Death with Dignity

Yes, Fred this was happening and is still happening. My grandfather was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer, he was a coal miner and also had black lung in addition to other significant co-morbidities. The attending surgeon said that he could certainly operate but the prognosis was grim. He was moved to a private room with pain medication available. He passed away in his sleep that night.
It is important to understand that there was strong family support and a close relationship with his physician. Those two factors are not readily found in many patient-physician relationships today.
On a personal note, my internist is retiring next year, God bless him, he has earned it. Our 20 yr relationship will be gone and I will be under the care of another physician, whom I do not yet know. That is not to say the the new MD will not be capable, caring and competent however it will take time to develop a similar relationship. I don't know whether there will be time. As a bit of humor, perhaps we should not outlive our physicians.

This topic already exists, however my limited computer skills prevent me from posting after retrieving it .
Thus this "new" thread which is actually a reply on the topic. The reference is at the bottom of the comment. Will Colorado follow Canada's lead?

In the case of E.F., court documents show the 58-year-old woman told the court she was “suffering intolerable pain and physical discomfort,” and “that her symptoms were irremediable.” She said she suffered from muscle spasms, digestive problems, immobility and periods of insomnia. She said she was exhausted from her suffering, as well as depressed and fully mentally competent yet unable over eight years to find any effective treatment. Despite objections from the attorneys general of Alberta and B.C., who argued E.F.’s condition did not meet the criteria of being terminal, the Court of Appeal sided with E.F. and allowed a doctor to help her die by suicide. Dr. Ellen Wiebe, a former family physician in B.C. who has become a vocal and prominent advocate of medically assisted death, says she met with E.F. and knows how she suffered. “The case of E.F. is so important because she was the only case where someone received an assisted death for…mainly a purely psychiatric condition,” Wiebe told CTV News.

Read more at: www.nationalreview.com/corner/447017/men...an-euthanized-canada

One of the last substantial barriers to increasing the number of euthanasia cases for non-terminally-ill psychiatric patients in Belgium seems to have crumbled.

A religious order in the Catholic Church, the Brothers of Charity, is responsible for a large proportion of beds for psychiatric patients in Belgium – about 5,000 of them. The international head of the order, Brother René Stockman, is a Belgian who has been one of the leading opponents of euthanasia in recent years.

Nonetheless, in a surprise move this week, the board controlling the institutions of the Brothers of Charity announced that from now on, it will allow euthanasia to take place in their psychiatric hospitals.

In a statement posted on their website the Brothers of Charity explain the policy shift. “We take seriously unbearable and hopeless suffering and patients’ request for euthanasia. On the other hand, we do want to protect lives and ensure that euthanasia is performed only if there is no more possibility to provide a reasonable perspective to treat the patient.”

Euthanasia for psychiatric patients has already happened dozens of times in Belgium. But from now on it will probably be easier for people suffering from schizophrenia, personality
disorders, depression, autism, or loneliness to access it. In fact, it will be hard to find an institution in Belgium where euthanasia is not being offered as an option.

Brother Stockman was stunned. “We deplore this new vision,” he told the media.

Nursing homes and hospitals opposing euthanasia have been under even more pressure after a court fined a Catholic nursing home a total of €6,000 last year for blocking a resident from accessing euthanasia.

From bioedge.org April 29, 2017
Belgian Catholic psychiatric hospitals ‘adjust’ their view of euthanasia

Merged two identical topics.

Would you please explain the process of merging the topics to me.

We'd be happy to ramage! We noticed that you'd mentioned that there was an identical previous topic so we searched for it then merged the two once we found it. It's something that only moderators can do, but we're happy to help combine them so everything on the discussion is organized into one place.

When two topics are merged, all of the posts between them will be sorted by chronological order in which they were posted. For two topics that are being commented on simultaneously, this may cause a little confusion but since the older "Death with Dignity" topic hadn't been commented on in a while, everything from both posts is in the order it was before, just combined. You'll find your last two posts after all of the original posts of this new merged topic (which you can tell by looking at the date/time stamps at the upper right hand corner of each post).

Thank you for the great question and for continuing the discussion on this topic!

Reassuring to know that the Belgiums are so concerned about animals.

"Euthanizing Mentally Ill OK, Kosher Slaughter Not by WESLEY J. SMITH May 8, 2017 1:47 PM It makes my head hurt. Belgium’s largest region has outlawed kosher and halal slaughter of cows. From the Independent story: Belgium’s Wallooon region has voted to ban kosher and halal meats by outlawing the slaughter of unstunned animals. The environment committee of southern Belgium’s Walloon Parliament voted unanimously for the ban, which will take effect on 1 September, 2019. Both Jewish kosher and Islamic halal rituals require the butcher to swiftly slaughter the animal by slitting its throat and draining its blood, a process condemned by animal rights campaigners, who argue it is more humane to stun animals before killing them. As the story notes, the law has been condemned as a direct attack on religious practice. I agree. That’s what secularists too often do, even though freedom of religious practice is supposed to be one of the West’s primary human rights. But I take away another lesson: Belgium has legalized euthanasia by doctors of the mentally ill–and allowed these homicides to be conjoined with organ harvesting. So the treatment of food cattle receives greater concern in Belgium than the very lives of society’s most disturbed people. Rejecting human exceptionalism creates such surrealistic outcomes. More: When ending suffering becomes society’s prime directive–rather than defending the intrinsic dignity of all human life–it profoundly distorts our moral priorities.

