Saying No to the Culture of Death - attempted_euthanasia

The case of Andrea Clark

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Thu, 04 May 2006 14:59:47 +1000

Andrea Clarke is a 54 year old Texas woman who was in St. Lukes Hospital. She had been seriously ill after she had open heart surgery in January. The ethics committee at St. Lukes decided to pull the plug on Andrea, because she was on life support and dialysis. Her family stated clearly that Andrea wanted to live and they had to try and find a hospital that would take and treat Andrea. Fortunately a doctor who believes in the Hippocratic Oath has taken on Andrea's case and she has been transferred to another hospital. Since her transfer, Andrea's condition has been improving.

As information has been hitting the net concerning Andrea's case I have learned that she was a blue baby, that is she was born with a hole in the heart, and that she need heart surgery when she was very young. This condition had left her somewhat weak. She is a widow and she has a 23 year old son. I cannot imagine how this son felt when he was told by the doctors at St. Lukes that they did not want to continue with Andrea's treatment. It must have been devastating to him to hear that his mother was being given a certain death sentence by a group of doctors who did not know how to manage this woman's condition. Fortunately, the family retained Jerry Ward as their lawyer and it was Jerry who sparked a series of legal moves that prevented St. Lukes going ahead with their plan.

St. Luke's hospital has been working under the legislation that was signed by George W. Bush in 1999. Under this legislation, once the ethics committee decides that further treatment for the patient is futile there is a 10 day period in which the family is left to try and find another facility to take the patient and to continue the care. This legislation should have been providing protection for the families where there is no advance directive but what has been happening is that these faceless ethics committees have been making decisions that are heart wrenching for the families concerned. The decisions are in fact quite ruthless because they are giving the patient a certain death sentence.

It is not clear what the motivation might have been in the Clark case, because Andrea is covered by health insurance. That does not exclude the possibility that the HMO was placing pressure on the hospital because of the cost of Andrea's care. On the other hand it could be that the doctors at St. Lukes are incompetent when it comes to looking after a patient like Andrea Clark.

The number of cases that are being classed as futile are on the rise. Maybe, in some cases this is true. However, there is a lot of stinging criticism that the hospitals have been discriminating against the poorer members of society in Texas and that the death sentence is being carried out on poor black folks. If there is any truth to this criticism then more people should be shouting about the injustice of this new system.

Most of the cases that I have heard about have been a mixture of white, Asians and black people. It would seem that the ones who lose their loved ones to an untimely death are those who are poor blacks. This suggests that there is a racist bias in these decisions, and it also suggests that the poor are not being treated equally with those who are better off as far as income is concerned. This is a reason to be very concerned about the way in which doctors have abandoned the Hippocratic Oath. Once the Hippocratic Oath had been abandoned by new doctors, the quality of health care that is being offered to the poor has dissipated to a new low. Instead of taking all steps to bring a person back to health, doctors are indulging in quality of life decisions, which are at best, discriminatory in that they are based upon the beliefs of the person who is making the decision, not upon what the person who is facing certain death might think or believe.

The Texas legislation was meant to protect people who did not want to be put to death by furtive euthanasia methods, but instead of helping this legislation has led to more and more cases of furtive euthanasia because these faceless ethics committees are making choices about the healthcare of a patient, decreeing that further care is futile, when in fact the doctors have not been following the proper life saving protocols.

Yes, it is definitely time that there is a rethink about how healthcare is being provided. It is time that the standard of healthcare for all was raised. There is a lot that needs to be done to improve the standards of healthcare, and that includes pharmacology costs. Some medications are hellishingly expensive and I do believe that the pharmaceutical companies need to be held accountable for those costs. There is a lot of money that goes into research and development, but once these drugs are out of the R & D phase, and they have been approved by the proper authorities, then the company should be bringing down the cost of those drugs to the public. There is no real need to assign R&D to the most common drugs. There is also no need for the prohibitively high cost of drugs that are required for people with Arthritis, especially the new anti-TNF drugs. Once these drugs are being produced in sufficient quantities the price should be dropping. The same goes for equipment that is being used daily in the hospitals, for once the cost of the equipment is depreciated then that cost is no longer applicable to patient care, after all that equipment is a capital cost. This leaves the cost of nursing care, as well as that of the doctors. If the doctors are employed by the hospitals, then they are salaried staff, and their time is spent with multiple patients, again that means that high costs for patient care is not necessary. It would seem that certain costs are being factored into what is being charged for a patient that is unreasonable.

