Posted on 08/08/2007 4:09:44 PM PDT by wagglebee
However, the efforts of hundreds of activists, including families whose ailing loved ones were victims of the law and the attorneys and doctors who offered benevolent services to the patients, were not in vain. The statewide and national awareness provoked by this battle will not be forgotten by Texas legislators and the citizens they represent. The end of life euthanasia war has only just begun.
Currently, Texas law allows for a physician to withdraw life-sustaining treatment (including food and water) from a patient despite the patient's advance directive or expressed wishes.
Once the physician's decision is approved by the ethics committee at the hospital, the patient and/or family have only ten days to transfer to another facility or another physician. The physician or facility is not obligated to treat the patient beyond the tenth day, which can and has led to the death of the patient. Rarely are transfers effectuated either by the family or the facility within the ten-day allotment.
Senate Bill 439 and House Bill 1094 would have changed the law so that a patient and the family are given sufficient time to locate a transfer during which time the patient would continue receiving life-sustaining medical treatment until a transfer is completed, thereby safeguarding against involuntary euthanasia. Eleven other states require that a patient be treated until he is transferred elsewhere, and Texas should have been the twelfth state to enact such patient protections.
On April 12, the Texas Senate Committee on Health and Human Services heard testimony on Senate Bill 439—Texas Right to Life’s proposed changes to the current Texas Futile Care law. Senator Robert Deuell, M.D., (R-Greenville), the bill's sponsor, explained that most physicians practice good medicine and communicate effectively with patients and their families.
He emphasized that this law only comes into play when there is a disagreement, and in those situations, the current law does not serve families well. The Senate committee then heard from concerned citizens and organizations, including nurses, doctors, disability rights groups, and Right to Life groups.
Many of the families affected by this ten-day law courageously recounted their experiences in battling against the ten-day clock. They discussed how they were shocked and dismayed that the people entrusted to care for their ailing loved ones would soon be the ones to pull the plug against the will of patients and families if a transfer was not found.
Catarina Gonzalez, mother of 18-month old Emilio who at the time was languishing in an Austin hospital, took time away from Emilio’s bedside to address the committee. She dramatically and tearfully shared that she knew her precious son was dying, but she thought he should die when God called him home, not when an ethics committee rendered Emilio’s life as value-less. (Emilio died on May 20.)
More families echoed her sentiments. Lanore Dixon, sister of Andrea Clark, told how her family should have been spending more time with Andrea during the last days of her life instead of fighting lawyers and ethics committees.
Due to the unjust balance of power conferred upon hospital ethics committees to make these life and death treatment decisions, even the Texas branch of the American Civil Liberties Union spoke in favor of SB 439. Will Harrell, Esq., director of ACLU Texas, stressed that patients are stripped of their due process rights and civil liberties when ethics committees make quality of life judgments and decide the fate of patients in the board rooms of hospitals.
Houston attorney, Robert Painter, played a shocking voicemail message left by a hospital administrator for the family of a patient. While Mr. Painter courteously omitted the name of the administrator and the name of the facility, the recording illustrated the quality of life mindset that has infiltrated some of these facilities.
The administrator pressured the family to agree with the hospital and let “your Daddy pass.” More shocking was this: “If we don’t hear from you by Monday, we're gonna make him hospice so he can go ‘head onto Glory,” threatening the family about the facility proceeding without their consent.
Needless to say, Mr. Painter’s testimony as an attorney who has helped several families through this process was quite compelling. (The patient who was the subject of the voicemail message was slated to be withdrawn from treatment and “made hospice” in January of this year, but was transferred to a skilled nursing facility where he is stable and receiving dialysis.)
On the House side, the Public Health Committee heard all the bills on advance directives on April 25th. The antagonistic tone of this hearing was dramatically different than the cordial tone set by Senator Deuell in the Senate committee.
The chair of House Public Health, Dianne Delisi (R-Temple) presented her own bill on advance directives and end of life care. While her bill, House Bill 3474, would have lengthened the ten days to twenty-one days, other provisions in her bill actually undermined what little protections for patients currently exist in the law.
The testimony on HB 3474 and the other bills on advance directives lasted until 5:11am. Attorney Jerri Ward, Texas Right to Life’s 2006 Pro-Life Attorney of the Year Award recipient, and other attorneys who have helped many families navigate the ten-day transfer process buttressed the ACLU’s concerns about patients being robbed of their due process, not to mention the errors in medical judgment that can occur.
Chairman Delisi would not allow the attorney to play the “Send him onto Glory” voicemail message in her committee. (The recorded voicemail message is posted at http://www.texasrighttolife.com).
Some opponents to the Hughes bill argued by describing treatments that can be painful to patients and told of families insisting that doctors continue painful treatments that will not benefit their loved ones.
