Pinged from Coleus, post #57
Pinged from the Sarce
amdgmary's post #680
Excerpts.....
This is a Hospice Patients Alliance Newsletter August 19, 2005 sent out periodically reporting about news affecting hospice and end-of-life care.
Hospice Patients Alliance has the greatest respect for the dedicated professionals serving in hospitals, nursing homes, hospices and doctors' ofices who respect patients' rights to self determination, practice ethically and do NOT impose death on their patients!
"Dame Cicely Saunders, ... the mother of the modern hospice movement, ... charted new approaches in techniques for treatment of the terminally ill, based on her Christian belief that no human life, no matter how wretched, should be denied dignity and love." (U.K. - Telegraph, 7/15/2005)
Health Affairs, Vol 24, Issue 4, 1064-1072
Copyright © 2005 by Project HOPE
DOI: 10.1377/hlthaff.24.4.1064
What Are We Going To Do With Dad?
Jerald Winakur
[excerpt]
PREFACE: America is getting older, and older Americans are living longer. What has not changed is the dysfunction and illness that usually accompany aging. Geriatrician Jerald Winakur looks at the "vast inland sea of elders" that is building and wonders where the doctors will come from to care for them. Writing as the son of an eighty-six-year-old man with dementia, Winakur also details the nitty-gritty of caring for an increasingly debilitated parent. In both of his rolesloving son and highly skilled professionalhe is hard pressed to alter a course that punishes his dad and tears at his family. Even as medical science extends life, the future seen through his eyes is fraught with clinical and moral quandaries.
My father is eighty-six years old. He was never a big man, except perhaps to me when I was his little boy. At most he was five feet, eight inches tall and weighed 160 pounds. Today he weighs barely 120. Maybe he is five feet two. He teeters on spindly legs, a parched blade of grass in the wind, refusing the walker his doctor recommends or the arm extended in support by those of us who love him. He doesnt know what day it is. He sleeps most of the time, barely eats. Shaving exhausts him. His clothes hang like a scarecrows. Getting him in for a haircut is a major ordeal. He is very deaf but wont wear his hearing aids or loses them as often as a kid might misplace his marbles. He drives my motherfive years youngercrazy to tears.
My only sibling, the architect, asks me every time we are together (which is often because we all live in the same town) and every time we speak on the phone (which is almost every day because we are a close family now in crisis): "What are we going to do with Dad?" As if there must be a definitive answer, some fixsay, putting a grab bar in the bathroom or increasing the width of the doorways. Something that is according to code.
He asks me this question not just out of fear and frustration, not only out of a realization that it is time for the adult children of a progressively dementing elderly parent to act, but because he figures that his older brother who has been practicing medicine for almost thirty years should know the answer. I do not know the answer. I do not have a pat solution for my father or yoursneither as a son, a man past middle age with grown children of his own; nor as a doctor, a specialist in geriatrics, and a credentialed long-term care medical director.
In the United States today there are thirty-five million geriatric patientsover age sixty-fiveand of these, 4.5 million are over age eighty-five, now characterized as the "old old." The American Medical Directors Association, the professional organization that credentials physicians in long-term care, has certified only 1,900 doctors in the entire country. As we baby boomers go about our lives, frozen into our routines of work and family responsibilities, a vast inland sea of elders is building. By 2020 it is projected that there will be fifty-three million Americans over age sixty-five, 6.5 million of whom will be "old old." Many of you will be among them. America will be inundated with old folks, each with a unique set of circumstances: medical history and the manifestations of the particular dementing process; medication use; emotional and psychological makeup, including past traumas and present-day fears; family dynamics; support structures; and finances.
Compounding all of this is the sad and frustrating fact that our government appears to have no policy vision for long-term elder care. Our leaders seem to wishperhaps reflecting our own collective yearnings as a vain, youth-worshipping societythat when the time comes, the elderly will take their shuffling tired selves, their drooling and incontinence, their demented ravings, their drain on family and national resources, and sprawl out on an ice floe to be carried off to a white, comforting place, never to be heard from again.
.....
