Posted on 06/30/2011 8:59:07 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Dementia sufferers are being killed by doctors in Holland under the country’s euthanasia laws, official figures are to reveal.
A total of 21 patients with early-stage dementia, including Alzheimer’s, died by lethal injection last year, according to a forthcoming annual report.
This is the first time dementia sufferers have been included in the country’s euthanasia statistics.
None of the cases is thought to have involved any illegal act on the part of health professionals, and each time the patient was considered capable of giving their consent.
But the figures have caused alarm among critics who say the pool of patients who qualify for euthanasia in the Netherlands is expanding.
The figures, which are due to be formally released later in the summer, were leaked on NOS, the state television news channel
The NOS report included video footage of Alzheimer’s sufferer Guusje de Koning, 63, explaining to her children why she wanted to die at the hands of her doctor.
She said she had witnessed her own father’s slow decline and death through the illness, adding: ‘I don’t want that. I don’t want to suffer.’
Euthanasia advocates are using her story to promote the idea that euthanasia for dementia sufferers is a suitable way to avoid suffering and the expensive healthcare.
A series of public meetings have been held over the last year to encourage the elderly to learn about their ‘right’ to die, even if they are in good health but afraid of what might happen if they are diagnosed with dementia in the future.
But the practice of assisted suicide for dementia patients remains controversial. While some 95 per cent of Holland’s population support the country’s euthanasia laws, only 33 per cent of Dutch doctors agree with offering lethal injections to dementia sufferers.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
“so I won’t have to do it myself”, this is quite a shocking statement to make. You sir, sound like a true coward. Let someone else go to hell for the deed. Wow. Glad I’m not one of your patients.
First they came for the demented...
Are these the same people who oppose the death penalty; and vehemently so if the perp is a “mentally ill” psychopathic serial killing rapist?
“I hope some one will show me the mercy I would give my dog or horse so I won’t have to do it myself.”
So you would put that burden on them.
“Uncle Adolf would be proud!”
He would be; the Axis lost WWII on the battlefield, but the Nazis certaily won the peace. Their “culture” thrives, while that of the Western allies perished. 65 years ago abortion was one the crimes against humanity at Nuremberg; now WWII’s “victors” celebrate it as the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Wonder what they get for body parts?Obamacare to ensue.
China has nice vans where they lay you on a table to finish you off, and then take your organs (it is assumed) - rather than the dirty method of a firing squad (for the undesirables, of course).
“Why, so you can evade personal responsibility?”
no, because, in my experience, as people become demented and want to be relieved of their suffering they are now too incompetent to do it right.
I have never understood why extending suffering, torture really, and preventing a person from reaching their seat at the right hand of God, is some how better than showing true mercy and relieving a person of unbearable agony.
I guess that is why religions are declining in America and elsewhere, the inability of the people to mind their own business and to continuously inflict their believes on others.
Because history has proved that the people who define 'suffering', 'torture' and 'unbearable agony' ultimately prevail over the wishes of those actually enduring the 'suffering', 'torture' and 'unbearable agony'. IOW, your 'quality of life' is determined for you and that is often contrary to your own opinions and wishes.
"I guess that is why religions are declining in America and elsewhere, the inability of the people to mind their own business and to continuously inflict their believes on others."
Somebody is always 'inflicting their believes'. After all, aren't you arguing that your 'believes' should prevail? The only question is, "Whose believes [sic] will we live under?"
How much longer before they decide Christianity and Judaism are mental illnesses and start rounding poeople up?
Baroness Warnock: Dementia sufferers may have a 'duty to die'
Interesting take on TxDas' point of view.
If, years before I have dementia or some other terminal disease, I execute a living will specifying my wishes, how is that dodging personal responsibility for myself? On the contrary, I'd be a vegetable and not know or care what was going around me, but it would be my family with the burden of caring and paying for me. Why should I push that responsibility off onto them? How selfish.
