Posted on 07/11/2013 11:20:28 AM PDT by Brian Kopp DPM
NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE www.nationalreview.com
A Canadian woman directed that she be refused medical treatment, and indeed, that she be euthanized if she had Alzheimer’s and could not recognize her children. She has the disease and is spoon fed. But the family wants that stopped.. From the National Post story:
According to Ms. Hammond, she is lifted into and out of bed with a hoist, spends her time virtually motionless in a wheelchair and is kept alive only through regular spoon-feeding. “She’s not taking it by choice, that’s clear,” said Dr. Andrew Edelson, Ms. Bentley’s doctor, who suspects the whole feeding process is purely reflex. “She doesn’t have the ability to make choice and if she had the ability to make choice, she would refuse; she’d clamp her mouth shut and nobody would try to feed her,” he said.
Under typical circumstances, Ms. Bentley would already be dead. Metro Vancouver has no shortage of seniors who have drawn up explicit end-of-life directives and do-not-resuscitate orders, and those are usually respected, according to Dr. Edelson. “I’ve spoken with a fair number of health professionals about this case, and everybody is dismayed, to say the least; we’re shocked that this is happening,” he said.
Baloney. She isn’t being forced onto medical machines, given unwanted CPR, or indeed, being fed by tube. She is alive because her body hasn’t shut down and she can eat and drink. Under these circumstances it would be shocking–and criminal–if a medical team withheld food and water from a helpless woman capable of–and actually taking–nourishment.
This is a classic case of mixing apples and oranges. People have the right to direct that medical treatment be denied, but spoon feeding isn’t medical treatment. It is humane care–the least we owe everyone.
Are we now going to allow vulnerable patients to be denied food and water when the can–and are–eating? And can you imagine forcing medical staffers to be complicit in an intentional starvation/dehydration under these circumstances?
If she eats, she eats. If she drinks, she drinks. Nobody should have the power to order themselves starved in advance when they can take food and water through natural means.
The headline says that starving her–again, when she is eating on her own!–would be to allow her to “die with dignity.” Culture of death, Wesley? What culture of death?
>> Under these circumstances it would be shocking–and criminal–if a medical team withheld food and water from a helpless woman capable of–and actually taking–nourishment.
Agreed.
ping
Pro-life alert?
My Grandmother unfortunately (for her) lived till 101 and one nurses aid from Trinidad was so obnoxiously bossy that grandma refused to eat as a protest, till she left.
Then a few years later granny just refused to wake up most of the time, for >2years before death.
So, she eats and wants to eat, she drinks and wants to drink, but because she can’t hold the fork or cup herself, it’s ok to kill her?
Where is her family in all this?
Slope meet grease
At least here in the states (I don’t know about Canada), one can make all those decisions ahead of time. If you do not want nourishment given that can be part of the over all orders that one establishes with ones doctor and power of attorney for health care.
If you want somethings and not others, say so. if you really and truly want nothing except palliative care, say so. Have the discussion with your doc. Make appropriate plans and put them in a legal document. Let your family know. That’s all it takes
And when she did end up that way I carried out her wishes, would do it again, and I have the same stipulations in my own legal papers.
Apparently that's not all it takes. Did you read the article? This woman in question had a living will. The nursing home shamefully refuses to honor it.
In fact, after spoon feeding becomes unworkable, I have found from personal experience that by using a large, wide mouth straw, like the ones you can’t get with giant refillable soft drinks in New York anymore, voluntary feeding can continue with an Alzheimer’s patient for as much as an additional year. (Our hospice folks learned a few things from us.)
As a caregiver to my step mom, I would suck her food into the wide straw, then offer her the straw (bottom end), holding it up a bit so that she did not have to fight gravity to suck some in.
My dad and I used a patient lift to get her down to large Lazy Boy recliner with a couple layers of 3” memory foam mattress topper on top of it, in our family room each day.
That memory foam is great stuff and goes a long way towards preventing bed sore problems. We sewed a sheet cover to fit over the two layers of memory foam that we cut to fit the recliner. (and an “accident pad” on top of that to prevent soiling.)
The recliner allowed us to easily position her for eating, resting or sitting up with us all day. We would move her back to the hospital bed (with a similar memory foam set-up) next to dad’s bed for the night.
We managed to keep her comfortable and smiling to the end, which was, of course, our mission.
I can't believe FReepers on this thread are actually advocating euthanizing this woman. Food and water are basic human rights, not medical interventions that can be withdrawn at whim. Withholding food and water from a patient able to eat from a spoon is homicide. Feeding someone is not a "life-saving measure." Its simple human decency.
No health care worker or facility has any obligation under traditional Judeo-Christian medical ethics to assist a patient in suicide.
To claim otherwise illustrates once more the real dangers of radical libertarianism.
We better all wake up to this active euthanasia or soon we too are going to be coerced into a duty to die under ObamaCare rationing of care.
How is setting forth one's specific wishes, in advance, in a legally-binding document, "at a whim"?
Withholding food and water from a patient able to eat from a spoon is homicide.
No - despite your hyperbole, it is not. Not when that person has instructed as much in their living will and/or with their power-of-attorney. People have a legal right, in advance, to refuse such measures.
Feeding someone is not a "life-saving measure." Its simple human decency.
My mother, who could no longer walk, talk, sit upright, feed herself & was constantly soiling herself would have a different definition of "decency".
you cannot ask others to kill you. Especially doctors should never kill on purpose.
she wants someone to murder her.
There is no euthanasia when the patient’s family let the hospital staff know that the staff’s health is dependent on the patient’s health. They generally do not have to be blunt about it, just drop several hints.
If they try bringing up the subject of euthanasia, act like you didn’t hear their question, but a different one:
“Your grandmother is suffering with her ingrown toenail. It would be best if she was allowed a natural death instead of having to continue to suffer.”
“Yes, you do have a very nice house there on Oak Street, very close to where your kids go to school. Conveniently located.”
They are not stupid people, so they usually get the message.
its murder.
No, it's not. Saying things over and over again do not make them true.
If it's murder, then why are there not thousands (millions?) of people in prison for carrying out their power-of-attorney duties in this way?
Why are there not thousands of attorneys out there being disbarred and/or put in prison for their role in drafting and implementing living wills?
Why are there not countless hospital and nursing home employees imprisoned for not force-feeding dying patients?
Because it is not murder.
just because its legal.... like abortion... does not mean its not murder
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