New role for the Isle of Wight

The average appearance of Dr Genesis' patients

Dr Genesis has had two weeks off work. He slept for the first two days. Then he remembered what it is like to be human again. Any junior doctor knows how he feels. You forget there is a normal world outside the hospital walls. A world where people aren't continually abrupt.

Dr Genesis came back to work today. Within 15 minutes of the ward round, Dr Genesis was despairing. There were a couple of middle aged people with acute medical problems which we could actually treat. The rest were over the age of 85. And this isn't even an elderly care team. Most of them had minor medical problems, consistent with old age. Normal. In any other country they would be tucked up in bed by their family and fed porridge. Then they would die in a few months, peacefully, with their family around them.

But in the UK, death is an avoidable pathology. It must be delayed as long as possible. No stone must be unturned to discover why a patient's sodium level of slightly lower than it should be. Or why their CRP (a marker of inflammation/infection) is slightly higher than it should be. The patient must be cannulated, catheterised, fed with intravenous fluid and antibiotics, bombarded with radiation and "coded".

Then and only then can they be allowed to die. With their dignity strippped from them.