Leading UK Health Official: Save Money, Let Babies Die

Doesn't socialized medicine sound great?

It's human instinct to want to protect our children. But a leading NHS official has claimed that babies born at 23 weeks or earlier should be left to die.

Dr Daphne Austin claimed that in keeping these babies alive it is only 'prolonging their agony', and it would be better to invest the money in care for cancer sufferers. 'For me the big issue is that we're spending an awful lot of money on treatments that have very marginal benefit. I would prefer to free up that money to spend on providing support to people who have much more lifelong chronic conditions.'

'If it was my child, from all the evidence and information that I know, I would notresuscitate,' she Dr Austin, who works as a consultant for the West Midlands Specialised Commissioning team.

£10 million a year is spent on resuscitating these premature babies, but few of them survive as their bodies are too undeveloped.