However, Burke Balch, JD, Director of the Robert Powell Center for Ethics (and our colleague from National Right to Life), reminded the committee that appropriate palliative care could resolve nearly all pain and suffering issues and also clarified that this bill does not include a requirement for futile treatment—treatment that is providing no medical benefit to the patient, but rather, HB 1094 would require treatment that is sustaining the life of the patient. He further explained medical groups in the states in which “treatment pending transfer” laws are in place have not complained that they cannot work within the law.
Kristina Harrison, mother of six-year old Klemente, told how doctors tried to pressure her three years ago into withdrawing treatment from Klemente, now disabled and in a wheelchair. Klemente was the star of the hearing and would not have stolen the show if his mother yielded to the pressure of the hospital.
LaCretia Webster stated that the only reason she still flies her Texas flag, despite Texas letting her down with our futile care law, is because her father and brother are military servicemen. Her mother, Ruthie, was transferred to a facility in Chicago after a Dallas area doctor personally intervened to thwart two confirmed transfers within the state. She now must travel from Texarkana to Chicago twice a month to visit her best friend, her mother.
Even though Senate Bill 439 had the support of the majority of the Senate committee members as it was written, the committee decided to vote out a substitute for SB 439—a substitute identical to the unacceptable Delisi bill in the House. Unfortunately, this substitute included six elements that rendered the bill even worse than current law while giving the family only an additional 11 days to find a transfer.
Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst intervened and oversaw negotiations. He offered his own office for negotiations with the stakeholders, including Texas Right to Life, disability rights advocates, and the medical and hospital associations.
To his credit, Dewhurst would not allow the bill to come to the Senate Floor until the problems were remedied. Because of his assistance, SB 439 emerged from his office and then from the Senate Floor in a clean, acceptable form, albeit not close to the original strength of SB 439. Regrettably, when the bill reached the Public Health Committee in the House, the negotiated agreement masterfully orchestrated by Dewhurst was disregarded, and harmful amendments were added. Nonetheless, SB 439 emerged and was placed on the House Calendar, where it died on the last day of eligibility due to its low placement on the schedule.
HB 1094/SB 439 did not die due to a lack of support. In the House 77 out of 150 members co-authored the bill signifying their commitment to vote for the issue, and about a dozen more members firmly committed to support the measure while choosing not to co-author. Twenty of these House co-authors were Democrats who took active leadership, demonstrating the most bi-partisan effort in the history of Pro-Life bills in Texas. Likewise, 11 of 30 Senators co-authored SB 439 (2 Democrats and 9 Republicans).
Texas Right to Life hopes that such established support coupled with a new awareness of the issue will lay the foundation for a victory in the near future. As we continue to help families in the interim who are victims of this law, we will be reminded of the importance of our perseverance in this battle. And we pray that no one else will be the victim of this state-sanctioned, draconian involuntary euthanasia process.
Order by Judge Greer. Michael shall “remove” (on page 3)
http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/trialctorder02-05.pdf
While they could have just stopped feeding her through the tube, removal of the tube was a medical procedure, requiring a doctor’s orders. In fact, Hospice care requires a doctor’s orders and the morphine most certainly did.
Then name the doctor that did it and show me where Greer ordered doctors to obey Michael as you just said.
In fact, Hospice care requires a doctor’s orders and the morphine most certainly did.
To be admitted into a Hospice in Florida, it requires two doctor's signatures. Her personal doctor, Dr. Gambone, never signed it. The actual admittance record is floating around someplace I'm sure, one signature short. Maybe you could find it?
Do you have an references for these numbers or are you just making them up?
Hillary would probably go farther then me.
So you and Hillery advocate the same thing, just to different degrees. If I can pay for the life sustaining medical treatment I need, through my own direct savings or an insurance policy, neither your nor Hillery's opinion should have any say in the matter whatsoever.
For me the main question is what is in the best interests for the life, includign quality of life of the patient.
Putting what some third party believes is the "best interest" of the patient over the expressed interest of the patient is the goal of socialized medicine. No one should be allowed to prohibit the purchase of live sustaining medical treatment.
Hillary and especially some of her friends add another question. What benefits the collective.
That difference is only subjective. Once you prohibit people from the life sustaining medical care they want to pay for, you have lost any meaningful distinction. The decision should rest with the individual alone.
I think she would actually prefer government administrators maybe doctors themselves but in high level bureaucratic positions, to make rules that doctors in the government system must follow.
It's clear that there isn't anything more to debate. Thank you for your frankness in clarifying this statute's real socialistic purpose.
Well at least you have a hobby for when you aren't working to kill innocent people by cutting of their life sustaining medical treatment against their will.
And I don’t “pull the plug.”
Just as with abortion, anyone who works to keep it legal is culpable with those who wield the weapon, be it a electric vacuum aspirator or the switch of a dialysis machine. Your guilt is equivalent.