I do not tell him that I often, in fitful sleep, dream that when the time comes I go to my fathers bedside, quietly fill a syringe with morphine, and stroke his arm as I place the tourniquet. I tell him over and over again how much I love him and what a good father he has been to me as I slip the needle into his antecubital vein. Then I say how much I will miss him and goodbye, Dad, goodbye, as I push the contents into his bloodstream. In this dream I tell my mother and my brother that he has gone peacefully in his sleep.
Yet I have not until now given voice to this dream because I know for certain that in the end, I could never do this. Not to my poor, demented, suffering father. Not to anyone. I know there are some who disagree with me, and perhaps this is one way our society will ultimately deal with its flood of elders in this age of limits. I will by then, I hope, be old and no longer on the front lines. When my time comesbefore it comesI will choose for myself. But for now, as long as I have the will and the strength to practice, I am a physician deeply steeped and firmly rooted in the art and tradition of healing, of comforting.
For my father, on that day, I will tell my brother that I will handle it and hang up the phone. Then Ill pick it up again and dial 911.
Editor's Notes
Jerald Winakur (jwinakur@aol.com) has practiced internal medicine and geriatrics in San Antonio, Texas, for almost thirty years. His essays, fiction, and poetry have been published in numerous journals, and for many years he was a contributing editor of Mediphors: A Literary Journal of the Health Professions. He is an associate faculty member at the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and a lecturer in humanities at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
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http://ottsun.canoe.ca/News/National/2005/08/19/1179214-sun.html
Cops mull charges in mercy-killing try
August 19, 2005 By ANDREW SEYMOUR, Ottawa Sun
Quebec woman accused of giving morphine to dying elderly cancer patient
A GATINEAU woman who allegedly tried to deliver a fatal dose of morphine to a dying cancer patient may face attempted murder charges.
The Gatineau Crown Attorney will have to determine whether to proceed with the charge after police arrived moments after the woman allegedly gave the elderly terminal cancer patient a drug overdose Tuesday night.
MORPHINE PRESCRIPTION
Although police won't reveal the woman's name or her relation to the man, they said she is close to the man in his 70s and used his prescription morphine.
"We're not talking about a suicide assistance, we're talking about putting an end to the suffering," Gatineau police Lieut. Jean-Paul Le May said yesterday, adding police want the woman charged.
Le May said police learned of the woman's plans from a concerned third party.
"The morphine had been administered and the man was rushed to hospital where he received treatment. He's now out of danger from the effects of the morphine," he said.
Le May said the woman has been released and is free pending the prosecutor's review of the file and decision on what, if any, charges will be laid.
Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, said the woman's actions may have been a "misguided" act of compassion.
"It's completely wrong to take another person's life," he said. "You can't assume they are in a situation where they wanted it," he added. "It's right for a nation to protect its most vulnerable citizens."
But Ruth de Suchs, president of the Right To Die Society, believes there are cases in which loved ones instinctively know what's best and necessary.
"Some people get into a situation where they can't do anything and sometimes can't say anything, but it can be very clear to other people that this person is suffering."
Lawyer David Paciocco said prosecutors will have to weigh the public interest along with the probability of conviction when deciding whether to proceed with charges.
'MURDER IS MURDER'
With no minimum sentences for attempted murder, Paciocco said there are ways for the court to recognize that a crime has been committed while taking into account any extenuating circumstances.
But police said there's no question criminal charges should be laid.
"We don't enter the debate. There is a definition and it meets the definition and we suggest charges," Le May said.
"In the Criminal Code, there is nothing suggesting compassionate murder. Murder is murder."
andrew.seymour@ott.sunpub.com
DEATHS AND SENTENCES
Other Canadian cases involving euthanasia:
- July 2005 -- Andre Bergeron, 46, of Sherbrooke is charged with murder following the strangulation of his wife Marielle Houle, 44, who was severely disabled from Friedreich's ataxia, a progressive neurological disorder.
- November 2004 -- Evelyn Martens, 73, was acquitted of two charges of aiding and assisting a suicide in B.C. The first charge involved Monique Charest, 64, a nun who died on Jan. 7, 2002. The second involved Leyanne Burchell, 57, a teacher dying of cancer.
