Picketing at George Pearson Centre October 23 1013

I arrived at 1:00 pm at George Pearson Centre and I picketed until 4:30 pm.  RANDY WALKER IS BEING HELD AGAINST HIS WILL AT GEORGE PEARSON CENTRE.  I was waiting for the police to arrive to go into GPC and ask Randy if he wanted to leave.  They didn't come so I will have to phone them again tomorrow.  I anticipate this episode of my life will take at least three months.  It has to be done.

As I was picketing no one would glance at me at they entered or exited George Pearson.I was quite visible with my two picket signs.  However, I did attract a lot of vehicular traffic as I could see the drivers pause and read the sign and the high school kids reading them as they walked pass me after school. 

It was a beautiful day as I reflected upon what happened on Monday.  I was set up by Tanu, as always.  I sent her an email on the weekend telling her that I was going to take Randy home as he was terribly depressed.  So she made sure to insist that her staff prevent me from taking Randy off site.  She knew if I was challenged I would fight back like a mother bear.  I keep remembering what she said the first time I met her in person.  That I was only to speak if I was spoken to and she could arrange that I never see Randy again.  And she is accomplishing it.  The next thing will be the intervention of the public guardian and trustee saying that I should not be Randy's friend or substitute decision maker and George Pearson would make all of Randy's decisions. The fact that Randy is competent is just a minor technicality which could be swiftly changed by any doctor based on the assessment of a nurse or a social worker. Believe it, it is true.

Randy hasn't been allowed to be in his wheelchair for the past few days as I suspect Tanu is afraid that I will kidnap him.  The police on Monday already attempted to charge me with attempted kidnapping as they handcuffed me.  If Randy does not sit in his wheelchair for a few hours a day he won't be able to breathe with ease and will deteriorate as he is now doing due to rationing of medical treatment.  This January 2013 Randy and I was at the centre's eye clinic.as I was suspecting Randy wasn't seeing very well.  The doctor told me that two years ago Randy was diagnosed with cataracts but it was decided not to do anything because of his age (55).  He can't talk because he is on a trach and wasn't given swallowing exercises to ensure that he would never talk and now they want him to be blind as well.  So soon Randy will have no quality of life especially now that I am banned and he will want to commit suicide which GPC will accommodate by withdrawing life support and they would even help with some morphine so it will be relatively painless it they got the dosage right..  Morphine slows your breathing so that you eventually stop breathing.  It is never recorded as a suicide but rather a respiratory arrest and no one would ever know the difference: a natural death.

One of the ringleaders on Monday was Stephanie.  A RN who on the weekend I watched as she suctioned Randy.  She did not use a sterile technique which is what VGH does.  She did not use a sterile glove and she compounded the danger when she wiped the suction catheter with a non-sterile piece of gauze and then she suctioned Randy again.  She suctioned him more than ten seconds which could cause brain damage and will cause brain damage over a period of time if exceeded as the airway will be depleted of oxygen.  After she finished suctioning Randy I asked Randy if he still needed a suction and he said yes.  Secretions left in the trach (wind pipe) could cause Randy to aspirate, that is, drown in his own secretions. Of course the secretions are also a breeding ground for infections i.e. pneumonia which is reoccurring for Randy.  There is a saying that a little knowledge is dangerous and I must therefore be dangerous to these health care professionals who do not know how to properly suction a patient. But then patients like Randy are not meant to live long.

My restrictions as outlined by Richard Singleton in his letter on Tuesday says that I can contact Randy by phone between 11:00 am to noon and from 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm.  The problem with that is Randy cannot talk so how can we contact. I am sure he got this insight from Eveline as she told me that Raandy can breathe heavy so I would know that he heard me.. This from Richard Singleton a man with two degrees and a title Director of Risk Management.