Read more at: www.nationalreview.com/corner/447418/eut...kosher-slaughter-not

Wesley J. Smith, writing in the National Review Online 5/18/17
"From the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care Website: In Ontario, health regulatory colleges are responsible for regulating their respective professions in the public interest. In doing so, colleges may establish policies and standards that their members must comply with, including policies and standards regarding medical assistance in dying. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario requires that when physicians are unwilling to provide certain elements of care for reasons of conscience or religion, an effective referral to another health-care provider must be provided to the patient. An effective referral means “a referral made in good faith, to a non-objecting, available, and accessible physician, other health-care professional, or agency”. Think about this. Three years ago, it would have been a felony for doctors to kill patients, potentially landing them in prison. Now, refusing to participate in homicide could cost them their medical licenses.

Read more at: www.nationalreview.com/corner/447763/ont...-tyranny-against-mds

From Canada.ca, Interim update on on medical assistance in dying in Canada June 17 to Dec 31 2017.
50%, 803, of these deaths occurred in Hospital. This is not turning off the respirator on a brain death patient, eg. Advanced Directives, rather it is a Physician ordering the administration of lethal drugs or cessation of a respirator after talking with the patient. During the previous reporting period, (see article), ther were 167.

Table 2. Profile of Medically Assisted Deaths Between June 17 and December 31, 2016 in Participating Jurisdictions (Excludes QC, NU, YT) Footnote i
Description Data
Footnote i
Given variations in reporting requirements under its provincial legislation, findings do not include the province of Quebec. Due to privacy concerns arising from small numbers, data from the Yukon and Nunavut are not available.
Return to footnote i referrer Footnote ii
The province of Alberta did not provide specific location, but rather the number of assisted deaths provided in institutional vs. home-based settings. For the purposes of this summary, the 45 cases of assisted death that took place in health care facilities in Alberta have been included within the category of "in-hospital"
Return to footnote ii referrer Footnote iii
Other includes: palliative care hospice; clinician office; facility; undisclosed.
Return to footnote iii referrer Footnote iv
This figure is a mean of provincial and territorial averages, and not a calculation based on individual data; as such, it is not weighted to reflect an actual national average.
Return to footnote iv referrer Footnote v
A large urban centre consists of a population of 100,000 or more (Statistics Canada).
Return to footnote v referrer Footnote vi
Cases where the underlying medical condition was not reported, approximately 8% of all cases, have not been included in this calculation.
Return to footnote vi referrer Footnote ‡
Due to privacy concerns, data for the province of New Brunswick were suppressed, and are not included in the calculations for this indicator. Totals may not equal 100% due to rounding or suppression of data.
Return to footnote ‡ referrer
Total number of medically assisted deaths

507
Number of clinician-administered deaths
(voluntary euthanasia)

504
Number of self-administered deaths
(assisted suicide)

3
Settings in which assistance in dying occurredFootnote ‡:

In-hospitalFootnote ii
249 (50%)
Home
182 (37%)
LTC facility or Nursing home
30 (6%)
OtherFootnote iii
37 (7%)
Average ageFootnote iv of persons receiving assisted death

72.27 years of age
Proportion of men/women receiving assisted deathFootnote ‡

49% men
51% women
Proportion of individuals receiving assisted death in large urban centres vs. smaller population centresFootnote vFootnote ‡

National Review Online 5/28/2017

Euthanasia Not About Ending Uncontrollable Pain SHARE ARTICLE ON FACEBOOKSHARE TWEET ARTICLETWEET PLUS ONE ARTICLE ON GOOGLE PLUS+1 PRINT ARTICLE ADJUST FONT SIZEAA by WESLEY J. SMITH May 28, 2017 11:36 AM The euthanasia movement fear mongers its agenda as a means of preventing an agonizing death in pain that cannot be controlled. It’s all a false pitch. That’s not why it’s actually done. Rather, existential anguish drives people to seek doctor-administered or prescribed termination. That has been experience in Oregon. Now too, Canada. From a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine; Those who received MAiD [medical aid in dying] tended to be white and relatively affluent and indicated that loss of autonomy was the primary reason for their request. Other common reasons included the wish to avoid burdening others or losing dignity and the intolerability of not being able to enjoy one’s life. Few patients cited inadequate control of pain or other symptoms. These are important issues that need to be addressed through vigorous suicide prevention and other mental health interventions. But they are not provided. Instead, the desire to die for fear of being a burden or losing autonomy is validated with the lethal jab or the poison pills. And then, that type of death is pushed toward normalization. Not providing vigorous interventions for existential anguish is like depriving a cancer patient of morphine, and then helping her die because she is in so much pain.

Read more at: www.nationalreview.com/corner