| Until Americans learn to contemplate death as more than a scientific challenge to be overcome, our health-care system will remain unfixable.
|
Posted on 09/14/2009 1:15:13 PM PDT by Renkluaf
My mother wanted to die, but the doctors wouldn't let her. At least that's the way it seemed to me as I stood by her bed in an intensive-care unit at a hospital in Hilton Head, S.C., five years ago. My mother was 79, a longtime smoker who was dying of emphysema. She knew that her quality of life was increasingly tethered to an oxygen tank, that she was losing her ability to get about, and that she was slowly drowning. The doctors at her bedside were recommending various tests and procedures to keep her alive, but my mother, with a certain firmness I recognized, said no. She seemed puzzled and a bit frustrated that she had to be so insistent on her own demise.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
Maybe we should just opt to use the Even Thomas' of the world as organ donors to keep Granny spry and chipper.
Works for me!
So there won’t be death panels but some elderly should be told that the option is there if they want them and it’ll be quick and painless and...
I do not think the government has any place in that mix. We should always opt for life.
If we accept that there is a collective responsibility to take care of the sick and pay for that care, then we have to accept that there is a collective authority to make decisions about what care is provided, right?
Nobody kills anybody. You are always advised about a “Living Will” that gives YOU, the patient, the option to handle the ultimate decision before surgery.
How does opting to end one’s life affect the religious belief that doing in yourself is a sin?
I haven’t seen this discussed.
The patient makes the decision. Period, and is given the option on how to handle problems as they occur during and after a medical procedure.
“I do not think the government has any place in that mix.”
I agree totally.
“We should always opt for life.”
Who’s we? By all means, you should always opt for life, if you are willing to pay for that option.
It’s all about who decides and who pays. You can’t expect the government (or me, indirectly) to pay without giving the government (or me, indirectly) a place at the decision-making table.
Until Americans learn to contemplate death as more than a scientific challenge to be overcome, our health-care system will remain unfixable.
&&&&
Of course, Evan, the skyrocketing costs have nothing to do with services being provided to illegals and huge awards going out from frivolous lawsuits, right? What a jerk!
My wife’s very old grandfather (nearly 100 yrs) just got tired and stopped eating and wanted to stay home and didn’t want to go to the hospital to be fed through a tube and whatever else they might do to him. So he stayed in his house with his very old wife and died peacefully with those he loved and who loved him around.
Did he do himself in?
Already posted.
You still read that rag NEWSWEEK?
| Until Americans learn to contemplate death as more than a scientific challenge to be overcome, our health-care system will remain unfixable.
|
“The patient makes the decision. Period.”
And the patient pays. Period.
Do you really see another way?
Most hospitals would listen to his story after doing an evaluation, have a shrink come in and simply talk to him to see what his frame of mind really was, and if he refused treatment, he would be released.
There are too many people who have no idea of what goes on one a family member dies. While they’re lucid, they are in the decision-making process.
If you’re worried about all of this, get a living will and make sure it’s available in your medical records, even if that means your GP’s folder in his office. Have it all spelled out what you want done in case you’re brought in to the hospital and unresponsive. Think ahead.
The patient makes the decision. Period.”
And the patient pays. Period.
Do you really see another way?
***********
Don’t understand your point.
your tune will change when YOU are 79. You’ll get a whole new perspective.
Just who are the members of this collective?
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No more calls please, we have a winner.