I lost both of my parents to cancer, and I watched them suffer a slow, lingering, and painful death. At the end they were in hospice, where they were given morphine for pain, but were allowed to continue to suffer until they passed away.
My wishes would be that when I'm at the point of being in hospice's care in the final stages of death, that instead of morphine I would be given something that would put me to sleep and end my suffering.
It is easy to turn this into Nazi-era killing of people because they might get sick, but until you witness the real suffering - twice - that goes on for weeks and months, you'd hope for something a little less painful at the end of your own life.
Nah, there's no such thing as death panels, just progressive diagnosis & treatment.
as people become demented and want to be relieved of their suffering they are now too incompetent to do it right.
-= - - - - - -
You are ASSUMING they ‘want to be relived of their suffering’. I have seen cancer patients who have suffered much more than dementia patients. In fact, until they get to end stage and are in nursing homes that STARVE AND DEHYDRATE THEM, they aren’t suffering at all. No more than a 3 yr old.
They can be curious, playful, and even (gasp) fun to be around. I had one patient (2.5 yrs) that wouldn’t do her physical therapy, but she would mimic me and she would dance. So I did the excercise and she copied me, then we would cha-cha down the hallway, tango to the kitchen, waltzed to the bedroom. We didnt’ walk, we danced. We fingerpainted and played with playdoh. I bought her kids makeup so she could still safely put on makeup every day. I helped her bathe, dress, gave her her meds (told her they were vitamins), took her to the doctor.
Her last 2.5 yrs on earth were a joy for her and her husband. He saw her loved and cared for. She was still a wife/mother who was loved, not a statistic.
IMO, you need a different line of work.
No religion is declining because of idiots like you who want to play God.
God has the power to give and take life, not you.
I hate to point out the obvious, but demented persons, being unaware, have no dignity to lose. Likewise, demented persons would be only capable of unintentional self-harm, not suicide.
From your comments, it appears that you are projecting present feelings of disgust toward the disabled into a hypothetical and counter-factual future. Should the viewer or the object be more ashamed by this disgust?
When my Father had his stroke and was paralyzed and unable to talk I watched tears run from his eyes as the medical staff talked about his condition in front of him like he was not there. They kept him on life support for 2 weeks, despite his living will asking for no heroics, until they had exhausted his medical benefits and then let him die from kidney failure 7 hours
I can assure you we can keep a ham sandwich “alive” indefinitely we want.
So I changed my career. I realized stroke and dementia are untreatable. However, at that time, 10+% of strokes happened during surgery. So I figured if I could prevent strokes, like the one that happened to my father, then I would have accomplished something worthwhile. So for the past 25 years I have dedicated my life and career to improving neurological outcomes following cardiac and orthopedic surgery. When I started, 5% of patients undergoing cardiopulmonary bypass had disabling strokes and 80% had evidence of brain injury.
My last analysis shows we have reduced obvious stroke to less than 1% and neurobehavioral deficits to under 10%. We did this by modifying how we deliver blood to the brain, how we manipulate the aorta, minimizing the use of blood products and improved monitoring. That is about 50,000 fewer strokes per year in the USA alone compared to 1990.
So I ask my critics - what have you done to alleviate human suffering and the indignity of debilitating neurologic decline other than assume the moral high ground? Held hands? Candle light vigils? Prayer? What other than bitching?
I (along with Mrreganaut) have devoted most of my life in caring for those who cannot care for themselves. What have I done? I have quit jobs to care for family members with dementia, I have moved, I have bathed, clothed, loved, cleaned up incontinence. I have made them feel loved and cared for. I have worked professionally caring for people whose children could or would not. I have been in the trenches every single day. I have made their last years as comfortable and joyous as they could be. MrR has been beside me, helping and supporting for since we were in High School and I had dropped out to go to college because it was easier to care for my Great-grandfather (Alzhiemer’s 17 years).
What I haven’t done is what you are doing, saying they would be better off dead because they are an inconvenience to others.
So, your claim of moral superiority falls flat with us.
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