Years ago I installed a TELUS land line telephone for Randy.  And what has Tanu done, she has instructed her staff to take the phone off its cradle so Randy cannot hear whether or not I am calling him.  Even that simple pleasure is taken away from him.  Make sure all communication is cut off so the patient feels abandoned.  Of course I can't talk to Randy on the telephone but he knows that I am thinking of him when he hears it ring.  The anger I have for GPC is totally justified.

Just to inform the readers GPC is not understaffed, On Monday there were three nurses for each patient on Ward 2..

I had no intention of taking Randy home. I do not have the medical equipment, the medical experience, or the medical supplies to look after him. However, I had every intention of taking him back to VGH which I told the police on Monday and Tuesday.  I told the doctors at VGH that if Randy was not safe at GPC that I would return him to VGH. 

There is a legal document that says I am to have 24-7 access to Randy and it sits in his medical binder. I have a fiduciary responsibility conveyed by legislation that my duty is to Randy and no where does it say that health professionals can override. I told the police on Monday of the document and even with that they refused to do a simple act like ask Randy if he wanted to leave GPC with me.. From 2010 VCH knew of my covenant but they refused to honour it. Mostly I failed in my fiduciary duty to Randy as I haven't fought hard enough to make sure his rights were guaranteed and he was safe. And Randy cannot be reasonably safe if I cannot have access to him. At anytime Randy can refuse treatment/imprisonment even if it is for only a short period of time and he has a right to be involved in any treatment decision.. He is competent and the health authorities cannot override that arbitrarily.

Richard Singleton. Director of Risk Manager

Richard Singleton wrote me an email saying I was banned from George Pearson Centre because I attempted to take Randy Michael Walker off the grounds to go home with me. In the process I was assaulted by staff, screamed at, humiliated, and forcibly detained.  Randy is being forced to stay at George Pearson Centre although he has a history of not wanting to live there.  Since Randy can't walk or talk and there were seven out-of-control staff pounding on me I was forced to leave him there.  When the police arrived they were not too bright as they were unable to comprehend that Randy was there against his will.

I was hoping today that the police would clear it up but no.  They said there was a doctor's order on Randy which GPC did not tell me nor show me. There was nothing wrong with Randy to prevent him from going home for a few hours or from going to another hospital.  What planet did the doctor come from.  I am sure it only said to watch Randy more carefully for a week or two. It would not say that he couldn't leave GPC as that would be illegal. A doctor's order is not a jail sentence.  Randy can come and go when he pleases. 

Randy was terrified yesterday and also today when I couldn't see him and secure his release for a few hours. I was told that Randy is very depressed and he knows what is going on and he hates everyone at GPC for doing this to me. Randy is competent so he can leave a residential facility anytime he wants. 

Randy cannot talk and he has to use a wheelchair as he is a quad so it is easy to imprison him and convince him of things that are not true.  The reason Randy does not like it at GPC is that he feels it is not safe.  And it is not safe especially if I cannot have access to him. I will forego talking about his injuries sustained at GPC and the quality of life he does not have there until another time..

I am a petite seventy-four years old woman and it seems that I get regularly demeaned.by VCH and their contract employees.

Randy is 57 so he is not old.  He just had a bad accident. How can they scare him like they have done for over three years. A man who cannot talk or move. 

Years ago the subject of I taking Randy off the grounds of George Pearson Centre went to the VCH Ethics Board and it was determined that Randy had the right to do so.  So why now is this again a problem.  Prior to this week GPC never cared if Randy was well enough to go off site or not. 

During the years prior to the Ethics Board's decision Randy's freedoms were taken away from him as he did not go off site and he never saw the outside for close to two years.

David Ostrow is the CEO of Vancouver Coastal Health and Kip Woodward (604.875.4719)(email: kip.woodward@vch.ca) is its chairman.  Kip is the grandson of the Woodwards Department Store family who built Oakridge..

Also see:  seniorsatrisk
email: sar.coalition@gmail.com

Slow Code

On Saturday a CBC radio program talked about SLOW CODES.  I was shocked that CBC allowed this to air.  Not because I agreed or disagreed with it but rather it rang true with what Dr. Kermit Gosnell said that a medical licence was a licence to lie.

