britain, it is now official Government policy to ignore the needs of the elderly. Doctors and nurses are told to let old people die - and to withhold treatment which might save their lives. Hospital staff are told to deprive the elderly of food and water so that they die rather than take up hospital beds. Nursing home staff have even been given the right to sedate elderly patients without their knowledge. The only -ism that no one cares about is ageism. But at what age are patients simply allowed to die? And how old is too old for patients to be resuscitated? At what point does society have the right to say 'You've lived long enough, now you must die and make way for someone else'? And why should resuscitation be decided by age?
It is possible to argue that it would make as much sense to decide according to wealth or beauty. But ageism is now officially accepted. Anyone over 60 is now officially old, though in a growing number of hospitals the cut off age for resuscitation is 50. We live in a politically correct world but the elderly don't count - particularly if they are white and English. Report after report after report shows elderly patients being left in pain, in soiled bed clothes. Elderly patients in hospital are ignored by staff and left to starve to death, denied even water if they cannot get out of bed and fetch it themselves. by Dr. Vernon Coleman