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Quadriplegic Quebec man chooses assisted dying after 4-day ER stay leaves horrific bedsore
CBC ^ | April 12, 2024 | Rachel Watts

Posted on 04/12/2024 7:40:56 AM PDT by heartwood

On a Thursday in January, Normand Meunier arrived at the hospital in Saint-Jérôme, Que., with a respiratory virus. Weeks later, he would emerge with a severe bedsore that would eventually lead him to seek medical assistance in dying (MAID).

Meunier, 66, had been a truck driver before a spinal cord injury in 2022 left his arms and legs paralyzed.

Before being admitted to an intensive care bed for his third respiratory virus in three months this winter, Meunier was stuck on a stretcher in the emergency room for four days. His partner, Sylvie Brosseau, says without having access to a special mattress, Meunier developed a major pressure sore on his buttocks that eventually worsened to the point where bone and muscle were exposed and visible — making his recovery and prognosis bleak.

(Excerpt) Read more at cbc.ca ...


TOPICS: Canada; Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: assistedsuicide; medicalmalpractice
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This "we have to order it" garbage.

I know a quadriplegic who was hospitalized. At least they let him stay in his air-cushion chair in the ER, and he was there eight hours. Told them from the start about the air loss mattress, oh we have to order it, they'll order it when he gets up to the floor. He never got it.

My mother was in a hospital, warehouse, for people on vents. No one is getting up to the commode. Some patients had PureWicks, a female incontinence suction device. "Oh, we'll have to order it, there are only ten on the floor." A floor with fifteen female patients. She never got it.

The mattresses and PureWick are not expensive as medical devices go. PureWick $500, airloss mattresses $2-4k. Any patient can use an air loss mattress.

Just in time inventory in hospitals means many patients never do get what they need in time. It costs lives, mobility,health, dignity. It hurts the nurses and aides as well as the patient.

And if that patient is old or disabled, maybe they'll just die, or kill themselves, or refuse to ever again go to hospital. Problem solved, eh? Just in time.

1 posted on 04/12/2024 7:40:56 AM PDT by heartwood
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To: heartwood

Golly, if the health care system is horrific enough, maybe lots of people will choose suicide and decrease the surplus population. Sounds like some government bureaucrat has come up with a plan ...


2 posted on 04/12/2024 7:42:55 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (It's not "Quiet Quitting" -- it's "Going Galt".)
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To: heartwood

Ain’t Government Medicine Grand?


3 posted on 04/12/2024 7:45:31 AM PDT by Cold_Red_Steel
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To: heartwood

Tickles the hospital pink. Now they don’t have to take care of that “horrific” bedsore...which they apparently weren’t taking care of anyway.


4 posted on 04/12/2024 7:53:23 AM PDT by moovova ("The NEXT ELECTION is the most important election of our lifetimes!“ LOL...)
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To: Cold_Red_Steel

Private medicine isn’t looking hugely better, this side of the border.


5 posted on 04/12/2024 7:54:22 AM PDT by heartwood (Someone has to play devil's advocate.)
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To: heartwood

It’s awful what one person can do to another under the cover of “health care”


6 posted on 04/12/2024 7:54:29 AM PDT by The Louiswu (Pray for Peace in the world.)
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To: heartwood

People who have never experienced or seen someone with bad bed sores really have no idea how bad they can be when they just don’t want to heal.

No I’m not advocating suicide, but it is crazy how bad they can be.

The negligence of the Hospital is beyond reproach... Sadly I suspect this persons legal remedies are limited since its Canada, and what they can sue the hospital system for for its negligence I am sure is limited at best.


7 posted on 04/12/2024 7:56:12 AM PDT by HamiltonJay
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To: heartwood

3rd respiratory virus in 3 months? Quadruple vaxxed and boosted?


8 posted on 04/12/2024 8:06:13 AM PDT by oil_dude
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To: heartwood

So they deliberately mistreated him to push him into asking to be killed.

How convenient......


9 posted on 04/12/2024 8:13:52 AM PDT by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus…)
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To: heartwood
Triage in action. When resources are limited, you decide who needs it most and direct them there.

The truck driver has an incurable condition, he's never getting out of that bed (apparently), so resources went to someone who might. It's a cruel policy, especially when it's your loved one getting denied.

Your mother's case is less clear. What was her prognosis? Her social credit score?

10 posted on 04/12/2024 8:22:53 AM PDT by ZOOKER (Until further notice the /s is implied...)
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To: heartwood

This is single-payer healthcare, also known as Medicare for All. It is what Obamacare (Affordable Healthcare Act) was meant to move us to.

It’s a pretty good system... as long as you never get sick and need actual medical care.


11 posted on 04/12/2024 8:28:46 AM PDT by unlearner (I, Robot: I think I finally understand why Dr. Lanning created me... ;-)
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To: heartwood

This is why the most used hospital by Canadians in the world is in Detroit, Michigan, Henry Ford Health.

https://www.henryford.com/visitors/international-patients/canadian-patients#:~:text=Canadian%20patients%20turn%20to%20Henry,care%20that‘s%20close%20to%20home.

wy69


12 posted on 04/12/2024 8:29:45 AM PDT by whitney69 (yption tunnels)
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To: heartwood

In Canada,like Britain,*everyone* has the right to wait 12 months for a hip replacement....8 months for a heart operation...and 6 months to see a cancer specialist.If I was living up there with any kind of chronic condition I’d probably choose “early checkout” too.


13 posted on 04/12/2024 8:32:56 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Proudly Clinging To My Guns And My Religion)
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To: heartwood

I wonder if sooner or later US Medicare doctors will tell a patient who is over 75 you do not qualify for an expensive drug or surgery to treat your condition so just use over the counter meds and then charge Medicare $200 fot that “treatment”.


14 posted on 04/12/2024 8:34:47 AM PDT by antidemoncrat
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To: HamiltonJay

You are right. Which is why one of the priorities in a decent health care setting is the prevention of bedsores. This man’s ordeal is totally inexcusable and warrants heads on gurneys.


15 posted on 04/12/2024 8:42:59 AM PDT by lastchance (Cognovit Dominus qui sunt eius.)
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To: oil_dude

Sounds familiar. Our family has gone through the same thing.


16 posted on 04/12/2024 9:09:43 AM PDT by antidemoncrat
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To: antidemoncrat

Sorry, only vaxed twice.


17 posted on 04/12/2024 9:11:51 AM PDT by antidemoncrat
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To: heartwood

I wonder if sooner or later US Medicare doctors will tell a patient who is over 75 you do not qualify for an expensive drug or surgery to treat your condition so just use over the counter meds and then charge Medicare $200 for that “treatment”.


18 posted on 04/12/2024 9:12:31 AM PDT by antidemoncrat
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To: heartwood

Yet Canadian politicians love to use our system...


19 posted on 04/12/2024 9:35:26 AM PDT by Cold_Red_Steel
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To: Cold_Red_Steel

Anyone who thinks that socialized medicine ought to ask a veteran who has had to deal with the VA.


20 posted on 04/12/2024 10:13:45 AM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money. - M. Thatcher)
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