Listen to it.  It does not create confidence in medical directives/public policy..

www.cbc.ca/whitecoat

SLOW CODE
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Cutherbertson v Rasouli

EPC applauds the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada (18 October 2013) Cutherbertson V Rasouli.
who upheld the unanimous decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal requiring that doctors obtain consent from patients or substitute decision-makers before withdrawing life-sustaining treatment where such a decision is anticipated to result in the death of the patient.

The doctors argued withdrawing life-sustaining measures did not require consent from Rasouli’s wife, his surrogate decision-maker, because discontinuing care did not constitute “treatment” as set out under Ontario’s law. For the same reason, the doctors said, they did not require permission from the province’s Consent and Capacity Board to end care.

Mrs. Rasouli is pennyless like all of us who are at odds with the medical community.  Please send money to her lawyer to help her. She has made legal history with no financial support from us the citizens of Canada.  Why is it that she has to live in poverty so that the rest of us can benefit.

Hugh Scher

Scher Law Professional Corporation

175 Bloor Street East

Suite 1803, South Tower

Toronto, ON  M4W 3R8

Telephone: 416.515.9686

Direct: 416.969.1812

Fax: 416.969.1815

see Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
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LAWER

Paragraph 153 October 10 2013 Appeal of Judge Smith's judgment for assisted suicide.

{153} Counsel for the Attorney General of Canada argued that evidence from jurisdictions which allow physician-assisted dying demonstrate that safeguards are insufficient to prevent abuse.  Specifically, the Attorney General of Canada pointed to evidence of what was referred to as "life-ending acts without explicit request" or "LAWER" as evidence of how safeguards are ineffective.  LAWER occurs when a physician takes steps to end a patient's life without first obtaining necessary consent.

