Saturday, October 27, 2012

UK govt agrees to investigate "death pathway"

Article below regarding abuse of the Liverpool Pathway, from Michael Cook of Bio Edge.

A problem also in the US and Canada.  See, for example, Kate Kelly's article about her mother and "VSED" by
clicking here

With some doctors abusing the power they already have with the Liverpool Pathway, etc., why would you give them more power to effect patient death, i.e., by legalizing assisted suicide and/or euthanasia?

The problem will only get worse.


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http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/bioethics_article/10293
by Michael Cook | Oct 27, 2012 |

Pressure from the British media has forced an investigation into the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway by National Health Service and the Association of Palliative Medicine.

The medical establishment appears very reluctant to question the LCP. Only a few days ago 22 organisations signed a consensus statement supporting it. It quoted the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Health,
Earl Howe:

"The Liverpool Care Pathway has sometimes been accused of being a way of withholding treatment, including hydration and nutrition. That is not the case. It is used to prevent dying patients from having the distress of receiving treatment or tests that are not beneficial and that may in fact cause harm rather than good."

But the campaign by the Daily Mail and the Telegraph has been relentless. "When well over 100,000 are dying on the LCP each year, the suspicion inevitably arises that the pathway is being used to hasten death and free up beds," said the
Daily Mail in an editorial.

Neurologist Patrick Pullicino contends that the LCP has made euthanasia a "standard way of dying on the NHS".
He and his supporters were scathing about the consensus statement: 

"It is self-evident that stopping fluids whilst giving narcotics and sedatives hastens death... The median time to death on the Liverpool Care Pathway is now 29 hours. Statistics show that even patients with terminal cancer and a poor prognosis may survive months or more if not put on the LCP."

The investigation coordinated by the NHS will examine poor experiences under the LCP, which everyone acknowledges do happen. The NHS will talk to family members of people who have died on the pathway, investigate complaints and speak with clinicians. "Poor experiences must be explored, acknowledged and learnt from," says
Professor Mayur Lakhani, Chair of the Dying Matters Coalition.

Will the investigation result in a thorough revision of the LCP? Even though the medical establishment admits that there are problems, it may not admit that they are due to the basic framework. The
Consultant Nurses in Palliative Care Reference Group is already interpreting criticisms as dangerous and offensive. "Counter-productive comments", it says, are "deeply offensive to public servants who abide by clear codes of conduct and the law".

Las Vegas Man Sentenced After Assisted Suicide

http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/article_05c7fdd6-1fc4-11e2-9b32-001a4bcf6878.html

Posted: Friday, October 26, 2012 6:22 pm | Updated: 6:30 pm, Fri Oct 26, 2012.
Jared Taylor, Twitter: @jaredataylor The Monitor

McALLEN -  A federal judge sent to prison a Las Vegas man convicted of smuggling powerful animal tranquilizers from Mexico used in an assisted suicide in Nuevo Progreso.

Chief U.S. District Judge Ricardo Hinojosa sentenced Jeff George Ostfeld to six years in federal prison Wednesday, after he pleaded guilty to importation of a controlled substance.

But after the assisted suicide in Mexico, Hinojosa opted to follow sentencing guidelines for Ostfeld under a charge of voluntary manslaughter - not the drug charge.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Ostfeld in May 2009 as he attempted to smuggle animal tranquilizers across the Progreso International Bridge.

The arrest came moments after Mexican police discovered the body of 32-year-old Jennifer Malone at a Nuevo Progreso motel.

Ostfeld shot video of Malone as she died, investigators said. He retrieved some of her personal effects and abandoned her body in the motel room.

Mexican investigators found an empty bottle of Barbithal and a book about depression beside the body of Malone, of Roseburg, Ore.,  according to Monitor archives. The same drug was found by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers as Ostfeld tried to return to the United States.

Ostfeld told ICE agents he had flown from Las Vegas to McAllen to buy animal tranquilizers in Nuevo Progreso for resale in the United States. The drug can sell for as little as $20 per bottle in Mexico, but can net as much as $5,000 north of the Rio Grande.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Canada: Crown files opening brief in Carter

Assisted suicide too risky, allowing it demeans value of life, federal gov't says

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Assisted+suicide+risky+allowing+demeans+value+life+federal+says/7447066/story.html

The Canadian Press October 25, 2012 12:30 PM
 
VANCOUVER - The federal government says allowing doctor-assisted suicide demeans the value of life and puts vulnerable people at risk in moments of weakness.

Ottawa has filed its arguments in an appeal of a B.C. decision that struck down the prohibition on doctor-assisted suicide, arguing the trial judge was wrong to conclude the law is unconstitutional.

