Posted on 03/28/2005 6:41:56 PM PST by Former Military Chick
PINELLAS PARK - Jennifer Johnson, barefoot and in her pajamas, ran to her grandfather's bedside once a hospice worker said his death was moments away.
She got there - one minute too late.
Johnson said the chaos surrounding the hospice where Terri Schiavo lies dying kept her from saying goodbye. When Johnson arrived, a police officer demanded identification; she had none. And after a hospice employee cleared her, another officer halted her for a metal-detecting search.
The delays lasted three to four minutes - the last minutes of her grandfather's life.
"It's a terrible, extra obstacle to put in front of a family. . . . Everything is about Schiavo," Johnson said. "It's all about her and in my family's case, it cost us dearly."
Woodside Hospice has 70 patients in addition to Schiavo, whose parents have been desperately trying to have her feeding tube reinserted. Dozens of protesters have arrived from around the nation since the tube was removed March 18; at least 22 have been arrested, prompting a police barricade around the facility and unprecedented security measures.
Family members visiting patients must pass through a police checkpoint to park, then show identification outside the door before another security screening inside. They also must walk by scores of signs decrying Schiavo's "crucifixion," "torture" and "starvation," plus navigate around hordes of media who have been camped outside the facility.
"To have to maneuver through all of this and have a hostile environment outside when all they want is peace and quiet and to enjoy those few days they have left with a loved one is a horror," said Dr. Morton Getz, executive director of Douglas Gardens Hospice in Miami.
Getz said many people with a family member in a hospice have to make the same excruciating decision that courts have made for Schiavo.
"It's causing a lot of grief and questions in their own mind on whether they did the right thing," he said. "It's unconscionable to have a family member to be near the end stages of life and to get there, you have to walk through signs that say, 'Murderer.' "
Most protesters direct their signs and their chants against the courts and Michael Schiavo, Terri's husband who insists she would not want to be kept alive artificially. But walking through a hostile environment can only add stress to what's already an emotionally draining situation.
"It probably has the same psychological effect on the residents' families as it does on someone who is walking into an abortion clinic and facing signs and aggressive behavior," said Elizabeth Foley, a Florida International University law professor who specializes in bioethics. "And unfortunately, that is the price you have to pay in a free society."
Over the past few days, as Schiavo's parents' attempts to have their daughter's feeding tube reinserted repeatedly failed, signs outside the hospice have grown more desperate. Messages compare Michael Schiavo to the likes of Scott Peterson, convicted of killing his wife and unborn child in California, and John Evander Couey, who has been arrested on charges of kidnapping and murdering a 9-year-old girl in Homosassa.
They generally redirect if the duplicate article was caught with in the first few comments. If there is a lot of traffic then the mod's leave it.
It just appeared that you thought this thread should be pulled, sorry for the misjudgement.
If you would starve your mother to death, you are a horrible person.
you make me sick.
Not sorry at all Peach. And I'll add to your anguish/anger at my remark by adding I agree with many that Jeb Bush is a coward for not taking action to save her life.
(No I am not being sarcastic at all -- A person is being killed in the same location these other people are being "housed in"; those people who are responsible for their loved ones being there might just take a momement and reevaluate where they have placed them.)
You are literally beyond satire...
I really have no words to describe how you sound. I'm ashamed of you.
Food is artificial assistance? What about feeding a baby with a bottle. Is the bottle artificial assistance?
Explain the difference between feeding Terri with a tube and a baby with a bottle?
My dear mother spent her last days in a nursing home. I visited her daily, and comforted my father as he watched his wife of 48 years waste away.
If I had to wait ONE SECOND before getting in to see her at that time, people would have gotten an earful of what a longtime Sailor can do with language.
If they delayed me from being at her side at death, or even prevented her from being taken outside, I would have ENSURED that a few had personal, immediate experience with "PVS".
This wasn't Greer's, or Felos', or Schiavo's fault...none of them held a gun to the protestors and ordered them to be loud, obnoxious jerks, or demanded that the nuttier among them issue death threats and put out contracts. No, the protestors CHOSE to do all they have done, in fact, they and thei rringleaders have reveled in it.
They are beneath contempt.
I totally agree........the Randall Terry fringe did us no good showing up there and then the Communists etc....it was protesting that liberal would be proud of......a mini Woodstock of religious thought.....without the drugs
You have to go back to the history books.Well before the "final solution" was adopted,german courts were routinely ordering the sterilization and and extermination of the disabled the lame the mentally impaired.
I don't think you represent the opinions of a lot of the bloggers when you say that there is no comparisons to the early years in the nazi regime.
The bloggers you mention are saying that this case does not warrant civil disobedience or disregarding the rule of law.
Although I have yet to hear hewitt explain away Andrew Jackson's respose in the Georgia case.
MY opinion is that in that case Jackson just chose to do nothing and not enforce the court order. (omission) In this case JB would actually HAVE TO DO SOMETHING like seize her, that would be comission of an act against a court order.
The little girl should have told them she was one of Michael's fan club. I understand they got in right away, without being searched.
Listening to Boortz the past few days he's brought up this very issue. Not only about the other people that are in the hospice but about some of the local businesses that have practically been shut down as well. One that he mentioned was a small business, garage owner, that asked the protestors not to park in the space for his customers and was verbally attacked by the protestors because of it
What? How totally insensitive and self centered.
why do you call him a coward....because he listens to the constitutional scholars......or actually upholds the oath of office to uphold the law....you would ask the Gov to circumvent the law and send troops in???????.......that is mindless blather......sorry your emotion has caused logical reasoning to be effected
I have a lot of empathy. But I cannot relate to the mentality of a person who can be aware that a woman a few rooms down the hall is being murdered, and care as little about it as some of these people seem to.
Providing food and water through tube became an artificial means of prolonging life only in 1998 years after Terri collapsed, and you cannot presume retroactively that her wishes at the time were to be starved to death since that right did not exist at the time of her supposed statements to MS.
Yeah, like if I'm in the last days of dealing with the death of a loved one and I am supposed to now take on the Hospice with my anger. WRONG. The protestors need to take responsibility for THEIR selfish behavior!
Stand ashamed then. I'm not ashamed that my opinion on this issue is different than others. If I was able to be there, I would be and probably would be arrested. I'm that pissed at what has happened.
This particular "hospice" seems to be misnamed; with Felos on the board or his cronies on it, it is more like a euthanasia house of death than a place to place a loved one for there final days.
Notwithstanding my lack of support for agitators like Randall Terry, I think there were plenty of others who believe that Jeb Bush blinked when he had the chance to save her life.
with due respect....you need to go back and study history...many of those judges got thier just desserts at Nuremburg as well......laws not voted on by a democratic Germany......and go to the front of this thread and read every post.....there are alot of FReepers here who agree with me and I with them.......go to some of those blogs you talked about and see if "experts" are equating this to Nazi germany.....if Hugh Hewitt does, I'll lose alot or respect for him...I'll bet he doesn't even take this extreme view...no go and read the posts......see how many people are livid about the Nazi crap........really
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