Posted on 08/18/2008 8:34:20 AM PDT by Daniel T. Zanoza
Editor's Note: Bill Beckman, Executive Director, Illinois Right to Life Committee, updates RFFM.org's readers regarding the issue of living wills. During the last week, RFFM.org posted a series on end of life issues which were first seen on RFFM.org in 2006. Beckman's latest column is an insightful look into the confusing and sometimes deadly result of signing a living will.
While the Terri Schiavo case was in the news back in 2004, another Florida case got much less publicity. Hanford Pinette had signed both a living will and a durable power of attorney for health care that designated his wife as agent. When he had congestive heart failure, he needed a ventilator.
His doctors insisted he had no hope of recovery so the provisions of his living will should be exercised by removing the ventilator. When he wife Alice refused, hospital officials took the case to court and won. Even though Hanford was still conscious, doctors removed his ventilator and he suffocated within two hours.
On August 13, 2008 in Rochester, NY local TV news reported on the case of Dorothy Livadas, 97, who lives with the aid of life support. Though she had signed documents giving her daughter, Ianthe Livadas, the power to make medical, legal, and financial decisions for her, ...
(Excerpt) Read more at rffm.typepad.com ...
Exactly what was predicted.
susie
Yeh...And wait until the government “owns” the Health Care system...
Okay. You’ve looked at it from one side. No consider another.
When my late wife was admitted to the hospital-terminally ill,death imminent-I couldn’t remember where I had put our “living will” documents.The hospital called in the early morning hours to say she needed to be put on a ventilator-and I readily agreed.
A few hours later,when I visited, she was indeed on a ventilator-and in agony: rolling her head wildly from side to side. I asked why she had not been sedated,and it developed the specialist had forbidden it, because it might “cause medical complications that would shorten her life”.
That morning, I finally got a copy of the living will and presented it. As luck would have it, my family physician was there,and okayed sedation,to make the ventilator tolerable.
The Inhalation specialist was furious: he wanted to see how many times he could resuscitate a dying person,and his experimental subject had been taken away.
My wife finally found peace-about 12 hours later;but-God help me ! I still find myself wanting to do a few experiments of my own on a couple of doctors.
Yeah, you could say I’m an advocate of living wills-and of keeping them where you can find them.
OK. So those of you who choose not to have a living will are, if I am not mistaken, free to not have one. Right? Are those of you taking this position freely also suggesting that no one be able to have one?
I confess to a bit of discomfort at the thought of total strangers, not involved with me, my family, and our wishes, getting involved in our life and death decisions.
So, very gently, I would encourage those of you so inclined, to butt out of my family’s business.
I’ll tell you what, if it were me with the congestive heart failure and no chance for recovery, you had better pull MY PLUG and HONOR MY WISHES as put forth in my Living Will.
I agree. I don't want to give what little money I have managed to save during the course of my lifetime to the medical community.
I have a living will. Before I had it drafted I talked to my father. He proceeded to tell me stories of people who awoke from comas years later etc.
I realized that he would not be the person to execute my living will. But say I had not talked to my father and realized his stance and something happened to me in Iraq. My father would look out for his wishes and not mine, not because he is intentionally selfish, but because he would be unable to see past me as “his little boy” and realize the suffering.
While I am pro-life and thankful for medical break throughs, I think doctors sometimes think they are God.
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