Posted on 08/08/2007 4:09:44 PM PDT by wagglebee
I wonder if anyone has looked into the Medicare fraud and abuse angle? The nursing home, any licensed provider who billed on the case could be investigated. Louis Freeh and Janet Reno used to offer $1000 rewards to anyone for turning in doctors for Medicare fraud and abuse.
Yes, it has been pretty well documented. Nothing we can do about it. That's the scary part of it all.
No thanks. An unreferenced testimonial of an unknown person is completely extraneous to this debate.
In addition to discussions at the blogs linked to before, the second Ethics Committee report explained why a trach wasn’t appropriate.
The question has nothing to do with whether a pro-death, hack doctor thinks some life sustaining medical treatment is "appropriate", but whether a patient's desire to live should be overridden by that pro-death, hack doctor.
It was published on line by the North Country Gazette after his mother’s lawyer leaked it to the press.
Not interested. This is just another lame attempt on your part to fallaciously divert this ethical debate with an anecdotal red herring. The fact the you have ignored almost all of the substantive points posted to you through this debate demonstrates the weakness of your argument as well the weakness of a representative intellect on your side of the debate.
Medicine cannot always “prolong and improve life.”
That is the objective of medicine. The purpose of this murderous statute, however, is to allow incompetent doctors to withdraw a patient's life sustaining medical treatment that the patient believes would prolong and improve their life against that patient's expressed wishes.
Father Tad and the 23 active Bishops in Texas agreed that doing what the mother asked, placing a tracheostomy, would have been medically innappropriate.
So we have gone from the sacred opinion of doctors to the medical opinions of clergy? The absurd reasoning used by you pro-death types would be hilarious if it wasn't so evil.
Father Tad, the National Catholic Bioethics Center and the 23 Texas Bishops are representative of the consistent tradition of community oversight of medical ethics informing medical practice that I referenced before. The ethics committee report is a real-time documentation of the medical facts. Since you mention “lazy,” you really ought to look them up.
While the goal of medicine is beneficence or to “heal when possible,” the “First Principle,” is non-maleficence, “Do no harm.” Hippocrates knew what we continue to re-discover 2500 years later, that it is not always possible to heal and that patients sometimes demand inappropriate treatments that they believe will prolong or improve their lives. The Hippocratic Oath is an internal restriction on the physician which he places on himself prior to finding himself in an emotional ethical conflict with a patient. The safeguard is ethical oversight by the community. Today, that oversight comes in the form of medical ethics committees and groups such as the Texas Council of Bishops, the National Catholic Bioethics Center, the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity and the Christian Medical Association. There are also the secular bioethicists, but I prefer to take counsel from and find common ground with believers.
Thank the Lord, He is G_d, He knows who I worship and whether I bear false witness.
The facts are that Emilio’s mother lost the right to medical guardianship which allowed her to make decisions for her child thanks to her own lawyers, who seem to trust other lawyers and judges to have better medical judgment than the very doctors who kept the baby alive so long through repeated collapsed lungs, and who were expected to recruit a doctor to surgically place a tracheostomy and gastric tube. This was after the mother refused to allow the same treatment before the baby’s lungs were damaged so badly that the pressures necessary to keep those lungs inflated made the tracheostomy medically inappropriate and not “life-sustaining,” at all. In the end, the court’s guardian agreed with the doctors. And the baby died after 5 months of invasive manipulations.
Everyone reading this thread would do well to read the ethics committee’s second report on Emilio’s medical condition and the discussions by ethicists on cases such as those covered by the Texas Advance Directive Act.
From the Ethics Committee report, http://www.northcountrygazette.org/documents/PediEthicsCommitteeReport.doc :
“”In addition, he has experienced repeated full and partial collapses of his lungs, and his physicians and the treatment team are having great difficulty keeping his lungs inflated, even with the assistance of the mechanical ventilator. Finally, he is now having seizures, some of which produce visible physical symptoms, and scans (MRIs) of his head show progressive loss of brain tissue.
“”Dr. Brendle Glomb, pediatric pulmonologist, then discussed Emilio’s pulmonary status, which as noted above has continued to deteriorate. He explained the current functioning and support provided by the ventilator, and then described why Emilio would no longer benefit from a tracheostomy. He also noted that the repeated collapse and reinflation of Emilio’s lungs is damaging to the lungs, and increases the risk that they will tear or even burst during attempts at re-inflation.””
The Hippocratic Oath is no longer taken at medical schools. However, the parts that are true of the metaphorical oath that are still true, are useful to explain traditional ethics, the purpose of such oaths as self-discipline imposed by the one taking the oath, and the difference between beneficence and non-maleficence.
And anyone who reads this thread can see that you are culpable for your support an evil statute that allows innocent people to be murdered by a few incompetent hack doctors.
The facts are that Emilio’s mother...
Again, this is just one of the extreme anecdotes you referenced and is completely irrelevant to this debate. You are clearly desperate to divert this discussion away from this evil law that allows hacks like you to cut off people's life support against their expressed will.
Everyone reading this thread would do well to read the ethics committee’s second report...
They would do better to read the letter of this law and see that it allows narcissists like you to cut off people's food and water against their expressed will.
From the Ethics Committee report...
Although this morose medical description of a poor little boy must turn you on, nothing in it justifies incompetent hacks with God complexes being allowed to murder him.
The Hippocratic Oath is no longer taken at medical schools.
But you said it wasn't an oath in your post #39. Either way, it is completely irrelevant to your pathetic attempt at defending this evil law that allows hacks like you to cut off people's life support against their expressed will. This vile law is simply evil, and anyone who defends it materially participates in this evil.
We worked hard to change the 1999 law as it became apparent that some might - but no one had - interpret the law to allow the removal of food and water. The Dems blocked it by taking up time on the floor, talking about doggy parks and other nonsense, proving once again that they are “do nothings.”
The Lord is my God, He is my judge. Thank Him!
It's a shame your arrogance in your medical position kept you from working to repeal it.
The Lord is my God, He is my judge. Thank Him!
Cutting off life sustaining medical support from an innocent human life against that patient’s will is murder. Your so-called intentions, qualifications, and legal standing in no way change that. Jack Kevorkian is actually in a moral superior position to you and your ilk in that he only murders those people who want to be murdered, while you work to be able to murder people who want to live. You really ought to be ashamed of what you have written here and claimed to have done, but it is clear that your pride has overwhelmed your conscience. I will pray for you, and especially those you help to murder.
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