It is just a tip to watch out a bit as Living Wills, well intentioned as they might be, are not a panacea.
Advance directives are gaining popularity. According to a Harris Interactive survey conducted in March, two in five U.S. adults have living wills - an increase of 10 percent since 2004, the year when Terri Schiavo made headlines as her husband and her parents battled in court over removing her feeding tube. Schiavo had been in a prolonged vegetative state when her husband requested the tube be removed in 1998.
The case took seven years to resolve. A living will would have made her wishes clear, and a health care power of attorney would have dictated who she wanted to make her health care decisions for her.
ACRMC to host living wills seminar
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It is why we persevere with Terri's Legacy, the thirteen days she suffered from starvation and not a drop of water.
Thanks, wagglebee.
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Not every caregiver for a family member who is nearing the end of life will have the kind of experience that “chilled” Emery Biro when his father died last year.
But, as a Sept. 14 Vatican document acknowledges, the experience is becoming all too common.
End-of-life decisions are being influenced by a culture that is increasingly driven by cost motives and increasingly taking on a kind of moral authority that Christians believe is the province of God alone.
“Dying isn’t dead; it’s living,” said bioethicist Wesley Smith, but many hospice centers and palliative care professionals seem to overlook that truism today.
On Sept. 14, the Vatican ruled that nutrition and hydration, even if delivered by “artificial” means, cannot simply be terminated because doctors have determined that a person will never recover consciousness.
~Snip~
Beginning to suspect that the hospice was not feeding or hydrating his father, Biro spent many hours day and night in his father’s room.
After four days, he walked outside the facility and dialed 911.
“I told them: ‘My dad’s dehydrated and malnourished.’ They sent an ambulance and took him back to St. Luke’s Hospital,” Biro said.
Biro has no complaints about his father’s care at St. Luke’s Hospital. But the damage had been done, he said. “He died there six days later.”
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P.S. And great news that Dr. Kevorkian was pushed off of the calendar at U of F for now! That's what Bobby Schindler publicly requested and although it wasn't Bobby that was entirely responsible for Dr. K being off the lecture schedule at U of F for 10-11--07, I'm sure that Bobby's delighted.
FV