Clause 5 - Acts in connection with care or treatment
Mental Capacity Bill
3:30 pm
Ms Claire Curtis-Thomas (Crosby, Labour)
One of my concerns is that there is a discreet difference between the treatment of different people. I do not think that there would be many questions about whether babies born today who are clearly incapacitated should be hydrated or fed. The presumption would be in favour of waiting and seeing, and establishing how they get on. Many relatives of elderly people who suddenly find themselves incapacitated would hope that the same
view would prevail: ''Let's hydrate and feed, and wait to see how they get on.''
However, there is a genuine worry that that does not happen; judgments are made for the elderly that are not so quickly made for babies, who may be in exactly the same condition. There is a ''Let's wait and see'' policy for the newly born, but the policy for the elderly is, ''You are 77, and we know what the outcome is going to be, so why wait?''