- February 2002 -- Rachel Craig, 46, is found not criminally responsible for killing her 14-year-old daughter Chelsea Craig, who suffered from Rett's syndrome, a neurological disorder
- November 1994 -- Saskatchewan farmer Robert Latimer is sentenced to 10 years in prison for killing his daughter Tracy, 12, a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy.
forwarded from:
Cheryl Eckstein
Founder President Compassionate Healthcare Network (CHN)
CHN is a not for profit organization, formed 1990.
CHN - 11563 Bailey Cres., Surrey, B.C.
V3V 2V4 Canada
Phone - 604 582 3844
Visit us at www.chninternational.com
###
The Syracuse University Training Institute is pleased to announce a five day workshop on
Crafting a Coherent Moral Stance on the Sanctity of All Human Life, Especially in Light of Contemporary Society's Legitimization & Practice of "Deathmaking" of Unwanted & Devalued People
* on Sunday, October 16 through Thursday, October 20, 2005 (with evening sessions)
* at the Christ the King Retreat Center, Syracuse, New York 13224 USA
* to be presented by Dr. Wolf Wolfensberger, Susan Thomas, & associates of the Training Institute for Human Service Planning, Leadership & Change Agentry
This event is intended for:
(a) those who perceive that there is a gathering momentum in the world that works toward 'deathmaking;' and
(b) those who are uncomfortable with a 'pick-and-choose' approach that endorses some deathmakings and objects to others, and who would like to work toward a more coherent position on the sanctity of human life.
This event attempts to accomplish four aims:
(a) Awaken people to the reality that there is growing support in our society for various forms of "deathmaking" of people who are impaired, elderly, or devalued for any other reason. Deathmaking includes any practices which outright kill people, which greatly hasten death, or which lead other people to act against a person or group so as to bring about the person's or group's death. Many practices that participants see all the time, and may even participate in, will be shown to contribute to deathmaking.
(b) Orient participants to the disguises and interpretations that are given to deathmaking so as to make it less obvious and less repugnant.
(c) Elucidate the societal dynamics and values which have been leading to these developments.
(d) Help people to see the validity--indeed, the necessity--of a coherent moral stance in defense of all human life, to see what such a stance would entail, and to work toward such a stance.
Special topic: Issues of the withholding, withdrawal, and refusal of medical treatment will be addressed.
Note: This 5-day workshop which includes evening sessions is approved for 54 contact hours of CE for RNs and LPNs by the Ohio Nurses Association, an accredited approver by the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Commission on Accreditation OBN-001-91. Awarded through the sponsorship of Family Lives Nursing Services.
For information about fees, accommodations, continuing education credits, registration, etc., please contact Susan Thomas at the Training Institute, Suite 3B1, 800 South Wilbur Avenue, Syracuse, NY 13204 USA or call her at 315 473 2978.
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Euthanasia Activist Gives up Starvation Death Effort as Too Painful and Undignified
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/aug/05081606.html
BRISTOL, August 16, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Kelly Taylor, a 28-year-old woman who is not terminally ill, has ended her attempt to starve herself to death after 19 days because of the pain of the effects of starvation.
Mrs. Taylor claimed that she had chosen self-starvation as the only method of suicide that would not leave her husband Richard liable for prosecution. Nevertheless, after 19 days, she said, It has become too uncomfortable and I would not wish what I have been going through on my worst enemy.
Taylor suffers from a congenital heart condition known as Eisenmenger Syndrome which, despite being labeled so by news media, is not a terminal condition. It does, however, reduce her mobility and leaves her dependent upon oxygen. She said her reason for wanting to die was that, as a disabled person, she could no longer make a contribution to society.
Opponents of euthanasia have repeatedly pointed out that the utilitarian values which permeate modern society are likely to encourage sick and disabled persons to think of themselves as useless and burdensome.
At a press conference, Mrs. Taylor said, I feel disappointed in myself. I really wanted to die and that seemed to be my only option. I regret that I have to stop what I am doing because I still want to die. But starvation, as it turns out, is very undignified.
