8mm
Posted on 02/05/2007 11:54:03 AM PST by rightwingintelligentsia
Pennsylvania has a new blueprint for how death might become a less painful and uncomfortable experience for its residents.
The Rendell administration today is expected to release a 40-page report called "Improving End-of-Life Experiences for Pennsylvanians," which has been two years in the making. A wide-ranging group of health professionals, social service leaders, consumer advocates and others produced 160 recommendations covering how to expand hospice and palliative care, advance directives, medical training and more aspects related to patients' late-life treatment.
"The current health care system evolved to provide care for acute illnesses, but it is poorly prepared to provide comprehensive, coordinated care for those with a serious chronic illness or at the end of life," the report states. "To maintain their best possible health-related quality of life for as long as possible, seriously ill Pennsylvanians require proactive efforts to achieve a better balance between acute, cure-oriented approaches and supportive palliative care."
About 128,000 Pennsylvanians died in 2005, with at least 100,000 of them over 65 and 41,000 over 85. The report assumes that for many, death was more impersonal and painful than it needed to be.
A 2002 national report card on death-related issues rapped Pennsylvania, as it did many states, for lagging in key areas such as guiding late-life patients into hospice services instead of intensive care units. The low grades from the Last Act group prompted Gov. Ed Rendell to create the Task Force for Quality at the End of Life to recommend solutions.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
"Soylent Green" is people
The first part of Fast Eddie Rendell's plan for an 'Improved Death' is to be sure that all 'Rat voters about to check out be SURE to update their voter registration information, because they wouldn't want to miss out on any future elections after they've departed this mortal coil, now would they?
That's probably the MOST important part as Rendell sees it.
I wonder if he'll have slot machines installed at the hospice facilities - just so he can see those seniors' faces light up as they pull that lever one last time.
Except when it comes to the actual death penalty...
I'll need to review this all very carefully, as I am taking care of my aging mother. And it would be my aim to protect her from the state.
I hear its euphoric and makes one look beautiful.
So give them pain meds and hold their hand.
My mother-in-law suffered from OPCA, a degenerative disease of the nervous system. It had symptoms similar to ALS and was related to Parkinson's in that a particular part of the brain was becoming atrophied (the "pons" in olivopontocerebellar atrophy).
Over the last nine years this disease took away her ability to walk, talk, toilet herself, and eventually sit and swallow. She may or may not have been aware of how bad she was; it was hard to judge. Her heart and lungs were strong and she was well cared for at her apt by her son (my husband) and a wonderful paid care-giver ($700/week for the caregiver, plus rent and living expenses for my MIL).
For whatever reason, even knowing the eventual outcome of her disease, she and her son never discussed frankly her end of life care and what her preferences for the end would be.
When the loss of the swallow reflex caused her second bout of aspiration pneumonia she entered the hospital never to come out. She was in for over 70 days, most of them on a respirator. She had an ng tube for feeding. It was about the worst end you can imagine. My husband did not know how aggresively she wanted to be treated and agonized over every care decision from the 2nd day when they wanted to put her on the respirator to the last week when they wanted to put in an adominal feeding tube. She couldn't go to hospice without the feeding tube, she couldn't be totally taken off the respirator, and she was taking up a critical care bed and all its monitoring and skilled nursing care with no chance of recovery or a good outcome.
Everyone tried to determine what she wanted, but she couldn't squeeze her hand on request, though she responded to my husband and her care giver when they entered the room. My husband tried to communicate with her, so did her doctors and various member of the ethics board of the hospital. She only lapsed into a coma in the last 24 hours, she was conscious almost the entire time.
Medical technology can extend life well past its natural limits. ANYONE can end up in a situation like hers and it is not fair to expect your loved ones to try to make these awful decisions with no input from you. If my husband knew that she would want aggressive life extension, he would have done it. If she clearly stated no heroic measures he would have done that too (no respirator, just palliative care). It was a terrible burden for him, his mother's life or death, and he was an only child.
Its time to bring this uncomfortable topic to the table so there is no misunderstanding. My MIL's care cost the insurance company, medicare (and thus the taxpayers) a small fortune. Her home care was close to depleting her own resources too, there was probabaly only enough for 1 more year max of the private care-giver and homecare.
I think PA is on the right track.
Just wished that Fast Ed would be the first one in line to try it out. Install slot machines! He'd probably try. Wait 'til his announcements tomorrow! State sales tax up to 7% (Pitts. and Philly 8%) and something about electricity rates! Hang on to your wallets. No wonder everyone is moving out of the state.
The joke at lunch today was whether Sheetz would be installing slot machines - and would they be called Slotz Machinez.
We here in PA deserve every bit of it - we KNEW d*mn well what we were getting when we re-elected this guy, and by an overwhelming majority.
Apathetic bloody planet. I've no sympathy at all..
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/business/16619625.htm
Rendell has been awfully busy lately. Yesterday he hinted at raising the sales tax to 7% to lower property taxes. Apparently we will get the 411 tomorrow. Does anyone know about this proposal?
This new 'death plan' is to assure libs of votes in the future....
I live in Northwest PA. I can assure you 9 out 10 people here DON'T have a job (except at Presque Isle Downs, which is supposed to open Feb.15). Now they're saying that might be delayed becaused of the Gaming Board. What a crock. Next election, we should go to the bullet box, not the ballot box.
We have been there three times: once with an angry parent who did not want to think or talk about such decisions, once with a comatose parent who could not think about such things, and once with a parent who had though it through and clearly communicated her wishes.
The latter died in home hospice, and despite the fact that hers was the slowest death, it was by far the “easiest” and most dignified.
Now we are down to my mother, and it looks like we are back to “Don’t want to think about or discuss it.”
It’s HARD to get people to think about such issues – as this thread attests.
'Cause as someone once said: “The problem with the American way of death is that the Average American thinks he is going to die peacefully in his sleep at 94, after beating is son at tennis that morning and then going home and making love to be wife, twice...”
Really?!! Here in the Mon Valley there are Help Wanted signs in a lot of the businesses. It's actually starting to grow here a bit. I didn't know the economy was that slow up north.
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