On Friday, CJ Online featured an interview with Dr. C.L. Gray, founder of the group Physicians for Reform, who earlier this year discussed “The Coming Age of Post-Hippocratic Medicine: What History Teaches Us About the Future of American Health Care†at a John Locke Foundation event.
By “post-Hippocratic,” Gray is referring to the slide of the practice of medicine away from the rules of the Hippocratic Oath into bottom-line, cost-benefit medicine. A story from Great Britain, creators of the template for single-payer, state-run health care in a democracy, reveals that in such a system Hippocrates holds little sway over doctors indoctrinated into the world and rules of bureaucratic medicine:
Doctors left a premature baby to die because he was born two days too early, his devastated mother claimed yesterday.
Sarah Capewell begged them to save her tiny son, who was born just 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy – almost four months early.
They ignored her pleas and allegedly told her they were following national guidelines that babies born before 22 weeks should not be given medical treatment.
