mrk
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Post by mrk on Nov 10, 2020 13:58:46 GMT
It's just as well BioNTech weren't founded by Turkish immigrants to Germany Many successful startups are founded by immigrants. Which is not surprising really: leaving one's country in search of better opportunities elsewhere kinda requires an entrepreneurial spirit to begin with.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Nov 10, 2020 15:54:25 GMT
It's just as well BioNTech weren't founded by Turkish immigrants to Germany Many successful startups are founded by immigrants. Which is not surprising really: leaving one's country in search of better opportunities elsewhere kinda requires an entrepreneurial spirit to begin with. If you remove the international boundaries from that, didn't a certain N. Tebbit have something to say on the subject?
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travolta
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Post by travolta on Nov 10, 2020 17:11:57 GMT
Well the abuse of the Liverpool Care Pathway allowed hospital staff to let people die of hunger & thirst because they were elderly & not considered important enough (I don't mean those who would have needed artificial feeding etc - just those who were ill so could not get out of the hospital bed to source water when staff refused to provide food & water). That's pretty punchy. If you've got material supporting that I'd like to read it. My Mum lasted for an excruciating 6 weeks on the Care Pathway. The demise of both my parents does fuel this particular rant and would focus anyone's mind if you have experienced similar. The reality is that the NHS will NOT care for you and frail elderly/terminally ill suffer dreadfully as they deteriorate unless you can commit your family to 24 hours personal nursing or somehow pay for it.. It just creeps up on you and BANG there's no answer in the UK . Holland and Belgium have systems in place. Unless you are equipped to take your own life (maybe through a self administered overdose of insulin) when ready. Chilling but true, if you will only face up to the inevitability that the responsibility is yours alone . This Covid out break has highlighted the harrowing deaths in care homes as frail people very slowly suffocate. Most care homes try to shunt you off to the NHS in similar circumstances and their staff do not experience it . Most doctors refuse to administer terminating drugs too . You wouldn't want to experience it second hand, let alone yourself.
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Nov 10, 2020 18:21:42 GMT
That's pretty punchy. If you've got material supporting that I'd like to read it. My Mum lasted for an excruciating 6 weeks on the Care Pathway. The demise of both my parents does fuel this particular rant and would focus anyone's mind if you have experienced similar. The reality is that the NHS will NOT care for you and frail elderly/terminally ill suffer dreadfully as they deteriorate unless you can commit your family to 24 hours personal nursing or somehow pay for it.. It just creeps up on you and BANG there's no answer in the UK . Holland and Belgium have systems in place. Unless you are equipped to take your own life (maybe through a self administered overdose of insulin) when ready. Chilling but true, if you will only face up to the inevitability that the responsibility is yours alone . This Covid out break has highlighted the harrowing deaths in care homes as frail people very slowly suffocate. Most care homes try to shunt you off to the NHS in similar circumstances and their staff do not experience it . Most doctors refuse to administer terminating drugs too . You wouldn't want to experience it second hand, let alone yourself. We may be coming at this from very different experiences, my family seem to be short lived, my father died suddenly under 60 (he was in hospital and hoped to be coming home in the next 24hrs (he was over an operation), my mother died under 70 also suddenly, I got a call in the early hours to say she was in hospital and she died the next day. All my grandparents died before I knew them. So my experience is that they were all taken away too soon, not that they were a burden.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Nov 10, 2020 18:28:52 GMT
My experience is that my father (80) was in a care home going rapidly downhill with dementia. He was aware enough to know that he was not enjoying this, and so he decided that he really only had one choice - and that was to stop eating. He went to hospital, where they put fluids into him - and as he got more responsive, he kept ripping all the tubes out.
The hospital asked me if I wanted him to be put onto a feeding tube. Once that was in, it would have required a court order to remove.
My reaction was that he'd made his choice, and who were we to argue? He went back to the care home and faded away.
What we need is access to euthanasia - and to be more honest about quality of life - and definitely not yet more prolonging of grim, grey, fading away just because. It'd be cruel if you let your pet suffer, yet it's illegal to "do the right thing" for people.