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TerrieLincoln

Terrie's Lincoln's story

For several months, I’ve been polishing the story of my recovery from the accident that brought me into the world of disability. Until recently, I hadn’t talked much about this period of my life. The memories can still make me angry. The anger isn’t about my disability, though. The anger is about the doctors that didn’t think I would have a life worth living – and how hard my family had to fight to make sure I received the treatment I needed to survive.
Folks at CDR and Not Dead Yet (NDY) have been discussing how and when to best launch this story when an opportunity unexpectedly came up. Stephen Drake of NDY was contacted by someone from “How We Die,” a website and TV series devoted to “end of life” situations. After a discussion with Stephen, the representative from the show became convinced that stories like mine should be included – the stories of people who escaped death due to families that resisted unrelenting pressure from medical staff to disconnect life support technology.
Information on the website is included below. They want more stories like mine and I know they’re out there. Please submit your stories of “near death” experiences due to negative medical attitudes – to the website below, to me and to Stephen Drake at Not Dead Yet.
How I DIDN’T Die
by Terrie Lincoln
If my family had listened to the doctors 12 years ago, I wouldn’t be able to tell you my story.
My name is Terrie Lincoln and I am a 31 year old quadriplegic. I live in Rochester, New York and work as a Systems Advocate at the Regional Center for Independent Living. I have a degree in social services and a bachelor’s degree in public administration. I am currently working on my master’s in social work.
At the age of 19, I had an automobile accident. They had to use the Jaws of Life to free me from the wreck and rush me to the hospital. After I got there, my family and friends learned I severed my spine and broke my neck. At that moment I had no idea what was wrong with me, since I was in shock and slipping in and out of a coma.
I was air-lifted to a nearby hospital in West Virginia a few hours later. The doctors then told my parents they were going to do emergency surgery on my neck — a neck fusion. They had to put a plate in my neck. The doctors also told my parents while I was being prepped that there was no way I could survive a broken neck. They said nobody lives with a broken neck. My Mom said: “We’ll see about that.”
The surgery turned out well and I started recuperating. While I was lying in the hospital bed that did not rotate because they did not want to injure me more, the doctors would come in and ask my mom if she was ready to pull the plug on me. “Why would I want to do that?” she would ask? The doctors answered, “What kind of life will she have— she won’t. She won’t be able to dance, walk, work, have a social life, or be independent.”
My mom, being the strong woman she is, asked the doctor if he would pull the plug on his own son/daughter. He walked out without answering. The next day when the doctor came in my dad was there with my mom. The doctor informed us that I was going to be in a veggie state for the rest of my life. First of all, who uses the word “veggie”? Anyway, my dad asked what veggie I was going to be because I hated green beans and would be mad if I was one.
The doctor said he didn’t find that funny and felt it was inappropriate. My mom said she felt he was being inappropriate by coming in every day and telling her to pull the plug on her daughter. The doctor responded that any good mother would pull the plug instead of seeing their baby suffer. At that moment, my mom leaped over my bed attacking the doctor.
The doctors must have known they were fighting a battle they were not going to win. They knew they were killing me slowly with the lack of care I was receiving. Within fifteen days of being there, I had no bowel movement (they were scared to roll me), aspirated, had pneumonia, and collapsed lungs which they did not want to focus on at the moment. I was life flighted out on the fifteenth day.
Once I arrived in Columbus, OH we felt I was on my way to recovery. I had a new team of doctors who specialized in spinal cord injuries. The relationships with the doctors started off more positive than the last set until the first time I died, which was about 3 weeks after I arrived. I was a code blue and they resuscitated me but didn’t offer any suggestions on how to inflate my lungs or help me breathe.
Over the weeks I got worse and worse. Pneumonia was causing my lungs to fill and I was constantly flat lining (electrical time sequence measurement that shows no heart activity). The team of doctors asked: do you want to pull the plug? They said you could take her off her feeding tube and we could induce her into a coma and she won’t suffer.
It took my mom following one of the doctors around all day and to his car at the end of his shift to get him to open up and talk. She went into his office and grabbed a picture of his family and held it up to him and asked, “What would you do? Would you let them pull the plug on the one you loved without doing everything you could?”
My mom came back to my room and I remember seeing her cry for the first time. She held my hand, said a prayer, and promised me everything would be OK. She said she would fight to the end even if she had to tear the hospital apart.
The doctors came in the next morning earlier than usual and told us they were prepping me for surgery. My mom asked what kind. He said he couldn’t sleep the night before because of her and he was going to put me on a ventilator, which would breathe for me. When I got out of surgery they had a rotating bed waiting for me. The bed helped with weight shifts and shook — to help break up the stuff in my lungs.
After a matter of weeks, my health started improving. I had color back, no bed sores, regular bowel movements, and my pneumonia was improving. I got released after 3 months from the main hospital to a nursing home within the hospital. This section was for people who were in poor condition (not expected to make it) and those who had to live with a ventilator.
During the time I was there I shocked everyone. I refused to have my feeding tube, G-tube, and J-tube anymore. I was tired of being poked and going in and out of surgery for no reason. I felt safer and healthier having the tubes out instead of in.
We started working on goals and weaning off the ventilator. We knew my health was improving and we were thanking Jesus every day. I was spending hours a day off the ventilator and the doctors were still asking if I wanted to live the rest of my life with this condition. If I chose no, they would keep me off the ventilator and I would die. I could get injected with Morphine so I couldn’t feel it.
They’d work at my parents, saying things like: “Your daughter was so active before this accident and now she’s nothing. She’s just like Christopher Reeve, she will need help with everything, she won’t be able to push her own chair. She will have to use a sip and puff device.”
Then they’d work on me. Saying stuff like: “Are you sure this is something you can live with? Do you want to spend the rest of your life on a ventilator?”
These are all the things we heard every day even though my health was improving. What gives them the right to convince someone to end their life?
My respiratory therapist said when I get off the ventilator completely I could go to physical therapy. One Friday we did our daily disconnecting of the ventilator – but this time we never connected it back. I ended up staying off of the ventilator for good.
Weeks later I started therapy and eventually got discharged after 5 months of being in the hospital. When I returned for my follow-up appointment a year later I made it a priority to see that team of doctors. When I rolled into the offices pushing my own power chair, without a ventilator, and healthy as can be, their jaws dropped to the floor and their eyes began to fill with tears.
Through my journey, I could not have done it without my two biggest advocates—Jesus and my mommy. She never stopped fighting from day one and never took no for an answer.