The painful and undignified death rejected by Mrs. Taylor, however, was inflicted successfully by Michael Schiavo and his euthanasia activist lawyer, George Felos, on Schiavos estranged wife, Terri, both of whom insisted that Terris death by starvation and dehydration was painless and easy. Terri was also not suffering from any terminal illness and apart from her cognitive disability, was in good health.
The news medias active collusion in this deception is evident in the UK Telegraphs coverage of Mrs. Taylors campaign to kill herself, in which it called her a terminally ill woman in the first sentence. The Telegraph reluctantly admits at the end of the article that Eisenmenger Syndrome is not technically a terminal illness.
During the fight to save Terri Schiavos life, the great majority of news media dutifully called her terminally ill and repeated Schiavo and Felos claims that her death was painless and easy despite the extensive regimen of pain drugs required.
Earlier this year, in comments on the Schiavo case, Dr. David Stevens, spokesman for the Christian Medical Association said that death by dehydration is horrific.
Dr. Stevens, speaking from his 13 years experience in Africa, where the most common cause of death in children is dehydration from gastroenteritis, said, Contrary to those that try to paint a picture of a gentle process, death by dehydration is a cruel, inhumane and often agonizing death.
Read Telegraph coverage:
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/n...
Read Dr. Stevens description of horrifying symptoms of dehydration death:
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/mar/05032404.html
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PRO-LIFE WISCONSIN
State Office: P.O. Box 221, Brookfield, WI 53008
info@prolifewisconsin.org
262-796-1111
Fax 262-796-1115
Staff Sgt. Chad Simons Death Highlights Importance of Life Protective Advance Directives
Friday, August 12, 2005 PRO-LIFE WISCONSIN
Staff Sgt. Chad Simons Death Highlights Importance of Life Protective Advance Directives
In the wake of the tragic death of Marine Staff Sgt. Chad Simon, Pro-Life Wisconsin is educating Wisconsinites on end of life issues and on the dangers of living will documents.
Sgt. Simon suffered a severe brain injury while serving in Iraq when a roadside bomb exploded, injuring Simon and killing three other Marines in his unit. Sgt. Simon died on August 4th, but he did not die from his injuries. Instead, he died approximately two weeks after his feeding tube was removed.
Sgt. Simon was a victim of two different faces of the culture of death. He was certainly a victim of international terrorism, said Peggy Hamill, State Director of Pro-Life Wisconsin, Sgt. Simon, however, died of dehydration not from any sort of brain injuries. Sgt. Simon was rendered handicapped by the bomb in Iraq, he died as a result of having food and water intentionally withheld.
Sgt. Simon had filled out a living will stipulating that he did not wish to receive food and water if he were rendered permanently incapacitated. In order to help educate the public on end of life issues, Pro-Life Wisconsin has developed a Protective Power of Attorney for Health Care that will help ensure ethical, life-affirming care in circumstances where patients are unable to speak for themselves.
Unlike a living will, by which a person refuses or requests certain forms of medical treatement or care in advance, Pro-Life Wisconsins Protective Power of Attorney for Health Care allows a person to appoint someone they trust (their agent) to make health care decisions for them in the event you are unable to do so for themselves and specifies: Nothing in this document shall authorize anyone to approve or commit any action or omission which will cause my death.
In addition, Pro-Life Wisconsin has produced seven End of Life Decisions Brochures written by Julie Grimstad, Pro-Life Wisconsins expert on end of life issues. These brochures cover many aspects of making moral decisions in regard to advance directives for individuals and their loved ones.
Julie sees Sgt. Simons death as a perfect example of how living wills can be used as death licenses. When you fill out a living will, and you check these little boxes, you may be signing your own suicide note, said Julie. This may be legal, but its most certainly immoral.
When a living will, such as Sgt. Simons, stipulates that food and water be withheld, it is a request for euthanasia, that is, a request to be killed which one expects medical professionals to carry out.
Killing people in a medical setting lends an air of legitimacy to this cruel and inhumane way of eliminating disabled people whose lives are deemed not worth living. Terri Schiavo and Chad Simon are cases in point, says Julie.