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Nov 10, 2020 18:43:54 GMT
That's pretty punchy. If you've got material supporting that I'd like to read it. My Mum lasted for an excruciating 6 weeks on the Care Pathway. The demise of both my parents does fuel this particular rant and would focus anyone's mind if you have experienced similar. The reality is that the NHS will NOT care for you and frail elderly/terminally ill suffer dreadfully as they deteriorate unless you can commit your family to 24 hours personal nursing or somehow pay for it.. It just creeps up on you and BANG there's no answer in the UK . Holland and Belgium have systems in place. Unless you are equipped to take your own life (maybe through a self administered overdose of insulin) when ready. Chilling but true, if you will only face up to the inevitability that the responsibility is yours alone . This Covid out break has highlighted the harrowing deaths in care homes as frail people very slowly suffocate. Most care homes try to shunt you off to the NHS in similar circumstances and their staff do not experience it . Most doctors refuse to administer terminating drugs too . You wouldn't want to experience it second hand, let alone yourself. I think we're on the same side in this debate travolta. As I've related in other posts I am very close to some neighbours of mine, and got to watch the husband suffer from dementia, two large strokes and the family told he only had two or three months to live only to see him slowly fade away in a care home over the next four years. I have LPA for my parents. I am dreading it ever becoming an issue.
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jlend
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Post by jlend on Nov 11, 2020 17:50:37 GMT
We count ourselves very lucky with our dad.
He died peacefully at home in his sleep after a very long and sometimes painful illness.
He had such great support from local GPs, district nurse, macmillan nurses, neighbours (one of which was a nurse), friends, family and especially our mum.
The GP made sure he was as comfortable as possible at the end when it was very hard. Luckily he slipped away just before being moved to the local hospice.
It taught us to reach out for as much support as possible, something we are currently doing for my younger brother who has just taken ill health retirement at 50 due to an inherited condition.
I am sure the support available varies dramatically, but there are some wonderful people out there in pockets of the country.
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Nov 11, 2020 20:32:20 GMT
My Mum lasted for an excruciating 6 weeks on the Care Pathway. The demise of both my parents does fuel this particular rant and would focus anyone's mind if you have experienced similar. The reality is that the NHS will NOT care for you and frail elderly/terminally ill suffer dreadfully as they deteriorate unless you can commit your family to 24 hours personal nursing or somehow pay for it.. It just creeps up on you and BANG there's no answer in the UK . Holland and Belgium have systems in place. Unless you are equipped to take your own life (maybe through a self administered overdose of insulin) when ready. Chilling but true, if you will only face up to the inevitability that the responsibility is yours alone . This Covid out break has highlighted the harrowing deaths in care homes as frail people very slowly suffocate. Most care homes try to shunt you off to the NHS in similar circumstances and their staff do not experience it . Most doctors refuse to administer terminating drugs too . You wouldn't want to experience it second hand, let alone yourself. We may be coming at this from very different experiences, my family seem to be short lived, my father died suddenly under 60 (he was in hospital and hoped to be coming home in the next 24hrs (he was over an operation), my mother died under 70 also suddenly, I got a call in the early hours to say she was in hospital and she died the next day. All my grandparents died before I knew them. So my experience is that they were all taken away too soon, not that they were a burden. From some of the other posts, I hope no one feels that this made it easy, it was devastating, to suddenly find out that someone is about to die or has suddenly died and then having to cope with it, and not being able to say goodbye is also a terrible experience.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Nov 11, 2020 20:53:19 GMT
I'm just bloody thankful that, between us, we don't have any aged parents in care homes currently (three down between 76 and 80yo; one still hale, hearty, and heading rapidly for 81)
There's never an easy way.
But I do know I want to go suddenly, while still hale and hearty and in full command of physical and mental faculties. Sorry to everybody left behind who doesn't get time to say goodbye, and who finds it a horrible shock, but...
(Eventually, obvs. Not yet. Bloody DECADES...)
