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To: wagglebee

“palliative care”

Morphine, starvation and no water.

3 weeks, not 3 minutes or seconds.

‘Palliative care’ is just longer, not less immoral.


7 posted on 10/05/2007 5:37:52 PM PDT by combat_boots (She lives! 22 weeks, 9.5 inches. Go, baby, go!)
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To: combat_boots

The author was NOT talking about starvation and dehydration.


8 posted on 10/05/2007 5:39:57 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: combat_boots
First, how are we supposed to take you seriously when you're talking about a human going without water for three weeks?

Second, check this para:

"While palliative care may seem to offer an incredibly broad range of services, the goals of palliative treatment are extremely concrete: relief from suffering, treatment of pain and other distressing symptoms, psychological and spiritual care, a support system to help the individual live as actively as possible, and a support system to sustain the individual's family.

That's from Wikipedia, but the list is taken from a paper in the Journal of Pain Management titled, "Managing a palliative oncology program: the role of a business plan". Seems like you're not talking about the same thing they are. Then there's this, from the same Wikipedia entry, and I can vouch for it because my wife is an RN who often works with the dying:

The palliative care teams have become very skillful in prescribing drugs for physical symptoms, and have been instrumental in showing how drugs such as morphine can be used safely while maintaining a patient's full faculties and function.

I would also add that the patient who suffers because they can't get pain meds or other palliative care is nearly a myth in the 21st Century, and those that are in that situation are almost always there because of thickheaded family or thickheaded doctors, not because of the limits of palliative care.

Third, the average human lifespan is made up of 3,744 weeks. Are you proposing massive changes to our medical and legal systems because spending a thousandth of that lifespan on morphine is just too much to ask?

10 posted on 10/05/2007 6:22:42 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback (Support Scouting: Raising boys to be strong men and politically incorrect at the same time.)
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To: combat_boots
“palliative care” Morphine, starvation and no water. 3 weeks, not 3 minutes or seconds. ‘Palliative care’ is just longer, not less immoral.

What are you talking about? My father was on palliative care for 27 months before he died, well-fed, well-hydrated, naturally, at age 92.

What palliative care means is that thre are no attempts at a cure (no surgery, radiation, or chemo) but all medical efforts are directed toward relieving symptoms.

It includes nutrition, hydration, hygienic care, pain management (in his case, morphine by mouth when he reported pain) and comfort care (in his case including inhalation therapy with bronchodilators, which he discontinued when he didn't want it.)

Cutting off pain management and comfort care is cruelty, and cutting off food and water (for the patient who can still assimilate nutrients) is murder.

13 posted on 10/06/2007 5:06:28 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (As a matter of fact.)
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To: combat_boots

You’re confusing palliative care with a form of murder commonly referred to as “passive euthanasia.” They are not the same thing, and are not compatible with each other.


17 posted on 10/06/2007 8:42:41 PM PDT by BykrBayb (In memory of my Friend T'wit, who taught me much. ~ Þ)
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