TV Series and Website Seeking Stories on How We Die
A new Website and TV series is looking for first-person stories from patients, their families, loved ones, and doctors about how personal experiences have shaped what we believe about death and dying, and about the decisions we make for ourselves, for loved ones, or for patients at the end of life. The website is: http://how-we-die.org/HowWeDie
The series, tentatively titled “Stories,” is being developed by Marc N. Weiss, creator of the long-running PBS series P.O.V. and Tom Yellin, a veteran network news and public affairs producer. The series will explore experiences that tested or challenged their values and beliefs about who decides when and how we die, and what role, if any, government and healthcare institutions should play in those decisions. Visit the site and submit your story!http://how-we-die.org/HowWeDie
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A Lament

Since Randy has been in hospital the minutes seem like hours, the hours like days, the days like weeks, the weeks like month and each month a year.  Time means nothing and you become numb with exhaustion making you indifferent.  You wait and wait and wait. But wait for what.  I do not know.  It seems that you are in a vortex with no end except for flashback memories of the difficult times that are now remembered as the best of times as there is nothing else to remember.


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A repeat of April 1 2011 blog

  For those of you who are new to my blog I would ask that you read the blog CIVIL RIGHTS NOW written by a former resident of GPC.  After reading the section on GPC would you allow anyone you know to live there.  Randy has been forced to live at GPC although upon each admission to acute he has opposed returning to GPC and acute  would return him against his objections.  And what would Randy do as soon as he realized the trickery, he would pull out his trach.  VCH won't even tell him or me.  They just would grab him and move him.  Last year VCH  moved him on Christmas Eve although I was told that he would not be moved until after Christmas week.  They just beat you up and you have to keep taking it over and over and over again.

 

Friday, April 1, 2011 Post from Gone Ballistic: nothing has changed much

Marion was the manager of GPC, and Bob Chapman the Director of Risk Management.  

Rather than create an atmosphere of residents wanting to live, they create an atmosphere of secrecy, fear and terror I face with each day worrying that Randy will not get the care he should be getting.m It has nothing to do with resources; it has everything to do with attitude of nurses who have their heads up their bums and they forget that their job is to be advocates for patients.

Marion, I got a piece of paper signed by Randy today saying that he wants to see me everyday like I have been for nine months. You better have a very good explanation as to why this is impossible. It is very clear to me that you would have let Randy die rather than allow me to visit Randy except on your restrictive unreasonable terms.

"on Fri, 4/1/11, Biln, Marion [VA] wrote:

From: Biln, Marion [VA]
Subject: Re: audreyjanelaferriere
To: "'audreylaferriere@yahoo.ca'"
Received: Friday, April 1, 2011, 5:31 PM

Audrey, I do appreciate that you would like to be at GPC during those times but that is not possible
We will need to keep to the original plan of monday, tuesday,friday from 1-4
I will let Kate know that you are interested in getting training in suctioning
Marion Biln

From: Audrey Jane Laferriere [mailto:audreylaferriere@yahoo.ca]
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2011 12:16 PM
To: Biln, Marion [VA]
Subject: RE: audreyjanelaferriere

The second situation was created by Bob by his failure to quickly end the malicious gossip and bullying caused by your staff, residents and visitors. 

