Response From A Reader!

Don't hate this person because they are in "health care!" They wrote me in response to an e-mail I sent to a bunch of people on my "list" about another place to complain to about the wholesale use of the destructive drug Versed. I won't be putting the organizations name up because IMMEDIATELY they would be deluged with outraged health care workers/drug pushers/charlatans and the rest of their ilk. We now have somebody to field our complaints WITHOUT people like Insane Nurse rushing over there and "counter posting." So, here is my friends e-mail...

"Glad to see another place to register bad things about versed.

I also want to express my total agreement about the trust thing with health care workers. Too many of them are, in my mind, at about the same level as sleazy sales people that lie to get you to buy something that isn't what you wanted...and keep insisting it is what you want. Why is this supposed to help people trust them? Talk about crazy making....
But I digress. That little update on the clinical pathway for a supposedly comfortable transition to death in the UK: totally thrilled it is getting some attention. I read about this awful process a few months back, and it made me want to puke. Had I not known what midazolam did to me, I probably would have just figured it was another tranquilizer being used to calm agitated patients and been discouraged but not appalled. I have never like the idea of a "clinical pathway" being used as a cookie cutter guideline in end of life care. It is like saying there is a recipe for your death: here ya go, shoot these up, let set and you are done in a few hours. This is the stuff of nightmares. (OMG).

Remember, I've worked in health care for more than twenty years. Recipe medicine (aka: clinical pathways) comes off like a game being played to cover up incompetence. Evidence driven best practice. My a**.

Drugging patients to ensure compliance? WTF??? In what dimension would this be remotely ethical? How can anyone participate in care decisions under the influence of a hypnotic drug that induces amnesia? Does anyone track the adverse events, like respiratory arrest from versed? Probably not: the people that love this drug would blame something other than their precious elixir for free will suppression in the drugged patient. And it isn't like midazolam helps control physical pain in any way. And yet there is that constant refrain from the versed devotees about this drug being for the patient's benefit. What a complete lie,

I am there with you: I don't trust any of the charlatans. It gives me no pleasure to be reminded of the reasons why health care is seen as a pox on humanity. Stories like this make me feel we've made no progress since the days of pest houses where people were randomly abused just because they were in the wrong place and vulnerable."