A doctor who exposed abuses under the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) has said that end-of-life care guidance from the Vatican is “lethally flawed”, according to the Catholic Herald.
Rev. Dr Patrick Pullicino is a former hospital doctor, ordained as an Archdiocese of Southwark priest after retiring from the NHS.
Speaking at a Mass in the Jesuit church in Valletta, Malta, he claimed that the Pontifical Academy of Life had put forward “guidelines whereby in certain circumstances euthanasia could be acceptable”.
Fr Pullicino said: “Euthanasia is never acceptable.
“We know it is never moral to stop fluids or nutrition, but hospitals have become experts at delaying fluids and nutrition particularly in the elderly.
“This is most often done when a sick elderly person is classified as ‘dying’ and they are put on morphine and sedatives as so-called end of life care.
“This is now being taken up by the WHO and EU as a way of saving money in elderly care and unfortunately it is finding its way into Malta… The medical profession must be uncompromisingly loyal to the fundamental principles of ethics and Christian morality.”
A former consultant neurologist with East Kent Hospitals University Foundation NHS Trust, in 2012 the then Prof Pullicino made a submission to the House of Lords about abuses of patients placed on the LCP, explaining how he removed one “dying” patient who went on to recover.
He then gave lecture at the Royal Society of Medicine months later, following which several...
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