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michaelc
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Post by michaelc on Nov 11, 2020 21:04:22 GMT
I think we treat animals better in this country. If they're in agony, the vet will quickly put them to sleep.
The main problem we have is that whilst it is clearly a topic of huge importance to most people at some point, it isn't a sexy political policy. Nobody wants to think about it. A real shame and not sure what can be done. I do know that speaking personally, I would give any political party serious thought if they tackled this area.
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travolta
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Post by travolta on Nov 11, 2020 21:40:04 GMT
Covid VAX : Why can't I stop thinking of 'I am legend'......................
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Post by dan1 on Nov 11, 2020 22:09:37 GMT
We may only be a few days from interim results being released on the Moderna vaccine (mRNA as per Pfizer-BioNTech): The rampant infection rate in the US at least appears to be speeding up various late stage trials. I'm not sure big Pharma is doing itself any favours with news like this: Pfizer's CEO cashed out 60% of his stock on the same day the company unveiled the results of its COVID-19 vaccine trialmarkets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/pfizer-ceo-sold-stock-day-covid-19-vaccine-results-unveiled-2020-11-1029790705I'm not insinuating foul play and in fact if the CV19 vaccines efficacy is proved (shouldn't they publish trials results for peer review rather than a press release?) then I'm sure they're worth it and more but, is this the messaging we want to be reading about at this stage? I hope this isn't seized on by the bloody anti-vaxxers.
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r00lish67
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Post by r00lish67 on Nov 11, 2020 22:21:29 GMT
I think we treat animals better in this country. If they're in agony, the vet will quickly put them to sleep. The main problem we have is that whilst it is clearly a topic of huge importance to most people at some point, it isn't a sexy political policy. Nobody wants to think about it. A real shame and not sure what can be done. I do know that speaking personally, I would give any political party serious thought if they tackled this area. I think/hope we will see pressure in this area soon. It feels like barely anything good and true has occurred in the political arena for four years for obvious reasons, and now unfortunately it's also the wrong time to bring up big healthcare changes what with the topic of this thread ongoing. Once we've had the first six months fallout/roaring success of our new arrangements next year and hopefully with the vaccine also underway, then hopefully Labour will be using the lack of progress in this area as a stick to beat the Tories with. It may not be sexy, but public support for doing something about it will be more united than, say, Brexit or lockdowns. Outside of politics, so often the problem with euthanasia is a gradual loss of mental faculties in the patient that means it's very difficult to truly know the person affected is really still giving their consent. If you rule out people who have impaired mental faculties as being eligible, that narrows the field/utility somewhat. Not that it's not worth progressing, I agree. From my (also biased by experience) perspective, Dementia really needs focus. It's the l eading cause of death, yet the often dreadful and upsetting behaviours caused are labelled as 'social care' issues. Diagnosis takes forever, but brings very little comfort as there's no cure and only marginally effective meds often with nasty side effects themselves. The strains of caring for someone with the condition often leads carers to develop problems themselves. When it's no longer possible to care for them individually, care homes cost thousands of pounds a month. But it's not like care homes are raking it in, in fact they're often going bust due to the arcane setup with public authority rates being different to private individuals. Very messy and not reflective of how prevalent these issues now are. I'm with you adrianc , suddenly any day, anything but dementia. That said, having been about as physically close as it was possible to be (without being in the sea) to the epicentre of a magnitude 6.7-7.0 earthquake a few days ago, I'll say that very quietly for now. Suddenly, but not that suddenly please.
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mrk
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Post by mrk on Nov 11, 2020 22:47:54 GMT
(shouldn't they publish trials results for peer review rather than a press release?) The press release mentions "Pfizer and BioNTech plan to submit data from the full Phase 3 trial for scientific peer-review publication." From what little I understand, the process for phase 3 trials should be fairly standard anyway. If they had "94 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in trial participants" and the "Vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90% effective" that basically means of the 94 who got sick the vast majority were in the placebo group, and only a small minority in the vaccine group.
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Nov 12, 2020 16:36:54 GMT
33,470 new cases in the UK today .
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