Hospice for Hemlock

Hospice for Hemlock ^

[cpforlife.org]

Then there is this

http://www.hospicepatients.org/Hosp-Industry-shoots-self-in-foot.html

"Hospice Industry Shoots Itself In the Foot"

While the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast ("HFLS") works diligently with right-to-kill zealot Ronald Cranford, Attorney George Felos (former HFLS board member) and others attempting to "assist" disabled Terri Schiavo to death, the entire hospice industry is looking to increase enrollment in hospice and increase the length of stay of patients receiving hospice services. Some in the hospice industry question why the Board of Directors of HFLS even allows a NON-terminal patient to be enrolled in hospice. There is no report known to us saying that Terri Schiavo is terminal; why is she in hospice?

Hospice industry leaders and planners often explain public resistance to enrolling in hospice as being caused by the public "not understanding" what hospice is all about. While many individuals do not truly understand what hospice is all about, there are many who simply recognize the realities of the industry. Either through their own family's experience or the experience of a friend, they know that is becoming increasingly common for hospices to hasten a patient's death.

The public is not as dumb as the professionals in the industry would like to think. The public knows that if they enter hospice, in some cases, their death may be hastened. Doctors in the community often comment, "if you enter hospice, you'll be dead in two weeks." Why? Because in many cases, patients are routinely given morphine and Ativan (a common sedative) even if their symptoms do not require it. The irresponsible administration of clinically inappropriate medications in order to make for a "nice hospice death" is seen by some as what it is: medical killing.

If patients are in pain and need morphine, then of course, they should receive it. If they have agitation or severe anxiety, they should receive anti-anxiety medications. But in many cases, hospices dispense these medications to just about every patient coming into their agency, whether or not they ask for it, whether or not they need it and whether or not administering these medications shuffles them off to death much sooner than their disease would take them! And patients with a terminal illness do not universally wish to be hastened to their death. On the contrary, many patients beg and pray that they will live even just one more day with their loved ones. Family members pray that the patient live a little bit longer if possible.

While death is inevitable and hospice services do much to relieve the suffering of many, hastening patients to death against their wishes violates the trust of the community, the patients, the pledge of all health care professionals to "do no harm," and betrays the very mission of hospice. Many who fear being hastened to their death in hospice completely refuse to ever enter hospice. The result of efforts to kill Terri Schiavo (and others like her) will have drastic counter-productive affects on the entire hospice industry.

Hospices Seek Longer Length of Stay to Improve End-of-Life Care

The median length of stay is regarded as the most accurate way of showing the length of stay of most hospice patients. According to data from the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization the median length of stay is a little over three weeks. Last Acts and other end-of-life focused organizations have consistently emphasized the need for an increased length of stay so that patients benefit most from palliative care services. Last Acts Financing Committee released its report, "Medicare and End-of-Life Care" which states, "lengthier hospice stays allow the patient and family to benefit most from the hospice services that Medicare covers ...." Discussion of the problem of short lengths of stay is found in almost every scholarly analysis of problems in end-of-life care.

It is clear that efforts to hasten the death of the terminally ill or to impose death upon helpless patients (like Terri Schiavo) who are disabled will cause many to think twice about entering hospice at all. And if they do enter, they won't enter months before their "time to die;" they will enter when they are almost at death's door. In fact, they won't have to "think twice" about it. They will know not to enter hospice if hospices like Hospice of the Florida Suncoast get their way in being allowed by the courts to kill helpless patients.

When one of the largest hospices in our nation such as Hospice of the Florida Suncoast can kill patients who are NOT terminal, the public will know that it can happen anywhere, in any hospice, at any time. It doesn't matter how many wonderful dedicated hospice professionals there are who would never think to do such a thing! The public knows: it only takes one right-to-kill zealot working in hospice to endanger them. And more and more health care professionals support the "right-to-die" (right-to-kill)!

Organizations with names like "Hospice for Hemlock" truly frighten those who are not seeking to be killed! The mere existence of hospices like Hospice of the Florida Suncoast, eager and willing to kill the disabled (non-terminal) and organizations like Hospice for Hemlock, will do more to shorten length of stays in hospice and decrease utilization of hospice services than many PR spots on TV and radio. Hospice could not find a greater enemy of the mission than those who seek to kill within hospice agencies!

