Is hospice industry part of the right-to-die crusade?

CFP ^ | March 29, 2005 | Judi McLeod

[MikeEdwards]

"The force that created today’s hospice also propels the right-to-die movement." George Felos made that statement in his book, Litigation as a Spiritual Practice.

Felos, a self-styled dying-with-dignity crusader and attorney for Michael Schiavo has a right to his beliefs; a right to lobby and campaign for the death culture.

Funded, in part by federal tax dollars and having earned a reputation as the best among available end-of-life options, the hospice industry should play no role in the right-to-die crusade.

Patient care and not politics should be the focus of hospice administrators, board members and caregivers.

George Felos is best known for winning Guardianship of Browning, a landmark case on the so-called right to refuse or have withdrawn unwanted medical treatment.

According to Sharon Tubbs (St. Petersburg Times, May 25, 2001), "After the Browning case, Felos became a volunteer for the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast, sitting and talking with terminally ill patients."

In time he was to become a member of the hospice board of directors.

During the past decade, Felos has been legal counsel for about 10 right-to-die cases.

The yoga practitioner and believer of reincarnation admits he is "exhilarated" to see himself on television. "Some of my best quotes appear on the editorial page," he has boasted.

Felos offended some by describing the dying Terri Schindler Schiavo as "beautiful" on national television last Saturday, and was insisting as late as last night that Terri’s death did not appear "imminent" to him.

It is not the first time the attorney has used uncomely rhetoric to describe a dying patient caught up in a right-to-die court case.

Felos claims he made "soul talk" with a dying Estelle Browning. . . . .

[massgopguy]

Title XVIII section 1861(dd). This is the law that that Dept. of Health and Human Services is using to prosecute Sunshine Hospice, Inc.

[LibFreeOrDie]

Federal regulations regarding Medicare patients and hospices:

http://www.hospicepatients.org/law.html

Page with links, including "Hospice Standards of Care":

http://www.hospicepatients.org/maintopics.html

[fortunecookie]

It would certainly improve their turnover and therefore their profits.

Not to mention the potential 'Baby Boomer' generation soon to be flooding their gates (their hope, not mine) adding to their revenue coupled with the Gen X & Gen Y smaller population group and potential critical shortage of worker's needed to operate the facility, not just as caregivers but all levels of operation, the death wish group could 'solve' this troubling 'problem' by euthanasia, all the while preserving or even boosting their income stream and revenues. Ugh. It's all about the money. Why shouldn't they (sarcasm) want to cash in on some of that bounty that the abortion industry rakes in?

The Romans did themselves in with leaded wine glasses and excesses of all kinds. We have the excesses and death industries to potentially finish us off.

[sageb1]

My boyfriend and I had hospice in our own home for the last weeks before he died. My father decided to ask for hospice while he was in the hospital about 3 weeks before he died. While I agree with you that society has taken an unhealthy turn toward giving up personal, intergenerational family care, we must be careful about where we place the blame.

I could sit here and type all day about how I believe most of society's problems have been caused by the feminists. For instance, ever since women entered the workforce en masse in the 80's, we have seen an increase in the number of our elderly who have been placed in nursing homes by families too busy to care for their own.

Hospice, in my opinion, is completely different. It serves a need by those who have decided that they no longer want to fight to beat whatever disease is killing them. We had one hospice nurse who had, herself, just been diagnosed with inoperable cancer. She told us point blank that she had decided that there was no way she was going to put herself through course after course of radiation and chemotherapy because she had seen what that had done to so many (including us). Whatever she eventually decided to do is unknown to me. We never saw this particular nurse again. But, the point is, that she decided for herself how she would handle her illness and that was her right.

[SC DOC]

It would certainly improve their turnover and therefore their profits.

Hospices get paid for their services by the day. Hastening a patient's death would be counterproductive and decrease their profits.

[wideawake]

Hospices get paid for their services by the day. Hastening a patient's death would be counterproductive and decrease their profits.

Depends on what services they are providing. If they could gauge exactly how long each stay is, maximize revenue from a short stay and multiple the number of patients the increase in cash flow could fund expansion.

[madison10]

Hospice, or at least the idea, is NOT part of the "right to die industry." That "hospice" in Florida is not working correctly, unless they were under the impression that Terri would die in the usual allotted time.

There's something fishy about that facility. Wonder who owns it, who is on the board of directors, and who funds it?

[madison10]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/795216/posts

Answer to my own question. FELOS was/is on the board of the hospice. How convenient.

This whole issue with Terri reads like a horror novel.

[nicolezmomma]

My experience with hospice has been positive. They help terminal patients and their families with the death process in a very caring way. Their purpose isn't to help prolong someone's life and has never been advertised as such.

This was underscored to me when my father-in-law was in the end stages of cancer. The hospice workers came to the house to talk to the family. We were considering using an alternative treatment to try to prolong his life. The hospice workers said they would not accept him in their care if there were attempts to prolong his life.

[Scotswife]

Thank you very much, that is exactly what I was looking for.

[Squire Eaton]

All readers of this BLOG should take the time to reread the initial post. It was a factual and excellent description of the "Hospice Program" This idiot in Florida does not represent the Hospice Program in any way shape or manner and in fact should be thrown off the board for his grandstanding and false information he has been putting out. Please remember that one rotten apple in a barrel does not mean the whole barrel is rotten. This Jerk and I use the term very seldom but he really fits it well, should be shown to be the phony he is.

Squire Eaton

[tioga]

Perhaps someone could write a novel from the perspective of Terri. It would indeed be a horror novel.

[nicolezmomma]

You are right, my comments weren't appropriate to the post.

[NicknamedBob]

"...write a novel from the perspective of Terri."

There are a number of problems with this concept.

1) One would be seen as trying to "cash in" on the tragedy.
2) It presupposes something that has been argued to death, (excuse the phrase), and not resolved -- whether Terri had awareness of her surroundings.
3) It is terribly depressing. I would have difficulty dealing with my emotions before I had completed six chapters.
4) No one would believe that human beings could be so venal and cruel.
5) Terri's perspective is surprisingly limited. Even assuming she had full cognitive function, she was kept well out of the loop of information. Although the very epicenter of everything that was happening, she was always the last one to know.
6) The more I learn about this, the angrier I get. This is not good for my mental health.

---

The only way I would touch a literary project like this would be if I could re-write the ending, a la "The Lovely Bones", where a terrible tragedy is the beginning of the story.

Then I would relate how the worms of karma and hubris would conspire against the conspirators, and how every effort they make after this dreadful act of vindictive malevolence would prove futile and negative.

I would bring them locusts of bad luck, plagues of annoying coincidences, and floods of assailing doubt and regret. Bad dreams would be their every somnolent companion.

Their financial endeavors would fall to ruin, their friends and families would abandon them, their health would fail. Their "Lot" in life would become one of abject misery and pain.

And they would know, beyond doubt, where this tribulation got its start. From their ghoulish and parasitic decision to milk every drop of goodness from an innocent girl.

[tioga]

won't even consider it, huh? I'm sure your next novel will be intriguing, whether this or anything else you choose to write about.