Instead, my husband and I have dedicated our resources to pro-life activism and bioethics
If you and your husband falsely proclaim that defending a statute that allows the legalized removal of life sustaining medical care against a patient's wishes as being pro-life, than you are truly as duplicitous as you are murderous.
Do you ever drive on government owned roads? Do you ever use a toilet that’s hooked up to a municipal water/sewer system? Do you ever use telephone service which is regulated by the government? Do you ever eat food which has been inspected by a government agency? If the answer to any of those questions is “yes,” then why are you insisting that people should be required to perform surgery on themselves rather than hire a doctor who is licensed by the government?
We never stop treating and caring for the patient. However, I must use my medical judgment to decide whether a technology or medication prolongs dying.
I will not write orders for treatments that cause pain, continual insertion of needles, suctioning by that wall vacuum you mentioned, catheterization of the bladder, disimpaction of the bowel, itching, collapsed lungs and broken ribs when a patient is dying - sometimes faster because of these treatments - any more than I would write orders to over sedate a patient with narcotics.
The safe guard is the review of the facts by the ethics committee, and the Medical Board and community scrutiny are backups.
The ill-advised attempts to change the law so that doctors could never bow out of the case, and which deliberately removed legal protection when the doctor refused to do what he or she believed harmful, risked making every case a legal judgment rather than medical. Emilio Gonzales’ mother lost guardianship of her son because her lawyer talked her into taking his case to court. His lungs collapsed repeatedly from the ventilator pressures, and yet she still was encouraged to fight for surgery for a tracheostomy, so that she could be political tool at her baby boy’s expense. And the judge ended up in charge of her son’s fate.
You may say anything on this forum, that is free speech and the purpose of this forum. However, that does not make it right, necessary or helpful. You are wrong on this point, just as you are wrong to make it personal.
I pray that the Lord will give you peace and wisdom.
I’m not arguing with you. I am saying that it was wrong for any doctor to act in a way that intended death.
What is your opinion on putting a non-terminal patients in a hospice for 5 years?
I know that I had 2 patients on hospice at home, for 3 years. One with very unstable chronic bronchitis, another with unstable angina and heart disease. Each died, in the hospital, within a month after being “kicked off” hospice.
The hospice I know is one way of coordinating and funding care that includes nursing care and medications to relieve symptoms when disease is untreatable, and death is expected within 6 months.
I can’t help but believe that the symptom relief that came from the hospice nurses eased the breathing of the first and took stress off the heart of the second, and that’s why they lived so long. Without the hospice nurse checking in on them, each ended up in the hospital, possibly much later in the course of an attack than they would have if the nurse had been there. The high-tech and medication-intensive environment of the hospital most likely increased both the mental and physical stress.
What a psychotically deceitful thing to say. Your false statement above is only nominally true if you perversely consider "treating" and "caring" for a patient to include cutting off their life sustaining medical care against their will.
However, I must use my medical judgment to decide whether a technology or medication prolongs dying.
Every medical treatment for every condition "prolongs dying" since living is also inherently dying. Your medical judgment has been exposed as being intrinsically perverted.
I will not write orders for treatments that cause pain,
So no orders for recuperative physical therapy from you. No gain is worth any pain in your sick school of medicine.
...continual insertion of needles,
So no need to proscribe insulin for diabetics, they are better off dead.
...suctioning by that wall vacuum you mentioned,
That was used in analogy to your false and polluted view of immunity from culpability.
...catheterization of the bladder,
Whoa, you'd even off everyone with a urethral stricture? You are one sick puppy.
...disimpaction of the bowel,
So you think your patients with chronic constipation are better off dead?
...itching,
You'd whack someone for dry scalp?
...collapsed lungs and broken ribs
I wonder if your local high school's football players know that you consider a hard tackle worthy of a death sentence?
when a patient is dying
Again, we're all dying. People like you just like to speed up the process for everyone else.
The safe guard is the review of the facts by the ethics committee, and the Medical Board and community scrutiny are backups.
Based on what you have written on this tread, if the participants in these organizations are anything like you the process is hopelessly flawed.
The ill-advised attempts to change the law so that doctors could never bow out of the case, and which deliberately removed legal protection when the doctor refused to do what he or she believed harmful, risked making every case a legal judgment rather than medical.
So cab drivers and tow truck operators can be required by law to take every request in the middle of the night, but incompetent hack doctors can't be burdened by providing life sustaining medical care for fear of higher insurance premiums when they choose to kill people.
Emilio Gonzales’ mother lost guardianship of her son because her lawyer talked her into taking his case to court. His lungs collapsed repeatedly from the ventilator pressures, and yet she still was encouraged to fight for surgery for a tracheostomy, so that she could be political tool at her baby boy’s expense.
You attribute malicious thoughts to woman trying to keep her sick child alive. Wow, a psychopathic medium! I'd ask if you read palms too but from what you have written here I am fairly certain you don't put that much effort into your diagnoses.
