Posted on 08/12/2008 8:05:23 AM PDT by Daniel T. Zanoza
This is TOTALLY FALSE. The hospital used a document written six years earlier and NEVER gave him a choice. He COULD communicate.
By your logic, a person just signs their life away and that's the end of it, they no longer have any say in the matter.
Florida Man Dies After Hospital and Wife Battle Over His Living Will
was there an adjudication of incompetency?
generally there has to be a full blown evidentiary hearing to declare someone incompetent and the aleged incompetent has to have representation by independent counsel.
He could communicate, and did not communicate a wish to change his advance directive and receive the treatment. The doctors’s prognosis was that his condition would not improve, i.e. treatment would only keep him alive in the disabled condition he was in. There is nothing in this article suggesting that the patient indicated a desire for treatment. And given the slant of the article, you can be sure if there was any evidence of that, it would have been mentioned.
1 A living will is a binding legal document that declares your wishes regarding the use of life-sustaining treatment if you should become terminally ill or permanently unconscious.
8. A living will can not be used to authorize the withholding of nutrition and hydration.
Ah but it IS. They are used to regularly discontinue treatment.
There’s no evidence of any adjudication of incompetency, and no evidence that there was any reason for such a proceeding. The man was alert and talking, and what he was saying was apparently consistent with his advance directive. We obviously can’t have a policy of requiring every patient who turns down a treatment to have to hire a lawyer and be subjected to an incompetency proceeding, even when there’s no evidence of incompetence.
Ten Things to Think About: Living Wills
2 A living will, in most cases, only becomes effective when you are permanently unconscious or terminally ill and unable to communicate.
8 A living will can not be used to authorize the withholding of nutrition and hydration
He wasn't unconcious and they removed nutrition and hydration.
For more see: Living Wills Remain a Mystery - Even to the ‘Experts’
So you know what Mr. Pinette's true wishes were? How do you know what went on between the docs and the patient? Were you there? What did Mr. Pinette, specifically, communicate to his docs?
You are entitled to your opinion, but you do not get to invent facts.
We were repeatedly told that, if she had a living will, Terri Schiavo would have certainly wanted to be starved and dehydrated to death.
This is EXACTLY what Judge Greer ordered and he even went so far as to place armed deputies in her room to insure that NOBODY tried to give her food or water orally.
As an estate planner, I always recommend the Health Care Surrogate instead of the living will.
And beware of when they ask you to ‘update your file’ at the doctor’s office. They want you to sign a living will.
And beware of signing admission papers to the hospital or day surgery center. They include a living will.
By law in Florida, a facility may not make signing a living will a prerequisite to admission, but they sure try to make you think that is the only way they will do business.
It is going from a right to die to a duty to die.
Nonsense. He was killed based on the hospital's assertion that he WAS NOT communicating with them.
Why not? You do.
You said: Sounds to me like the hubby and wife were not on the same page as it relates to his living will
That is an incorrect assumption considering that Pinette made his wife his named surrogate.
If the hospital stay or surgery is planned it is also a good idea to get copies of the paperwork ahead of time to review them.
It happened with my stepfather and the whole thing was a nightmere, really unbelievable. My mother, my husband and I now have a Will to Live.
http://www.nrlc.org/euthanasia/willtolive/Stateslist.html
This is the myth! Living Wills are NOT intended for the sudden situation in the ER during times of emotional panic! Please carefully read the following, as an example, from Pennsylvania's officially legislated form Living Will:
If I have an end-stage medical condition (which will result in my death, despite the introduction or continuation of medical treatment) or am permanently unconscious such as an irreversible coma or an irreversible vegetative state and there is no realistic hope of significant recovery...
The Living Will was never intended for the "heat of the moment" crisis in the ER or critical care unit. None of the triggers apply in that situation. But, tragically, that's what people now seem to think. And that's the source of all the trouble.
Nowadays, what's wrong is right and what's right is wrong. Morality, truth, honor, life are all considered as subjective.
You and your family have my deepest sympathy, a hard situation made into a nightmare.
-provided the living will actually STATES to withhold.
-you just have to be smart enough to put in bold on the front page words to the effect of “DO KEEP ME ALIVE.”
Just never ever every sign the hospitals in house version.
I'm sorry but I have to go. I really would like to continue but can't. Nutz!
Extremely well stated, Counselor!
To which you replied: Why not? You do.
Most readers of English as their first language understand the words 'sounds to me like ..." as the expression of a personal opinion, not as a statement of fact.
So you were hoping that we'd buy your opinion as fact?
The FACT is that his wife was named as his surrogate BY HIM. She was set aside in favour of murder.
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