In documents filed with the B.C. Court of Appeal, the government says the law reflects a reasonable belief that allowing assisted suicide would put vulnerable people at risk of being coerced or even forced to end their lives.

The government says the law reflects Parliament's desire to discourage and prevent suicide in all cases, and it should be up to lawmakers, not the courts, to decide if that needs to change.

Ottawa argues the Supreme Court of Canada's 1993 decision upholding the law in a case involving Sue Rodriguez was final.

The B.C. case was launched by several plaintiffs, including Gloria Taylor, who won a constitutional exemption from the law but died earlier this month without resorting to assisted suicide.
Read more:
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Assisted+suicide+risky+allowing+demeans+value+life+federal+says/7447066/story.html#ixzz2AM32CGOR

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Legalization And Violent Deaths


By Margaret Dore

Assisted suicide proponents claim that legal assisted suicide will prevent violent deaths such as those by murder-suicide and suicide involving a handgun.[1] In Oregon where assisted-suicide has been legal since 1997, murder-suicide has not been eliminated.[2]  Indeed, murder-suicides follow "the national pattern."[3]  As discussed below, suicides involving a handgun have also not been eliminated.  Oregon's suicide rate has instead increased with legalization of assisted suicide.

Oregon’s overall suicide rate, which excludes suicides under Oregon’s assisted suicide act, is 35% above the national average.[4] This rate has been "increasing significantly since 2000."[5]  Just three years prior, in 1997, Oregon legalized physician-assisted suicide.[6] Other suicides thus increased, not decreased, with legalization of assisted suicide.  Moreover, many of these deaths are violent.  For 2007, which is the most recent year reported, "[f]irearms were the dominant mechanism of suicide among men."[7] The claim that legalization will prevent violent deaths is without factual support.

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[1]  See e.g. Lindsey Anderson, Associated Press, "Mass. Voters Consider Physician-Assisted Suicide," October 20, 2012, at http://www.wbur.org/2012/10/20/physician-assisted-suicide ("Dr. Marcia Angell ... believes [her father] would've lived longer and not turned to a pistol had assisted suicide been available").
[2]  See Don Colburn, "Recent murder-suicides follow the national pattern," The Oregonian, November 17, 2009 ("In the span of one week this month in the Portland area, three murder-suicides resulted in the deaths of six adults and two children") (Available at http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2009/11/recent_murder-suicides_follow.html); Baldr Odinson, "Fourth Murder-Suicide for the Eugene Area," New Trajectory:  A blog for Ceasefire Oregon, March 2, 2011, ("Harry Hanus, age 74, shot and killed his wife, Barbara, before taking his own life")

Monday, October 22, 2012

Canada: Russian bride leaves elderly man with $25 K welfare bill

Another example of an older person who was easily persuaded to act in someone else's best interests, not his own. The Canadian government, instead of helping him, is billing him.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/russian-bride-leaves-elderly-man-25k-welfare-bill-094830580.html


An 82-year-old B.C. pensioner is on the hook to the government for $25,000, after marrying a Russian woman who left him the day after she got permanent resident status in Canada.
“Several times I thought I will have a nervous breakdown over this,” said Heinz Munz, of Black Creek.
Munz said he believes his now ex-wife used him, with the help of her daughter, to get legal status in Canada. He is going public because the B.C. government is now forcing him to pay for social assistance she collected after she left.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Massachusetts: Bob Joyce on Elder Abuse, etc. - Vote No on Question 2

Dear Editor:

It's not clear why The Bulletin titled Joe Galeota's recent column as it did ["Terrible," October 11, 2012].

If it's because the column offered no information about the content of the physician-prescribed suicide referendum, I agree. That is terrible. . . .

Let's get serious, and consider just a few of the many reasons why voters should defeat this flawed bill.

The referendum shockingly increases the risk of abuse to elders, many of whom do not have loving families and/or have lost their circle of friends and/or have no one to advocate for them. We should consider that Massachusetts had 19,500 reported cases of elder abuse in 2011. There are insufficient elder abuse investigators to keep up with the 54 new cases reported each day. One study has suggested that there are 23.5 unreported cases for every one reported case.

The referendum does not even provide the level of protection required when a person signs a will in Massachusetts (i.e., two disinterested witnesses), and there is absolutely no oversight at the time the lethal drugs would be administered. 

The Massachusetts Medical Society, representing more than 24,000 physicians and medical students, opposes the bill. So does the American Medical Society.

Insurance companies, hospitals and governmental medical providers have a clear and compelling financial interest in denying us of adequate end-of-life care.

How much do you trust insurers, hospitals and governments? Unless you answer "with my life," you should oppose physician-prescribed suicide and vote NO on Question Two.

It would indeed be "terrible"  if we allow this referendum to pass!

Robert W. Joyce