Next week I am free during the daylight hours so I will be wanting to visit Randy each weekday from 9:00 to 4:00. I want to visit him in the ward so I can interact with his nursing staff to satisfy myself that he is getting the mandated care and also tend to his entertainment, educational and physio needs. Considering the dire state of health care dollars, I know you will welcome any assistance I can give. It was agreed that your RT would train me to suction Randy so this coming week would be a good time to begin the training.

Your security can accompany me and stand guard as long as they are standing and not sitting. Do not worry I will not call out if Joy is choking to death and there is no one on the floor to come to her aid.

Three year ban for being friendly...

I was officially told this morning at 10:45am September 22, 2013, that the three year banning that was imposed upon me by George Pearson Centre was because I was trying to be friendly with the residents at GPC and staff felt that it was NOT appropriate... Listen to what I was told: being friendly with residents that have mostly been abandoned by the world....what are they thinking.

I deserve at least a letter of apology.
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Pneumona and DNRs

                 

   Ottawa April 15, 2013

A PRACTICAL ILLUSTRATION OF HOW HARMFUL DISCRIMINATION BASED ON AGE AND HANDICAP IS AND WHY WE ARE ALL AT RISK OF ENDING UP DEAD SOME DAY BECAUSE OF IT

(this is the exact step by step procedure that was followed by the Ottawa Hospital doctors in order to obtain a wrongful decision from the Ontario Consent and Capacity Board to “let my father die”)

                                                                                    

The following shows how our death can be planned and inflicted upon us when we don’t want to die:

 

1. An older person gets in a Hospital fairly ill or after a serious accident. Triage is done: based strictly on age and injury, the case is classified as difficult, therefore, the patient is assessed to go into palliative care. The idea is not to spend too much time, resources and effort on this patient. For this, the approval of the patient or his power of attorney is required. However, in this case, the patient wants very much to live and has every reason to live (with a lot of love and purpose in his life) but has no reason to want to die. In the hope of improving and returning to his family that he misses and adores, the patient requests level one care and expects to receive adequate care. The Hospital infects him with E-Coli and Klebsiella in the lungs while he is immobile in bed and the decision is made to minimize care to this patient. The family is called in by the doctor who tries once again to influence the family to let go of the patient. The doctor says that given the seriousness of the illness or injury, the chances for recovery are slim (even though the chances of recovery are not known to the doctor at this time because no medical treatment was tried out yet) and the family is asked to sign a DNR (do not resuscitate) form. Although the family is not explained the significance of such a document, at this point the family still hopes in a gradual (maybe only partial) recovery if proper care is administered, and does not want to sign the DNR form. Age is invoked  as a justification to withhold treatment and take the patient off level one care. If the patient is not an elderly, the justifications made by the doctor would be that in this particular state, the injury or the illness is too serious. The methods customarily employed to get the family to sign a DNR are: 1. To convince the family that the patient will never get better and that DNR is the compassionate thing to do, 2. When the family cannot be convinced that the patient will not get better, the doctor will ask emphatically the question “who would want to live in this condition?”, even though he does not really know what the condition of the patient would become in the future but insinuating that the patient’s final condition will be very bad. In a way, this is a self fulfilling prophecy. In every conversation the implication made by the doctor is that the patient is better off dead than alive. Meanwhile, the family wonders: “OK, so perhaps the patient cannot recover fully, but a doctor must fulfill his professional responsibility of at least trying to improve the medical condition of the patient who is in obvious need of medical treatment, no?”

 