And the judge ended up in charge of her son’s fate.
But according to you that is a better outcome than his own mother who's mind you say you can read.
You may say anything on this forum, that is free speech and the purpose of this forum.
And you can apparently get off on killing your patients in the sad state of Texas.
However, that does not make it right, necessary or helpful.
Nor does all your killing. I'm just glad to have contributed to getting a sicko like you to document the perversity of their murderous thought process and clearly incompetent medical reasoning.
You are wrong on this point, just as you are wrong to make it personal.
The deliberate murder of innocent human beings is always personal. Only a homicidal psychopath wouldn't already know that.
I pray that the Lord will give you peace and wisdom.
I pray that the Lord will have mercy on you and all of the pitiful patients unfortunate enough to have you involved with overriding their expressed desire for life sustaining medical care.
And the surest and fastest way to “kill” Emilio would have been to do what his mother demanded: attempt to place and use a tracheostomy.
Father Tad Pacholczyk of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, who holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience, as well as being an unimpeachable pro-life activist and ethicist, and the Council of Bishops of Texas even agreed that it was ethical to turn off the ventilator in the case of Emilio Gonzales. (I probably would not have gone that far, but would have refused to increase the technology or do painful maneuvers to maintain the ventilator.)
Life at all costs is not medicine.
I don't believe that is what I asked you. Do you know what I asked you? Remember, Terri had no such problems. Whats with the detour?
Sorry, I thought I had - The hospice that I know is for people who are expected to die from their disease within 6 months. As in the case of my man and woman, sometimes we’re wrong about that diagnosis of terminal or end stage disease. (In their cases, the hospice care actually prolonged their lives and was the reason my diagnosis turned out to be wrong.)
However, Terri Schiavo did not meet the Medicare criteria for hospice from a medical standpoint - only a legal one.
I don't recall anyone at the time claiming it would hasten his death. The only concern your side expressed was that it would lengthen his life.
Father Tad Pacholczyk of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, who holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience, as well as being an unimpeachable pro-life activist and ethicist, and the Council of Bishops of Texas even agreed that it was ethical to turn off the ventilator in the case of Emilio Gonzales.
Don't know him, but I highly doubt that he said it would be permissible to do so against the mother's expressed wishes.
(I probably would not have gone that far, but would have refused to increase the technology or do painful maneuvers to maintain the ventilator.)
Based on what you have written here, I am confident that you would attempt to override his mother's expressed wishes with whatever course of action resulted in the boy's murder as soon as was possible.
Life at all costs is not medicine.
Medicine by definition is the science of prolonging and improving life. Only an incompetent hack wouldn't know this. Your immoral attempt and perverting the real definition betrays your depraved conscience.
I’m surprised that you haven’t heard of Father Tad at the National Catholic Bioethics Center. You ought to look him up.
In addition to discussions at the blogs linked to before, the second Ethics Committee report explained why a trach wasn’t appropriate. It was published on line by the North Country Gazette after his mother’s lawyer leaked it to the press. It’s available in a Word Document here: http://www.northcountrygazette.org/documents/PediEthicsCommitteeReport.doc
Medicine cannot always “prolong and improve life.” Father Tad and the 23 active Bishops in Texas agreed that doing what the mother asked, placing a tracheostomy, would have been medically innappropriate.
You have a short memory. It takes two doctors signatures to make it it legal.
I thought you said there was never a second signature. So, event the legal loophole was not met.
However, as I understand the Federal regulations of Medicare, *Medicare* hospice funding - and I believe by extension, Medicaid - in order for a patient to qualify, the doctor must say that the patient is expected to die within 6 months due to the disease. Of course, Mrs. Schiavo didn’t meet this criteria at all.
I’m sure that State laws differ, however, medicine does not. If anyone named her “end-stage” anything, he or she contradicted the court and what we know of the medical facts. If so, this is fraud.
The extra “loophole” in her case could have been her insurance. Was she Medicare, at all?
There was nothing so sickening as watching those last few months of her life. I have always opposed using substituted judgment in these cases. Then, the trips to the hospital to remove and replace the tube - I believe there was news of a second removal or near-removal - were abuses of medicine, to me. In the final decrees, Greer refused oral food and hydration as “medical experimentation,” which, again, is not appropriate medically, only under a twisted legal definition.
I felt as though I’d entered the twilight zone when the Federal appeals court was more concerned with precedent and judges than with this woman.
All of which proves that judges and lawyers should not practice medicine.
Well, she was in the George Felos Woodside Hospice. She was approved for Medicaid by petition by Felos and approved by Judge Greer with a still healthy sum of rehab money in her trust fund. Does that help?
That’s what I thought. She didn’t qualify under Medicare guidelines - only by the maneuvers of the judge.
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