I can’t find this info anywhere else but here. Do you have another source? I could sure use this info if true but I’d like to verify it.
Lorianne, this isn’t exactly “verifying” but I will share as it’s pertinent. Sorry I don’t have the details, I realize it’s not substantial without any names (!) but I will a post link if I can find, or another Freeper (you Catholics?) might know.
A few weeks ago I happened upon a program on EWTN about a doctor who founded a special hospital in New York that takes patients who are really in a bad way. Usually in final stages of cancer, but it could be other diseases, even accidents. These patients are extremely expensive to care for, and often “unattractive” due to severe degenerative effects of disease, etc. The type of patients who in Oregon are recommended for assisted suicide.
He (the Catholic doctor) and his staff have a whole different philosophy of patient care, being personal and loving instead of distant, and also of touching the patients, hugging, normal affection instead of the cold “professional” decorum mandated in most hospitals and medical schools.
OK, I’m coming to the point. Somehow this doctor was in Netherlands and met with a leading medical expert there. The Netherlands man had heard of this work and was curious so the N.Y. doctor brought films and pictures of his hospital and many of the patients.
The U.S. doctor was rather stunned at the response of the Netherlands doctor, whose reaction was amazement that any effort is made to keep these people alive and allow them to die naturally in accordance with religious principles. The Netherlands medical expert frankly told the US doctor straight out: “In our country, all these people would be euthanized long before they get to this stage.”