This is very relevant to a case such as that of Andrea Clark. The doctors at St. Lukes were failing in their duty to give her the best of care that would see her recovering from her operation. Instead of doing their best to ensure that she survived and became a viable member of society they were too prepared to hand her a death sentence, proclaiming that further treatment was futile. Since she has been in the hands of this other doctor she has begun to improve and that means that the ethics committee at St. Lukes need to do some serious soul searching about how they are arriving at their decisions to end the lives of patients who are temporarily on life support.

It Takes Dedication

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 14:19:26 +1000

It was in February that I finally received a diagnosis of Ankylosing Spondylitis. Personally, I feel very much at peace now that I have a name for what has been happening over a very long time period. Now that I know what is wrong, I have begun the task of making my muscles and ligaments conditioned. It is not an easy task, especially when I have those days of feeling depressed. My resolve has finally taken me to the local retirement village where I have access to a heated hydrotherapy pool. It was here that I met for the first time a woman that I will call Chen (not her real name), an elderly Chinese woman who has been paralysed as a result of a possible stroke. My friends at the retirement village have informed me that Chen has been coming to the centre for at least the last 5 years, and that when she first arrived Chen looked like she was a vegetable.

Since I have been attending the hydrotherapy centre, I have seen some very steady progress in Chen's condition. I must admit to feeling a certain amount of delight at seeing her progress. Since I have seen Chen on most days when I have been visiting, I have been offering her that little bit of encouragement so that she will have the incentive to continue with the progress. Chen may not understand too much in the way of English, and she just looks at me and smiles, but she understands that I am very pleased to see how she has been progressing.

What is remarkable about Chen's story is that over a period of 5 years she has had some very dedicated helpers who have been assisting her on the road to recovery. My friends informed me that Chen's condition when she first came was not that great, and yes, the way that they described her condition reminded me instantly of the condition of Terri Schindler-Schiavo. When I see Chen I have to ask what progress could have been made with Terri if she had been given the opportunity to receive the same amount of therapy that comes from the assistance of a very dedicated group of people. Chen's helpers have been coming from China for a short stay, and as my friends put it, some have stayed a long time and some have stayed only a short time. The woman who is assisting at the moment has been working every day with Chen and she has been making a big difference. The man who accompanies Chen seems to give her a lot of confidence to try that much harder. Chen is now walking down the ramp and into the water. She is walking across the pool and back again - several times. She is walking, with assistance, whilst she is outside of the pool.

It is obvious to me that Chen's family think that her life is precious and they did not give up on her when she was in such a severe state. It has taken a lot of time and dedication to bring this woman to the point where she is at the moment, such that she can at least respond with a big toothy smile when one speaks to her. Every person who was in the same state as Chen deserves that same chance for at least some quality of life. So long as quack doctors such as the alleged neurologist Crandon, and bioethicists such as Peter Singer, Bill Allen and others just like them continue to push their particular agenda, people will be killed whilst the system looks the other way.

This brings up the kind of situation that was faced by Therese Marie Schindler-Schiavo. Considering the amount of corruption that happens in the Pinellas County Courthouse, and the fact that judges and lawyers always look after their own, it should have been no surprise that the justices who were asked to look at the case with fresh eyes refused to do as they were requested by an act of the Federal Government of the USA. Not one of the justices who voted against the life of Terri deserve their position as judges in the American Law System. If anything this case has shown exactly how corrupt the whole system has become, due to the cosiness of all of the men and women involved in the case. Suspicion does not begin and end with Michael Schiavo, George Felos, George Greer or a number of others. They are all complicit in what took place and they are all complicit in the conspiracy to murder by judicial decree an innocent disabled woman who was denied her civil rights.

There are many avenues that need to be investigated to get to the bottom of this particular case, especially when there has been so much in the way of corruption involved in the State of Florida. Not even the current governor can walk away with clean hands because he also failed to act in a way that would protect this woman's life as she was forced to starve and dehydrate to death. Was there evidence of abuse? If not physical abuse, I believe that there was sufficient evidence of psychological abuse to have Michael Schiavo up on charges for the harm that he inflicted upon the woman to whom he had pledged to be wed until death. It sounds rather ominous to even pronounce that the wedding vows include the line "Until death do we part". Yes, it is very ominous and this is something that is being used to give spouses the upper hand over what will be the outcome for the incapacitated partner. Should it be that way? Absoutely not!!

