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LONDON, Dec 6 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Guidelines on the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration published by the British Medical Association in June seem to have increased involuntary euthanasia in Britain. The London Telegraph reports today that police are investigating 60 hospital deaths of old-age pensioners who were allegedly deprived of food and water. In one case, a woman in her 80’s who went to hospital in good health and spirits except for pain in an arthritic knee was heavily sedated and starved to death. The guidelines, which have traditionally allowed the withdrawal of medical treatment when doctors determine that further treatment is futile, changed in June to include nutrition and hydration as treatments subject to withdrawal. Moreover, the guidelines stipulate that doctors’ decisions can supercede those of family. 

A northern England health authority member told the Telegraph anonymously that evidence of starvation of elderly patients is emerging across the country. SOS NHS Patients in Danger, a pressure group formed by concerned relatives of patients who have been starved to death, has brought many of the cases to light. 

Dr Adrian Treloar, consultant and senior lecturer in geriatrics at Greenwich Hospital and Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’s medical schools, London said “There are severe pressures on beds and in order to relieve this there may be a tendency to limit care inappropriately where you feel doubtful about the outcome. Involuntary euthanasia is not too strong a word for it.”

“If the medical profession is going to move, as they have done, to a position where they accept the deliberate withdrawal of food and fluid from patients, then it’s very difficult for patients to trust the doctors.”