UK doctors kill off "terminal" patients at a rate of 8 per day in 2004

Doctors 'involved in eight euthanasia deaths a day'
By Sarah Womack, Social Affairs Correspondent(Filed: 18/01/2006)
"Doctors were involved in as many as eight deaths a day from voluntary or "non-voluntary" euthanasia in Britain in 2004, according to academic research.
A report by Clive Seale, professor of sociology at Brunel University, said 1,930 deaths were as a result of a doctor ending a patient's life without the patient's consent, a practice known as "non-voluntary euthanasia" or "mercy killing".
This involves the ending of the life of a person who does not have the faculty to make such a decision, for instance when they are in a coma.
Some 936 deaths were by voluntary euthanasia. Put together, these figures amount to 2,866 deaths or eight a day.
A third of the 584,791 people who died in 2004 - 192,000 patients - had their deaths "accelerated" by doctors using pain relief.
These deaths were put down to "alleviating symptoms" which may have had the effect of shortening life.
Just under a third were from "withholding treatment" - passively allowing someone to die - because it was deemed in the best interest of the patients. The two latter practices are allowed in the UK...."
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