When organization such as the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization and Last Acts say nothing about the mainstreaming of the right-to-kill agenda into hospice; when they say nothing about the attempt to kill Terri Schiavo, the public has a real right to be concerned. Hospice, as an industry, is truly "shooting itself in the foot!"

[the_Watchman]

Hemlock believes that people should be able to have choice and dignity at the end of life.

That sounds like something I could buy into, except that there's a "slippery slope" there. There's just something about death that sucks some people in like a vortex. There's some kind of fascination which clouds the judgement. I just don't trust people who claim to be espousing health care and promoting death in the same sentence.

[For those who believe in "freudian slips", I originally, and quite accidentally typed "king" instead of "kind" above!]

[cpforlife.org]

This is MUCH worse than for just poor Terri. It's a growing industry.

If one were to look at the abortion industry, the growing euthanasia industry, embryo farming for stem cells, genetic engineering for a “master race” etc. one might think Hitler won WWII and set up shop here in America.

Land of the Free and home of the Brave—for how much longer?

Friends, if you think pro-life activism is just about saving unborn babies you are near sighted. It’s also about saving the future of this Nation for one’s own children, and possibly for self-preservation in the future. Please consider getting involved for the long haul. The war between the cultures of life and death is the single issue that has a bearing on the destiny of our nation and the very survival of our society. If we don’t get involved, the next generations might not have the freedom to choose one way or the other.

Please let me know if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.

[cpforlife.org]

Thanks,

I think it's “interesting” that you, with that awesome screen name, would comment first.

[cpforlife.org]

Euthanasia and Terri Schiavo

October 16, 2003

While agonizing over the fate of Terri Schiavo, this murder of the infirm and cognitively impaired has become a mainstay of the American medical and legal establishment. At a Missouri medical center, I was given an information sheet entitled “Fluid Deprivation and the Terminally Ill” which stated, “…the decision not to provide hydration, IV fluids, and nutrition (feeding tubes, etc.), may be helpful. …As death approaches dehydration occurs naturally. Administering IV fluids to the terminally ill patient can increase urine output, often creating the need for a catheter or the frequent use of a bedpan. Administering tube feedings can result in nausea, vomiting or diarrhea. Additionally the administration of IV fluids by IV or by mouth can result in swelling of the feet and hands that contribute to the formation of pressure sores. Oral discomfort is noted to be the only known drawback to natural dehydration. Because foods and fluids have such powerful symbolic meaning, it is often very difficult for family members to decide in favor of natural dehydration for their terminally ill loved ones.” In response to this policy I wrote the Administration, Board of Directors, and Ethics Committee the following:

Dehydration is a pathologic state or symptom of an anomaly or disease that is to be treated, not produced by withholding fluids and/or nutrition. Withholding hydration, nutrition, or any medical treatment should not be done unless death is imminent, (not terminal) and the removal of such hydration, nutrition or medical treatment should not be the etiological or causative factor in the death of that individual, but as a natural consequence of the disease state. This directive on removal of hydration from the terminally ill is paramount to passive euthanasia (murder)…This medical institution needs to eliminate its policy on the terminally ill since the word terminal has many definitions and it is too illusive or subjective to be used in policies affecting those patients in whom death is imminent. All policies affecting the medical treatment of patients whose death is imminent need to safeguard the patient and/or significant power of attorney, stating that if the patient's condition changes and death is not imminent, all hydration, nutrition and appropriate medical treatment will be reinstated. (“Imminent” defined as the approximate relation to death of a patient in an irreversible, persistent catabolic state or an irreversible respiratory or metabolic acidosis). In conclusion, no medical treatment or the withholding of medical treatment should be the etiological cause of a human being's death; the disease, anomaly, pathology or trauma should be its etiological cause.

By acting in this way the legal and medical establishment usurp the place of God in so much as they arbitrarily choose whom they will allow to live and whom they will send to their death. No doctor or lawyer can claim this right to decide on other peoples' origin or destiny. The purpose of their institutions is to safeguard the health, dignity and welfare of their patients and constituents-not to help them or any other persons to hasten their death!