2. The doctor provides minimal treatment, only enough to be able to claim he tried to treat this patient. Meanwhile, important but inconspicuous details of the treatment required to maintain the patient at the same level of health or to improve upon it, are left out, like: not putting on socks against thrombosis or administering blood tinners to prevent clotting, so the patient develops DVT; not giving blood thinning medication when the Blood Pressure is too high, so as to prevent strokes; not prescribing pain medication which, if left unattended to, will cause either dangerous oxygen drops or increase heart rate that may develop into tachycardia, or both. Then, the blood clots can travel and the patient either gets an aneurism or a pulmonary embolism and dies or he suffers a stroke or a heart attack. If it’s a stroke, it's easy: the patient gets to be declared vegetative and the doctors can ask the courts/boards to have the patient “let to die”. If it's a heart attack, it's only a matter of time. If the patient’s oxygen drops severely and/or frequently, he will get a tracheotomy. This may prevent the patient from talking if the vocal chords get damaged in the process. If left in for a longer period of time and if the patient is not monitored, the tracheotomy can cause congestive heart failure or become a source of infection. As well, a tracheotomy produces secretions along the trachea tube which can thicken up and form small plugs that will suffocate the patient if he is not suctioned promptly. If this happens in the absence of any witnesses, the doctor can say that the patient died from the effusion or consolidation or the arrhythmia or from a respiratory complication and no one will ever know or find out that the patient was simply not attended to because it was planned for him to receive minimal attention and minimal care.  Lack of regular and frequent suctioning of the trachea tube puts additional stress on the heart, which is beating too fast because of the unmanaged pain. The family come to visit every day and watch to ensure the patient gets suctioned so he does not die. Meanwhile, simply not taking regular blood tests will get the electrolytes out of balance, so that the arrhythmia of the heart turns into tachycardia, or bradycardia, or both. If the patient is not maintained on a cardiac monitor, the patient may die rapidly from fibrillation.

 

3. Heart problems often turn into lung problems and vice versa. If the patient hasn’t died yet, if his heart hasn’t stopped functioning yet, then the lungs will fail. When the heart is irregular, and especially when the patient who has a tracheotomy is not frequently suctioned, water consolidates in the lungs. This is a condition that is foreseeable, preventable and treatable except for if there is no desire to attend to the patient.  When ignored, it gets blamed on the patient’s immobility (since it occurs often in immobile patients). Due to the lack of pain management and the build-up of un-suctioned secretions around the trachea tube, the heart will speed up and the patient will get tachycardia and suffer from sporadic oxygen drops that are not detected because he was taken off the heart and oxygen monitor in such way as to have no alarms or any other way of knowing when these occurrences take place. The lack of oxygen will kill neurons in the patient’s brain, thereby diminishing his cognitive functions progressively more and more. Lack of knowledge when a patient with a tracheotomy requires suctioning sets his life at risk, kills his brain cells and guarantees that eventually his lungs will fail. Without regular X-rays, without the proper diuretics to eliminate the fluid gathered in the lungs and without proper heart medication, the consolidation in the lungs increases and makes it difficult for the patient to breathe, placing the patient at risk of aspiration pneumonia. As well, this situation creates the ideal setting for congestive heart failure. Of course, it could have all been avoided had the medical care been provided in an adequate and responsible manner. If the liquid intake is adjusted properly, if diuretics and/or other medications are prescribed on time, if the patient’s pain management and electrolyte management are adequate, if the patient was monitored for heart and oxygen saturation to know when medical intervention or suctioning are necessary none of the patients complications would have occurred. But if in the doctor's opinion this particular patient’s life is not worth saving, all resources spent on his care are viewed as a waste and the patient is left to deteriorate progressively in order to die. The direct result of such neglect is pneumonia. Usually, an unwanted patient will be left to die of pneumonia.

 

