Unnatural Death

By Bradley Eli, M.Div., Ma.Th., ChurchMilitant.com, May 16, 2018

Hospitals are known to kill patients whose prolonged stay in its intensive care unit (ICU) is penalized by insurance companies.

Doctor David McKalip, M.D., a neurosurgeon and practicing Catholic from Florida, told Church Militant last year that health care regulations from insurance companies are financially penalizing hospitals for keeping patients in ICU too long. These financial incentives are passed on by hospitals to doctors, McKalip said, by paying doctors “bonuses if they meet certain budget goals; in other words, if they ration care.”

Health regulations, noted McKalip, are worked out between the government and insurance companies. “If you spend an amount below what the government and the insurance company agreed to as reasonable, you get extra money, you get a bonus,” he explained. In some hospitals where critical care doctors are employed, he added, “The hospital pays the doctor a bonus if their ICU number of days is below a certain number on average, and they get a penalty if they go above that number.”

McKalip clarified, “So there is a direct financial incentive, a penalty to doctors financially if they keep you in the hospital too long.” In other words, the doctors that acquiesce to the guidelines would rather see the terminally ill have their care withdrawn and potentially euthanized rather than be financially penalized for keeping them in their ICU. “So this is active rationing of care with the doctors financially incentivized to do so,” McKalip said.

One way of killing a patient is active euthanasia by overdosing with morphine that shuts down bodily functions. Church Militant asked McKalip during an interview this week if he could confirm rumors that hospitals were actively euthanizing terminally ill patients by intentionally giving them excessive doses of morphine. “That happens all the time,” he said. “I see it all the time, literally every week.”

Catholics can choose to refuse extraordinary care such an operation to remove a brain tumor or the use of a ventilator tube. They can also request morphine for pain. “This is all defined in the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services,” McKalip explained. “But that’s not what we’re seeing these days. We’re seeing active euthanasia with morphine in hospitals all over America.”

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