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Ron Panzer, president of Hospice Patients Alliance wrote the following article in 2002. Panzer wrote that Hospice regularly admits patients who are not terminally ill into their facilities to get Medicade funding. Terri is not terminally ill. She's disabled. Hospice requires that a patient be certified as terminally ill and have a life expectancy of 6 months or less. Terri has been living in Woodside Hospice for 4 years.

http://www.hospicepatients.org/terri-schiavo-10-12-02-press-rel.html

Hospice Patients Alliance Blasts Hospice Agencies
That Terrorize the Chronically Disabled

by Ron Panzer, President HPA

GRAND RAPIDS, MI - October 15, 2002 - Terri Schiavo currently is being held in a Pinellas County Florida hospice that is not licensed to provide care for the chronically ill.

Terri Schiavo is a non-terminal disabled patient with brain damage. Terri's own treating physician, Dr. Vincent Gambone, testified before the court,saying "her condition is one that there is no recovery. The damage that is done to the brain is not repairable."1 However, the chronically disabled are by definition not going to recover completely. These are not terminal patients, and the disabled can live many years so long as they are not intentionally killed.

Terrorizing the Disabled in America

The practice of enrolling chronically disabled patients into hospice endangers all disabled citizens of the United States and directly violates their Constitutional rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The disabled are not so much afraid of getting anthrax or being shot; they are afraid that society will toss them away like a used tissue and kill them. The disabled are terrorized by those holier-than-thou self-proclaimed bioethicists who have no morality and no sense of humanity and proclaim, like Adolf Hitler, that the disabled are "better off dead."

Adolf Hitler summarily executed the mentally ill and developmentally disabled "for the greater good of society." The utilitarian philosophy which promotes the killing of patients in order to save health care resources for others has plunged the US health care system to a depth which calls for shame and disgust. If hospice is to become a killing center for the disabled, then hospice agencies that do so are no different from the gas chambers in Nazi Germany.

Hospice that enrolls Non-Terminal Patients Commits Fraud

The United States Office of Inspector General has issued its warning to the public about questionable hospice agency practices and stated that some hospices have been found to engage in, "practices which ... have inappropriately maximized their Medicare reimbursements at beneficiary expense. These practices include: Making incorrect determinations of a person's life expectancy for purposes of meeting hospice eligibility criteria." A hospice that bills Medicare, Medicaid or a private insurer for a non-terminal patient is violating the contracts which allow hospices to provide services for the terminally ill.

Hospices are not licensed to care for the chronically ill. In order for a patient to be admitted to hospice, the physician must "certify" that the patient is likely to die within six months due to a terminal illness. Terri Schiavo has no terminal illness; the only cause of death in her case would be her intentional murder by those intent on ending her life.

Original Hospice Mission Violated

The original hospice mission is to care for, support and manage the symptoms of the terminally ill until a death occurs in its own natural timing. Every hospice nurse and physician knows that hospice is supposed to neither hasten death nor seek to cure the terminal illness. Hastening the death of a patient goes against everything hospice stands for.

Although Terri Schiavo's case will be decided in a Pinellas County courthouse, any hospice that accepts a chronically ill patient has violated not only the spirit of hospice and the mission of hospice, but the federal regulations governing hospice4

Hospice Organization Remains Silent on Euthanasia Case

It is mind-boggling that the national organizations promoting hospice in this country have remained silent about Terri Schiavo's case, the stream of intentional killings in hospices across our nation and the killings going on in Oregon. Anyone who is informed about the killings in Oregon know that the state of Oregon is NOT reporting the full truth about the cases and that there are cases which are not even recorded by the state.

Hospice lobbying groups like the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization and the state hospice associations need to act immediately to preserve the hospice mission before hospice practice descends into the gutter and hospice becomes synonymous with "house-of-murder." It is common knowledge among the public that some hospices routinely kill their patients with overdosages of morphine and sedatives before the patient dies a natural death from the terminal illness.

These national groups need to take a stand for morality, ethics and compassion. They loudly proclaim that hospice is "compassion and caring for the dying," but killing the disabled is the furthest thing from "compassionate" or "caring." They do nothing when non-terminal patients are threatened by those who wish to kill them in a hospice. Hospice staff throughout the nation eagerly learn how to terminally sedate patients and then end patient's lives (through dehydration and circulatory collapse) when they have no medical need for sedation.5 Many physicians are more than willing to end the lives of their patients. (See 6, and 7. And approximately 50 per cent of physicians in our nation approve of physician-assisted suicide8!)

In many so-called physician-assisted suicide cases, the patient cannot take the medication themselves, so the patient is actually euthanized, i.e., killed outright by the physician or nurse. That is the reality! Let's get real here! If you or your loved one are disabled, you will need to beware of your physician's attitudes about euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Terri Schiavo's case has gained national attention, but it is far from unique!

The hospice industry as a whole, each hospice agency, the physicians, nurses and the courts need to remember that the United States is a nation founded with the belief that all are created equal. "Equal" in this sense means that each citizen deserves equal rights under the law. Executing the disabled, such as Terri Schiavo, is the violation of all the rights guaranteed to the disabled Terri Schiavo, as an American citizen; it is a violation of everything America stands for. Hospice is about allowing a natural death in its own time, not hastening the death of a patient who is not terminal and responds to family. If euthanasia is allowed into hospice, then the wonderful service we know as hospice will cease to exist. If the courts allow the killing of Terri Schiavo, we will have already slid down the slippery slope. God help our nation if we do!