Euthanasia and hospital bottom linesThe issue of cost is an important factor in debates about health care and treatment strategies. It is extremely expensive to provide the advanced care offered by modern hospitals. Concerns about where money for elderly care will come from appear to make the case for “mercy killing” even more compelling. Under financial pressure, hospitals are exercising their right to refuse such costly care to elderly or seriously ill people. We reserve the right to refuse service: Most people have seen these signs in restaurants and retail stores. But now, metaphorically, some hospitals are posting such notices above their entrances enacting "unnecessary care" protocols that grant doctors the right to say no to medical treatments necessary to prolong the lives of patients whose quality of life , they argue, lacks sufficient quality to justify the cost. Unnoticed by the mainstream press, a disturbing study published in the Fall 2000 issue of the Cambridge Quarterly of Health Care Ethics reveals how futile the health care movement is, in reality the opening salvo of a planned campaign among elites medical to impose health. -the rationing of care imposed on us has already progressed. The authors examined futility policies currently in effect at 26 California hospitals. Of these, only one policy stated that “physicians should act to support the life of the patient” when life-prolonging care was necessary. All but two hospital policies define the circumstances in which treatments should be considered non-obligatory even if requested by the patient or their representative. In other words, 24 of 26 hospitals allow doctors to unilaterally refuse necessary life-saving care. How is such medical abandonment justified? Proponents of the futile care theory cleverly shift attention away from the physiological effect provided to the patient and focus on whether the patient has the “potential to enjoy the benefits of treatment.” For example, the Cambridge Quarterly reports that 12 of 26 hospitals surveyed prohibit treatment of people diagnosed with permanent loss of consciousness (other than comfort care) based on the alleged inability of these patients to know that they are being treated. It doesn't matter that several medical studies show that this pathology is often misdiagnosed (40% diagnostic errors according to a British report). And it doesn't matter that these patients sometimes wake up unexpectedly, as newspaper headlines attest. Most worrying is that these policies, if implemented, would prevent patients with severe brain damage and dementia from receiving food and water through feeding tubes, because such care is considered medical. treatment.