There is one man, Richard Pearse, who had been appointed as Terri's Guardian Ad Litem, and he had to write a report regarding Schiavo's initial request to end his late wife's life. Richard Pearse picked up that there was something wrong in the request that was being made because of the significant interest that Schiavo had in getting his hands on the money that was awarded to his his late wife for her rehabilitation. He was the only lawyer appointed by the court who was astute enough to recognize the huge conflict of interest that had arisen. Schiavo had himself appointed as Terri's guardian. He made sure that he was appointed by pulling a trick on her parents at a time when they were vulnerable - that is when they were at the hospital and concerned about whether at that stage Terri would live or die. Schiavo was to use that trick to prevent Terri from having contact with her parents. He also used that trick to prevent people seeing the medical records from the hospital so that they could not call into question the lawsuit that he initiated against Terri's doctors for the alleged failure to diagnose a condition that she did not have - bulimia nervosa.

The co-conspirator in all of this was George Greer. For a long time, prior to the Schiavo case, Greer had been very slipshod in the way that he handled matters within the probate courts, especially as it pertained to the Guardianship laws of Florida. It seems that Greer has had a nice little racket going in Florida, where the lawyers who have had themselves appointed as guardians over elderly strangers have been doing very well thank you very much with the proceeds of the estates of their clients. It is this same Guardianship Association that was allegedly formed to ensure that the guardians were being trained and that they were behaving in a professional manner who awarded Michael Schiavo the Guardian of the Year award for 2005, after he finally succeeded in murdering his wife. This judicially approved murder allows them to continue plying their trade of capturing the unaware amongst the wealthy elderly individuals who now reside in Florida. Once a person is declared mentally incompetent and requiring a guardian, then no one, not even family members can overturn that decision. It is as if there is simply no way in which a person will be successful in having a case reviewed. This flaw in the justice system has allowed these lawyers who are out for a quick buck to go out and seek the most vulnerable citizens who are residing in nursing homes, having them brought before the courts and declared incompetent, and having themselves placed over them as guardians, giving them access to that person's estate. At least one person has been bled dry by these legal leeches, and then been forced to die (not Terri Schiavo), so that the guardian could get the remainder of the estate.

The ethics of the manner in which these legal guardians go about their business is very questionable. However, equally questionable are the ethics of the bioethicists and the neurosurgeons such as the quack doctor Ron Cranford who have their own set of criteria for who should live and who should die. In the case of Cranford, he is willing to fly anywhere in the USA to appear as an expert witness, even though he is not the attending doctor, and he is willing to have the person who is incapacitated declared as not worthy to continue living. His extremely questionable ethics are the focus of the Schiavo case, as well as that of Robert Wedland and Nancy Cruzan. In the case of Nancy Cruzan, that girl was in fact being spoon fed, but Cranford declared that spoon feeding should be seen as medical treatment and on that extremely suspicious ground, he was able to convince the judge that Nancy could be condemned to a death of starvation and dehydration. Robert Wedland was even able to move around in a wheelchair, yet Cranford claimed that this man was in a permananet vegetative state. Fortunately the court did not agree with Cranford in that case and Wedland managed to survive his wife's efforts to kill him.

Terri's case is not unique at all. In fact there are thousands of people just like Terri who have relatives and friends who are keen to see them dead. Not all people have realised the implications of agreeing to sign a living will either. The signature on a consent form can mean that a person who is still breathing can be forced to die. Doctors who lack good ethics may see this as an opportunity to harvest the organs from that person, and so they will attempt to hasten the death. In other situations, a husband or wife whose first attempt at murder went wrong can cover up his own wrong doing by forcing the other spouse to undergo death via dehydration and starvation. It is useless to claim that Terri Schindler-Schiavo had made such a request, because anyone who has studied the court transcripts as well as the interview transcripts should be intelligent enough to spot the discrepancies, and the wildness of the claims as they became more and more fabricated over time. In the Schiavo case, the truth came from Cindy Brasher, who stated in a sworn affidavit that Michael Schiavo, at the time of Terri's accident, did not know what Terri would want. It would seem that this man who did not even remember the date on which he got married had this sudden memory of an alleged promise. The fact remains the conversation never took place. The promise was never made. Michael Schiavo with the aid of a scheming lawyer who hears voices duped everyone who agreed with his story.