Terri Schiavo Before dehydration
Posted on 03/26/2005 4:21:35 AM PST by madprof98
Cleveland --- The doctors who created the current technique for inserting feeding tubes into patients say there are no easy answers in the case of Terri Schiavo and use of the procedure has gone far beyond its original purpose.
The insertion of feeding tubes required major surgery until Dr. Michael Gauderer, now director of surgery at Greenville Children's Hospital in South Carolina, and Dr. Jeffrey Ponsky developed a technique in 1979 intended to help infants and children who couldn't swallow.
Today, it's used more than 250,000 times a year and has become an integral part of end-of-life care.
Feeding tubes are too often used in patients with no potential for recovery, said Ponsky, chairman of the department of surgery at Case Western Reserve University.
''Once they're in, it's so emotionally difficult to take it out and let someone die,'' he said.
Ponsky believes that Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman whose care has become the subject of a legal battle, should remain connected to a feeding tube if her family wants to care for her.
The tube was removed a week ago.
Gauderer said it wouldn't be appropriate for him to give an opinion on the Schiavo case, but he believes the government shouldn't intervene.
''This is something that needs to be decided at the family level,'' he said.
Gauderer and Ponsky first performed their technique --- percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy, or PEG --- in 1979 on a 4-month-old boy at Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital in Cleveland.
They inserted a needle into the baby's stomach and passed a thread through that was pulled out the mouth by an endoscope. A feeding tube was attached to the thread then drawn through the throat, into the stomach and pulled out through the belly.
Doctors soon began performing the procedure on adult patients, and it is now used 99 percent of the time feeding tubes are required, Ponsky said. Some nursing homes require feeding tubes be inserted that way, because they're less likely to come loose than an IV or a tube through the nose.
Gauderer and Ponsky say they didn't envision PEG being used for end-of-life care. ''It never entered our minds this would produce such a massive ethical dilemma,'' Ponsky said.
Gauderer hopes the Schiavo case will cause people to decide with their families what they would want done.
Ponsky believes the country needs to examine the most humane way to remove a feeding tube and end life.
''We take convicted murderers and give them a gentle death by injection, and we take someone like Terri Schiavo and decide she has to die and make her suffer weeks of dehydration and malnutrition and loss of dignity rather than provide a rapid euthanasia,'' Ponsky said. ''It's a paradox.''
From the point of view of the elites, this really the point of the Terri Schiavo case: RAPID EUTHANASIA for the unwanted. I expect it will become as common here as it is in the Netherlands--and given popular sentiment, perhaps more so--within the next decade.
Terri's tube was removed, and no one is allowed to give her water or food -- even though she can take it through her mouth.
It's not about biotechnology, it's about murder under color of law.
People without money don't understand why someone would want to off another human without so much as a look at the situation. And because they have nothing invested personally, they don't "get it" either.
Then there's some who operate from principle beyond "what's in it for me". And that group has to find the compromise. Because, the incentives are strong on both sides. And these choices have bad unintended consequences.
Terri would not have met the criteria to be euthanized in the Netherlands.
She would have IF the Nazis or a Florida Judge was involved.
The government is who removed the tube in the first place. The government is blocking anyone trying to feed her normally. The government has issued Michael Schiavo a license to kill and is defending him as he does it. The government is in this up to its filthy little elbows.
When Terri dies, this country is finished.
You don't have to "have money" or be trying to preserve an inheritance, to reject a feeding tube on a 92 year old man who had had multiple strokes, was unable to communicate, had broken a hip, and contracted a case of MRSA pneumonia.
Inheritance had nothing to do with our decision not to allow a feeding tube, even though the doctors pushed for one.
My FIL had written a Living Will in 1991 at the age of 81 that specifically stated "no feeding tube to prolong life." We were just following his wishes.
Exactly. What Greer is doing and all the courts have ignored is denying her the opportunity to have food or water by mouth. That is euthanasia and is not permitted under Florida law. Whether she could take water or not is immaterial and in any case we don't know what would happen, at least it would give her a chance and she has none right now. On this order at least the Shindler's have the law on their side -- giving water by mouth is not in any shape, fashion or form artificial life support as mentioned in the Florida statute. Any outcome of a trial of drinking, even death by choking, is preferable to what is going on now.
