Jersey murders: to think the doctors who treated the murderer must feel sick to their stomachs.

[WonderMa]

I do not know how they could have treated him knowing what he had done, seeing the other bodies come in.

They should have left him in agony or to bleed to death, then he may have felt something of what his victims, including his own children, felt.

I can't even respect what they did. In their position, I would have downed tools and walked out, fuck my job.

Now he is probably pain free and being guarded in a comfy hospital bed while those 3 kids are laid out in the mortuary. It will later come out that the poor guy was upset that his marriage broke up and that's why he did it and he will spend a few years having all his needs taken care of in a prison and then be let out before he's 50.

Makes me feel so sick. If this is cilivisation, then something's gone wrong somewhere.

YABVU, HCPs don't get to choose who they treat, they have made an oath and have to abide by a code of ethics to work to save all life. Judging is for the courts not the hospital. If we decided to let a moral judgement be made before a person receives treatment where do you draw the line as in morality there is always going to be areas of disagreement.

Of course doctors have had to treat people they don't like or those who have done things they don't approve of, they are human after all. Yet the must treat all patients with the same level of effort and follow procedure. I personally would have less respect for a doctor who let their personal views get in the way.

I'm a doctor. I work in paeds now so the majority of my patients have not had much time to do bad things. However as part of my training I have worked in adult medicine and psychiatry. I have treated paedophiles, sex offenders, murderers. In the past week I have been told to fuck off twice. I have treated patients who have drunk themselves into liver failure, those who have taken drugs, those who have tried to kill themselves. The day I treat any of these people any differently to the way I treat anyone else is the day I should no longer be allowed to do my job.

OP, I disagree with your view but I agree that some of the responses to yours have been pretty juvenile. People could strongly disagree without personally attacking you.

I wonder how many people would waver from their absolute conviction here if they were the parents of any of the victims? Hopefully sense would prevail in the end but I can see how it would be very hard not to feel resentful towards the treatment given to the perpetrator (yes, even before conviction).

Shipman killed many, many people and had, of course, already been convicted, but similarly, many people - and some newspapers - felt satisfaction when he died that he wasn't going to spend another twenty years in prison at the taxpayers' expense. Again, these views are understandable even if they aren't how, in the cool light of reason, we actually want our society to operate.

'Civilisation' is a word used to denote cultures that operate in markedly different ways to others that may be viewed as primitive in comparison.

When Gandhi was asked what he thought of Western civilisation he replied that he thought it would be a good idea because, as you have demonstrated, being a member of a civilisation does not in itself indicate that all who live in it are civilised.

FTR the only overseas charity I now contribute to is Medicins Sans Frontieres and I do so in the full knowledge that they do not withhold medical treatment from those who I may personally consider to be without redemption.

EightiesChick, well OF COURSE if I was a parent of the victims I would want everybody in the world to make it their mission to punish the perpetrator. Of course.

That is why we do not generally ask victims to act as judges, or doctors, or gaolers, or therapists to the murderers of their loved ones.

You didn't seriously think anyone in their right mind was going to agree with you did you OP?

sallysparrows post puts it very eloquently - and thank heavens they do just get on with their jobs. Otherwise we would be sliding down the path to barbarism.

Not all bereaved people morph into vindictive fuckwits. Think of Tariq Jahan, whose son was murdered in the riots - he made a dignified appeal for calm and peace, not vengeance.

The mother of Kriss Donald, a 15-year-old savagely murdered in a racially-motivated attack, also pleaded for peace and an end to violence and revenge in the wake of her son's murder.

That's their job, it would have been difficult if they knew though.

If you can't understand how a doctor can treat a sick patient (regardless of extraneous details) then it's a very good job you aren't one.

Because where do you draw the line, when you start making yourself the judge of the deserving and the not? I certainly don't want that sort of responsibility on my shoulders, my job is difficult enough. Being able to treat a criminal - of any crime - does not make me complicit in what they have done nor signify approval.

Leave the judging and sentencing to the legal system where it belongs.

Being able to treat a criminal - of any crime - does not make me complicit in what they have done nor signify approval.

Couldnt have put it better.

I can't imagining not treating someone properly. It would feel very unnatural and cross a line that I never want to cross. I'm there to care, not to torture, regardless of what the patient (or in my case, their family) has done .

Hester-what an excellent post.

I am a HCP, and your post confused me, as I have NEVER allowed what I think of someone to affect their care. I may have thoughts things about them in private, but their care has always been the same as anyone else's, and it's never even occured to me or my colleagues to do any differently. Thank goodness.

Wow sincerely hoping you're not in a caring.

Having worked in several A&E departments I can honestly say that personal judgements never enter the decision making process. I've nursed a terrorist, a BNP member injured on a demo, lots of prisoners and a man who set his wife on fire. My job was to patch them up and let the police and the courts do their job.

I prefer it that way.

caring profession

Stupid phone

The Hippocratic Oath:

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given to me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

OP, YABVU, have you been watching Adam on Casualty by any chance?

Is this mumsnet sixth form?

How do you think the Prison Medical Service functions?

YABU.

We need to treat everyone to the best of our abilities.

I used to work near a maximum security prison so we had people in hospital who had done really bad things. I always tried to avoid finding out what they had done and why they were in prison because I wanted to make sure I did treat them with kindness and compassion, as well as making sure they got the benefit of my medical knowledge. I'd like to think that I would do that anyway knowing what they had done (as I did on occasion), but I prefer not to test myself that way.

What a ridiculous OP. Couldn't you find something sensible to say about the latest shocking news story and just HAD to talk about it, so you scrabbled about looking for a "new angle"?

You can't respect the medical professionals who treated someone who committed a crime? Presumably you can't respect the ambulance driver who drove him to hospital either? Or the cleaner who cleaned his blood off the floor? Or the police officer who stood guard? Or the prison staff who will bring him his meals? Or the lawyer who will deal with the court proceedings? Or the security can driver who will take him to court?

We aren't a throw-people-away society you know. We don't just look at someone and say "well that one's broken, leave him to die in the street". We have basic rules of acceptable behaviour and we have processes to follow to make sure that we don't lapse into being a culture of revenge and recrimination.

YAB entirely ridiculous.

Oh, kunfupannda, I think we can count on OP to tell us that he ought not to be allowed a lawyer . . .