Dr. Death believes death is the only option for his "patients".
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Obama, Pelosi, Reid, the Regime, and the rest of this Congress apparently believe in assisting death for as many as they can legally get by with via their Death Panels. Read the bill, now that it has been crammed down America’s throat, per Pelosi’s statement. Genocide of the Elderly facilitated and brought to you by this Congress??? Sinister, power-hungry Ghouls, would you say hell yes?? The fewer Social security recipients the better for this Regime??? You answer the question for yourselves.
I used to think that I was pro-Life, but I’m beginning to favor assisted suicide for politicians.
in the bed next to him is a 39 year old woman who suffered a case of sepsis which ultimately resulted in acute renal failure such that she requires dialysis 3 times/ week. She has contracted pneumonia while in the hospital and is in acute respiratory failure. She too needs a ventilator machine or she will die. She works at a local drug store and her treatment is paid for by her private health insurance.
there's only one ventilator. Both patients need it immediately. which patient gets it?
Just get Che to shoot them.
There’s a new document called, “Will to Live,” which is NOT the same as a Living Will. It gives the patient a chance to give CLEAR instructions about not wanting to be starved or dehydrated to death, and other choices. There is one for each state. You’ll find it on:
http://www.nrlc.org/euthanasia/willtolive/docs/new%20york.rev0309.pdf
What would happen if the patient or patient's family would have to end up paying for or providing this care themselves?
gracie1, in post #23, mentioned:
I also have seen cases of severe anoxic brain injury where the patient is extremely unstable, and also depends on a ventilator and dialysis. The family cannot understand why God let this happen and demand maximum treatment. Months pass and we need to address placement. The only facilities that can take her 200 miles away. The families refuse the placement. Should they pay for the extra days of stay? Is the ethics committee a death panel because they try to show the families the futility of the treatment? What if the nephrologist decides on his own to stop dialysis? The patient is on medi-cal and they will not pay for any of the dialysis alternatives that have been brainstormed. Is that a death panel?
What would have happened had this family had to cough up their money to pay for the treatment? Obviously, if they are on medi-cal, they didn't have adequate funds to pay for the treatment. So the treatment would not have happened on a "pay" basis.
What would the ethical decision-making process have been had a life-or-death decision needed to be made by the family, as opposed to the medi-cal bureaucrats?
If the hospital decided to make this a "charity" case, what would the ethics be for deciding which cases were accepted for charity treatment vice which would be turned away? The hospital obviously couldn't accept every case as a charity case...otherwise, they would have any income to pay for those that would be charity cases.
RC One brings up an interesting hypothetical:
You have two patients, one of them is a 39 year old man with severe multiple sclerosis, contractures to all extremities, a stage 4 ulcer to the sacrum, diabetes, chronic renal failure with hemodialysis 3 times/week, and respiratory failure secondary to aspiration pneumonia which is a frequent occurrence for this individual due to his inability to safely swallow anything which has necessitated placing a tube in his stomach to deliver liquid nutrition. He needs a ventilator for his respiratory failure or he will die. This individual is, at most, capable of being dragged out of his bed by healthcare personnel and placed in a chair for a couple of hours at a time. Nature would have taken this poor soul years ago had nature been allowed to do so. his healthcare costs are covered by taxpayers.
in the bed next to him is a 39 year old woman who suffered a case of sepsis which ultimately resulted in acute renal failure such that she requires dialysis 3 times/ week. She has contracted pneumonia while in the hospital and is in acute respiratory failure. She too needs a ventilator machine or she will die. She works at a local drug store and her treatment is paid for by her private health insurance.
RC One brings up another interesting case, because there are two basically hopeless cases, one paid for by the government and one paid for by private insurance.
Again, though, what happens if the family had to pay for it and the family was the ones to make the life-or-death call. Which is extraordinary care vice which is ordinary care?
Dr Kopp brings up a third scenario:
I was shocked that he was receiving no water, no food, no IV, only Morphine. His Parkinson's was advancing and the aspiration pneumonia was a crisis, but neither were imminently terminal. We were permitted to wet a sponge to moisten his lips, and he would try to suck all the moisture from the sponge, but we were forbidden to give him a drink of water, ostensibly because of the risk of further aspiration pneumonia. Fr. Ream had shared with me his opposition to euthanasia in the past, and he was trying to talk to me, but he had become so dehydrated that he could not form any words.
The indication here is that he needed ordinary care but was denied that because somebody's criteria was met for a hopeless case.
But I would bet that Dr. Kopp, other friends, and perhaps fellow priests/parishoners would have been happy to provide that ordinary care...had they only been allowed to do so.
I don't pretend to have all of the answers in any of these scenarios. But it seems that our system has been perverted due to the fact that somebody else is paying for the medical care; therefore, somebody else has the decision-making authority.
While I am no fan of death panels, it is a fact of life that either families, governments, or mutual support societies (a/k/a insurers) will have to deal with is that there are limited resources. By that, I mean limited money. And all the choices involve money, folks. And somebody has got to have criteria that must be met or not met, else EVERYODY is going to be hurt.
If a hospital decides to do a charity case, are they wrong for saying that their limited funds could be better spent dealing with a savable patient?
If a family is confronted with a family member who is going to die but can be kept alive longer if everything the family has is depleted and given to the hospital/nursing home? If the family has to sell their house in order to make the payments, is that the right thing to do? Especially if the sick family member is going to die anyway?
I don't know what the answer is. I can easily say "choose life." But if it is a matter of the family member surviving six days versus six months...is it that easy?
The one thing I do know is that if the decision is to be made, it needs to be made at the closest level possible. Because, as with Dr. Kopp's example, the criteria may not be 100% valid in all cases. But bureaucrats, whether they work for a government or an insurer, must, in the name of justice, have criteria to work from.
So the question I would ask is this: if the decision was the decision of the family: possibly lose their house (or go hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt) or lose the family member...when the best case is a few more months of life...what is the right decision? And how would we look at medical ethics if the decision making (and responsibility for the consequences of that decision) was pushed to where in really needs to be (in the name of subsidiarity) -- to the patient or his family?
The pain of a terminal condition can be incredible. I have a friend right now that has days if not hours to live due to a glioblastoma brain tumor; inoperable in her condition and has and is causing strokes. She has had no relief from pain and any amount of drug therapy to relieve the pain just puts her out. She no longer has any muscle control including swallowing. Imagine a continuous migraine headache. She would prefer to say goodbye. There is nothing medical science can do for her anymore. Her husband and kids are living a nightmare watching her slowly die in painful agony. Just think about that.
“Physician-assisted suicide is in direct conflict with our tradition of upholding the sanctity of human life.”
No, it is not. Mercy killings are also a human tradition.