Richard Mahoney, founder
NATIONAL AMERICAN HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL

[cpforlife.org]

Abortion and euthanasia are crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection. In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to ‘take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it.’
(The Gospel of Life , no. 73)

[tkathy]

Having just gone through this with my mother and two aunts, we witnessed one horror scene after another. Feeding tubes are horrible. One lady with a feeding tube had full splints on both her arms and both her legs, her eyes were open much like Terri's, and periodically would break out into awful wailing and screaming, which everyone just ignored. The nursing home's ability to use medication is severely restricted by legislation, due to ignorant intervention by ignorant people.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Whatever the answer is, it's not to tell these folks to "dry up" (pardon the pun).

[cpforlife.org]

Need a little more proof it's bad? See link below. Posted 1 hour after this thread.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1009520/posts

[Jim Noble]

I am a physician and my practice has included more end-of-life care than average for twenty-five years.

Hospice is a very mixed bag, as the article suggests.

Overtly killing PVS or PVS-like patients is very unusual. It is not unusual for relatives with a secondary gain motive (as may be the case with Mr. Schiavo) to request death-but it is very unusual for the request to be carried out, much less with the power of the state compelling it.

As far as true "mercy killing"-it is very rare, and I always say:

those who say don't know, and those who know, don't say.

[d5055]

Its big business.
money

[Agnes Heep]

More death merchants trying to use compassion as a foot in the door.

[shhrubbery!]

Having just gone through this with my mother and two aunts, we witnessed one horror scene after another. Feeding tubes are horrible. One lady with a feeding tube had full splints on both her arms and both her legs, her eyes were open much like Terri's, and periodically would break out into awful wailing and screaming, which everyone just ignored.

I worked in a nursing home for the elderly when I was a teenager, and witnessed scenes such as you describe.

I have also spent a great deal of time in a rehabilitation facility for the brain- and spinal cord-damaged.

The two situations are quite different.

In the nursing home where I worked, many elderly people suffered from some kind of senile dementia and thus would wail, sing, and talk to themselves. And true, the nursing staff would often ignore them.

In the rehab facility, I never saw anything like that. Patients were not demented. There was no wailing, etc. Patients' needs were conscientiously attended to.

Terri belongs in a rehab facility, not a nursing home -- and certainly not in a hospice, which should be exclusively for the dying.

[tkathy]

Terri belongs in a rehab facility, not a nursing home -- and certainly not in a hospice, which should be exclusively for the dying.

I agree. Terri should be rehabilitated to swallow on her own. Feeding tubes are fiendish devices.

[buffyt]

When my mother in law was dying of lupus they gave her drugs that eased her pain, even though they would shorten her life. She was on her death bed, we had all come to see her, flew in from different states. There was no hope. She was not going to recover and go home. She was too weak and ill to take the drugs that they usually give for lupus. All they could do was ease her pain as she eased out of this world to the next. This is the same way they treated my grandmother (1977), my father(1992), and most recently my aunt(2002). It was in regular hospitals. The family was asked permission, and this is how these people were treated. They removed the life support systems and just gave them pain med. to ease their pain as they died. It is the only humane way. Otherwise they would have been thrashing in pain for hours or days. We all came and said our good byes to these beloved people. Sometimes when you are 80 or 90 and dying, you are not going to get well and go home again.

[mrtoby]

I was surprised to hear Michael Schiavo say last night that Hospice in FL will allow non-terminal patients to be admitted. I was distressed to hear this because this was one of my major arguments that there was some sort of collusion going on between Michael, Hospice, the lawyer, the Board, etc. Got any information for me to defend myself when confronted by some of these (former) friends? Thanks!

[ecru]

I just administered a tube feed at work this last evening. To a fella with MS. He's pretty far gone, had it for almost 20 years...the light woke him up. After I changed the container and got it going again, I asked him if he was cold and he grunted. I covered him up with another quilt and he went back to sleep. Then I smiled at him and thought to myself how lucky he was that he is surrounded by people who would never think of killing him.

[eleni121]

So now the question is whether Hospice approves of the relationship. Apparently all suspicions point in that direction.

This bunch lists Hospice on their website. So, Hospice = Euthanasia?

[eleni121]

17. Is hospice care covered by insurance?

Hospice coverage is widely available. It is provided by Medicare nationwide, by Medicaid in 39 states, and by most private insurance providers. To be sure of coverage, families should, of course, check with their employer or health insurance provider.

Since the advent of managed care, the secularization of medicine and care, followed naturally by a renewed attention to the bottom line, is anyone surprised that it has all come to this --- the active promotion and expansion of the cult of death?