Evidently euthanasia proponents like Judge Greer prefer that Terri's death be as grisly as possible so they can convince "the people" to make legal their preferred policy of offing those of us they consider unworthy of life or simply too costly to keep alive by other more "humane" means.
What I cannot figure out is why Jeb Bush and her parents are so focused on getting the feeding tube back in when it is clear that this will not happen when this other clearly illegal order by Greer is apparently going unchallenged.
It would seem that it is now.
I expect laws against euthanasia to be declared unconstitutional within a year or so, at least in states like Florida where the state courts are more liberal than the federal judiciary.
The Felos-Soros plan.
For this doc, rapid euthanasia is the way to go.....
It is conjecture that she can take food or water through her mouth. It is conjecture that physical therapy might help her be able to swallow without choking (and dying).
Would you prefer that she be given food, and choke on it, not be administered any other life saving efforts?
Would it be preferable for her to choke on the 'life giving' food and water?
Perhaps that is the real solution after all.
Your statement is an oxymoron and demonstrates that you don't really understand the word "euthanasia":
Evidently euthanasia proponents like Judge Greer prefer that Terri's death be as grisly as possible so they can convince "the people" to make legal their preferred policy of offing those of us they consider unworthy of life or simply too costly to keep alive by other more "humane" means.
Very well said. I would rather pass on our fairly limited resources to my children than give it to medical devices companies. I am seriously worried about big government bad laws being passed that might limit my freedom of choice.
I have a living will. I have no desire to provide one more vacation home for my doctor. But here's the problem, people like us are put in a spot when dealing with Terri. We fear the unintended consequences of lawmakers generalizing. Disappointing judges made it worse. They're the people who should cut the gordian knot, not wallow in elitist fears. How could they not respect for a woman who easily could have been abused? Can't they see this case is different?
I stand with Terri. Terri, the person. Not "Terri the life at all costs and misery" concept.
I slept on a hospital floor to safeguard my fathers last request not to be hooked to machines to prolong his painful death from cancer. He asked all of us to make sure that didn't happen and we stayed at the hospital in shifts to protect him from overzealous nurses.
Terri's different.
Maybe freepers can figure this problem out -- the judges are an embarrassment- coming across as unthinking control freaks.
Good people will have to solve this. People like you. People like me. The great unwashed. There's a man named Hentoff or something like that who writes for the Village Voice. He seems capable of seeing both sides. I'm sure there are others.
Thanks for your comments. You're a good person -- and honest. Maybe with good people trying, a fair solution can be found.
I believe you are wrong, however, in that the supporters of starving and dehydrating Terri to death are consistently describing this process as painless and gentle and profess to be doing the caring and humane thing by denying her food and water, even by mouth. So in that case, they themselves would describe what is going on as "euthanasia".
Living Wills would seem to be the answer, but in so many cases, a person's desires, as expressed in their living will are discarded because a loved one can't stand to let go or are pressured by doctors.
The doctors seem to be more than willing to disregard a persons Living Will requests and that is what's so ironic about Terri. Schiavo, Greer, and her doctors are going against what would normally be suggested even for an elderly person.
In our experiences, the doctors wanted to place feeding tubes and ventilators in my in-laws even though they had expressed otherwise in their living wills.
The Health Care Surrogate documents, we had, made it legal for my husband to insist that his parents wishes be carried out.
That is the slippery slope, because life does end. A feeding tube in every patient that is terminal does nothing but prolong suffering and put money into the doctors pocket (it must also be noted that a feeding tube makes it much easier for medical staff...instead of spending a half hour trying to get a person to eat a bit of nourishment, they can accomplish the same thing in minutes with a feeding tube.)
When my MIL and FIL were dying, we visited them 3 or 4 times a day, trying to coax some nourishment into them, because since we had refused the feeding tube, it didn't seem like the hospital staff had the time to spend to accomplish the task.
IMHO, feeding tubes have their place, but not in the terminally ill.
I don't categorize Terri as terminally ill, so I agree that removal of the feeding tube and denial of hydration and an attempt to feed her, could be deemed intentional euthanasia.
Now they are commonly used so people who can't feed themselves (but CAN swallow) can be 'fed' by tube instead of having someone else feed them with a spoon......wouldn't want to waste all that 'oh so valuable' TIME, dontcha know!
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