If your husband or father's life-support were about to be switched off and you requested he be given Vitamin C and the doctors refused, what would you do? What about if he received the Vitamin C, began to get better, and then they stopped it, and refused to continue the treatment?
That's what happened to Alan Smith, a farmer from the King Country whose story was shown on 60 Minutes last night. He caught the Swine Flu (probably while on a fishing trip in Fiji), so badly that his lungs had "white out", which is to say they were so full of fluid that they didn't show up on an x-ray. The doctors also said he had got leukemia and he ended up being put on a life support machine.
The doctors told the family the machine should be turned off, but the family asked that he be given high dosages of Vitamin C. After a fight (one of many), one of the doctors agreed. Alan began getting better; his lungs showed pockets of air. Then he began to get worse and the family found out the doctors had stopped the Vit C.
Many more fights ensued, the patient getting better while having the Vit C, and getting worse when he was taken off. Alan's wife describes one of the doctors sitting back in his chair, arms folded, rolling his eyes, looking at the ceiling, telling her that no way could the vitamin C be helping. The family hired a lawyer, forcing the doctors to continue the vit C treatment (albeit in slow dosage, until he got better enough to eat and his wife brought along sachets of large dosage herself for him to take).
Eventually Alan fully recovered, no trace of Leukemia even.
It's this attitude of the medical profession that really pisses me off; they think they know better, and any mention that an alternative treatment or a simple vitamin might help is often rubbished while they sit in their high chairs as though they are the arbiters of all knowledge. They can't stand the idea that Vitamin C might help - one because it is so simple, and two, because it was actually working. I mean, the man was going to die; they were going to turn off his life-support. Isn't it their job to try anything and everything that might save him? And to stop the treatment when it was obvious to anyone with a brain that it was helping is a crime. The job of Doctors is to make people well, yet they would not agree to the wishes of the family. Neither Auckland nor Waikato hospitals would appear or comment on the story.
I think that shows the level our society has come down to; with the practices of abortion and euthanasia prevalent, the value of life has become less and less to the point where it becomes easier not to expend the effort and just let someone die.
That's what happened to Alan Smith, a farmer from the King Country whose story was shown on 60 Minutes last night. He caught the Swine Flu (probably while on a fishing trip in Fiji), so badly that his lungs had "white out", which is to say they were so full of fluid that they didn't show up on an x-ray. The doctors also said he had got leukemia and he ended up being put on a life support machine.
The doctors told the family the machine should be turned off, but the family asked that he be given high dosages of Vitamin C. After a fight (one of many), one of the doctors agreed. Alan began getting better; his lungs showed pockets of air. Then he began to get worse and the family found out the doctors had stopped the Vit C.
Many more fights ensued, the patient getting better while having the Vit C, and getting worse when he was taken off. Alan's wife describes one of the doctors sitting back in his chair, arms folded, rolling his eyes, looking at the ceiling, telling her that no way could the vitamin C be helping. The family hired a lawyer, forcing the doctors to continue the vit C treatment (albeit in slow dosage, until he got better enough to eat and his wife brought along sachets of large dosage herself for him to take).
Eventually Alan fully recovered, no trace of Leukemia even.
It's this attitude of the medical profession that really pisses me off; they think they know better, and any mention that an alternative treatment or a simple vitamin might help is often rubbished while they sit in their high chairs as though they are the arbiters of all knowledge. They can't stand the idea that Vitamin C might help - one because it is so simple, and two, because it was actually working. I mean, the man was going to die; they were going to turn off his life-support. Isn't it their job to try anything and everything that might save him? And to stop the treatment when it was obvious to anyone with a brain that it was helping is a crime. The job of Doctors is to make people well, yet they would not agree to the wishes of the family. Neither Auckland nor Waikato hospitals would appear or comment on the story.
I think that shows the level our society has come down to; with the practices of abortion and euthanasia prevalent, the value of life has become less and less to the point where it becomes easier not to expend the effort and just let someone die.
See the video of the story from last night's 60 Minutes HERE