Resistence is not futile, it is morally mandatory. We can make a difference, one voice at a time, by executing life-protective advance directives for ourselves and fearlessly defending the right to life of those who are unable to speak for themselves.
Copies of Pro-Life Wisconsins Protective Power of Attorney for Health Care and the End of Life Decisions brochures can be obtained from the Pro-Life Wisconsin Education Task Force, (262) 796-1111 or by e-mail at info@prolifewisconsin.org
Contact: Marc Tuttle, Communications Director or
Peggy Hamill, State Director for interview or further comment
(262) 796-1111, (414) 416-0489
State Office, P. O. Box 221
Brookfield, WI 53008
www.prolifewisconsin.org
###
The Gift of More, Lessons of faith and love from a life cut short
by Pamela Yates FaithWalk Publishing 2005
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=3899958
###
Till next time,
Ron Panzer
President, Hospice Patients Alliance
http://www.hospicepatients.org
"What I do you cannot do;
but what you do, I cannot do.
The needs are great, and none of us,
including me, ever do great things.
But we can all do small things, with great love,
and together we can do something wonderful." - Mother Teresa
###
The articles included in the HPA newsletter are sent in to HPA by many individuals,
as well as research done by the members of HPA's own board of directors and other friends.
We are grateful for everyone's assistance in gathering relevant articles and information
to share with all who are concerned with end-of-life issues, ethics in health care
and the rights of individuals within society and health care specifically.
HPA works to preserve the original hospice mission of caring for the dying
and allowing a natural death in its own timing, NOT hastening death or
imposing death! We support the role of hospices to care and relieve
suffering, just as Mother Teresa did for so many years! We urge you to
share this message with others who are interested.
I received this email from Life: God's Sacred Gift, Ronald J. Galloy, Director.
In moving from the calling of a media witness, to a different calling in the future I want to assure the supporters of Life: God's Sacred Gift that I'll continue to work full time at this until things end sometime next June. One part time person is also working for now at making phone calls to the media to witness for life. Funding will exist for a while so at this time donations are not requested.
* One observation I've made in the field recently was at ABC. There, on the glass rain shelter on the sidewalk, Peter Jennings' picture was displayed where people placed messages. One person wrote, "Peter Jennings was a Great Man." Apparently this person did not know Jennings well or tragically was a pro-abort. In ABC's commentary, they said Jennings had a particular calling to help children. That may be so and I won't dispute it for the children who have been born. On the other hand, Mr. Jennings delivered many anti-life messages against children who have yet to be born and always hid the barbarity of abortion from the public. For unborn children, he was the opposite of a great man. Yet, he was no different than just about everyone else in the mass media who devalue the unborn in their presentations. Like Jennings, they do not recognize God as the giver of life and human rights.
* For this reason, this month's e-mail message to about 1,000 of its representatives is on adult stem-cell successes and why the human embryo needs to be protected. You can check it out at www.SacredGift.org. On the home page just go to E-LETTER TO HUNDREDS IN MASS MEDIA and open it to see the information sent to them.
* Also this month, Life: God's Sacred Gift sent about 340 copies of Evangelium Vitae to the media representatives added to it's list since last year. Included was a Message of Healing for the post abortive, which was a page that gave Pope John Paul's words to them and contact information for Rachel's Vinyard. As you remember, over 1,500 copies of Pope John Paul's encyclical were sent to media representatives last year.
* Something I'd like to pass on is this. Not long ago, a person approached me while at the entrance of CBS. He said "I've seen you over the years. I admire you and want to let you know its made me think. So what you're doing does work." A week or two later he passed again and said, "I really meant it." For us in the pro-life movement, touching hearts is what we're called to do to change this troubled culture. When someone expresses to us that we have, it can really be a heartfelt thing. I'm happy he did and once again I'm thankful for your support which has made it possible.
GSG@thelifeline.org
FLORIDA, HOME TO GHOULS OF ALL AGES, DEAD SEA LIFE and the vulnerable are disposable thanks to scientology's hold on the GOP of Florida. Their influence cannot be left out of the equation.