Posted on 03/16/2009 1:30:51 PM PDT by wagglebee
Salem, OR (LifeNews.com) -- The number of assisted suicides in Oregon has increased 30 percent in the last two years and euthanasia activists themselves may have provided the reasons why. It appears members of Compassion & Choices have infiltrated the hospice system and are urging patients to kill themselves.
LifeNews.com reported on the increase earlier this month, but a Compassion & Choice press release last week provided an interesting take on the report.
The group said that "nearly 100% of terminally ill individuals using the law in 2008 were enrolled in hospice."
"Hospice enrollment among those using the Act increased to 98%, with 59 of the 60 individuals enrolled. Over the prior ten years of the Act’s existence, 86% of patients using the Act were enrolled in hospice, in itself a very high rate of use," the pro-assisted suicide group added.
“The first thing we ask patients who contact us is, ‘Are you enrolled in hospice?’” said Barbara Coombs Lee, president of the group, said.
Coombs said the assisted suicide law is getting more patients enrolled in hospice, but bioethics watchdog Wesley J. Smith says the pro-euthanasia group "should be ashamed, not proud."
"This press release is essentially an admission that its representatives interfere with the proper provision of hospice care, since an essential service of hospice is suicide prevention," Smith explains.
He says C&C's involvement in hospice is pushing patients into assisted suicide and corrupting the system.
"The published statistics from Oregon, for what they are worth, state that only two of the people about which the press release referred, were directed to a mental health consult, which is not the same thing as treatment," Smith said. "In 2007 there were zero referrals. This indicates that the patients who committed assisted suicide received no formal intervention for suicide prevention."
"How is withholding suicide prevention any different than providing inadequate pain control?" Smith asks.
He concludes: "Hence, Compassion and Choices undermines and interferes with the application of full and proper hospice care. I don't see any other way of looking at it."
Absolutely correct. Most, in fact, are not.
Yes. Me too.
So sorry.
When I was a trained hospice volunteer in OR a few years ago, they were adamantly opposed to doctor assisted suicide. They knew it was there but the hospice policy was not to promote it at all, just allow it if the patient insisted. I never heard (at that time, that I can remember) of any patient dying that way. I think that was right around the time the measure passed.
All the books I read about hospice were opposed to it as well. I can well imagine death promoters becoming volunteers or worse, paid employees, of hospices and changing their policies. Horrible. Like so much that is going on now.
I don’t want to be sustained by machines either - and I’d be willing to bet the majority of folks in hospice care have a DNR order.
We had hospice care in our home for my mother in law, a kind and generous woman who is still missed. They helped us ensure she could take every breath to which she was entitled in a comfortable and dignified manner, and she remained alert and in good spirits to the very end.
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