4. The Hospital doctor will talk with the patient's family again in order to obtain a DNR. The doctor will insist that the patient is too ill to be cured. This is not based on any medical finding but simply on a decision made by the medical team to let this particular patient die. He says that the patient has developed complications (compliments of the Hospital induced infections and lack of medical care) and nothing further can be done. He tells the family that the lack of mobility caused the patient’s lungs to fail, and keeps blaming a pre-existent heart condition for the patient’s present heart problems (regardless of the fact that his heart functioned perfectly for many years before arriving in the Hospital and even after his arrival in the Hospital! But the doctor leaves that out, of course.). As well, the fact that the patient was allowed to aspire because of the lack of suctioning, from the accumulation of water and secretions in his lungs, is completely hidden from the family. The family maintains the hope that with good medical care the patient might still improve and pleads with the doctor for more attention and better treatment. The doctor knows that the oxygen depletion to the brain will cause brain cell death and consequently cognitive impairment. Therefore, if the family continues to decline the doctor’s request to DNR the patient, this depletion of oxygen causing decreased cognition gives the doctor the option to bring this case in front of the CCB (Consent and Capacity Board) to claim that the patient is vegetative and obtain permission to let him die (in case he does not die on his own by then!) by refusing the patient any medical treatment and then, “in case” the patient’s condition gets worse, by actually terminating the patient’s life through disconnection of the feeding tube (or, in other cases the ventilator). The patient is also left anemic for almost the entire duration of his stay in the Hospital. This too causes the heart to beat irregularly, faster and faster, get tachycardia as well as kidneys failure. If the patient survives it will be brought in front of the CCB as one more “cogent and compelling” argument why it’s in the patient’s best interest to be left to die.

 

5. If the patient doesn’t die from the oxygen depletion, from the irregular heart beat and tachycardia, from the congestive heart failure, the thrombosis, the aspiration pneumonia, from the infections in his lungs or from the infected catheter in his bladder, he will be left to get yet another infection, usually through the mouth or through the bladder since these are the two places were tubes penetrate into the patient’s body and can easily get infected. He gets both. He gets UTI through the catheter and bacterial pneumonia through the trachea, which can also cause death. At first, his pneumonia is treated with many insufficient runs of antibiotics that will render the patient immune to the antibiotics but that will not destroy the bacteria completely. This method of treatment could kill the patient and at the same time maintain a cover of an honorable appearance of attempt to medically treat the patient. No testing is conducted at the end of any run of antibiotics so as to not know if any infected bacteria are still present.

 

6. Since all this was still unable to end my father’s life because he was too determine to live, he was left infected with pneumonia without any treatment until he developed septicemia on several occasions when, for the sake of maintaining an appearance of legality and proper care, he was rushed back into ICU where they would apply emergency treatment and barely save his life. These septic episodes caused him drops in oxygen and tachycardia to the point where he had strokes and heart attacks. Given the recurrence of the bacterial pneumonia because of ineffective and inappropriate treatments the patient either dies or is declared colonized with the recurring bacteria (which is synonymous with total withdrawal of treatment for pneumonia). The reason invoked is that once colonized, any treatment becomes futile. In reality, this is untrue and many doctors treat it. When colonized, a patient usually needs more aggressive treatment but it is not a hopeless situation. However, doctors can do anything they want and they wanted to sit back and wait for the unavoidable. Therefore, after not being treated for his infection in May of 2013, my father was no longer rushed into the ICU. Instead, his condition and lack of treatment were painstakingly hidden from the patient’s attorney and the patient’s family.

 

7. The medical staff has become impatient. A lot of time has passed since they predicted the patient’s end of life and their predictions now look very farfetched. A lot of time had passed since the doctor told the family that the patient will die soon and asked to have the patient DNRd. The doctor has lost all credibility. 16 months longer than the doctors had intended to devote to this patient! And unbelievably enough, the patient is still fighting for his life. To everyone's total surprise, this patient is not dead yet. New methods must be found to get rid of this stubborn patient and his nagging family. The patient gets declared infected and put in an isolation room with patients who have contagious diseases, the superbugs: MRSA, VRE, C-Dif, and infectious diseases such as Hepatitis and other transmissible diseases despite the protests of the family and the fact that the patient has insurance from his previous employer for a private Hospital room. Meanwhile, the patient has no contagious illness of any kind. The family gets told once again that there is absolutely no hope and that it is unfair to the patient to be kept alive. The family knows the patient wishes to live.

 

8. New methods are introduced. The family finds the patient bruised and bleeding on his knees or lower legs when the patient is immobile and non-verbal and could not have caused those injuries to himself. The family is forced to witness the patient being tortured by not suctioning him when his secretions are choking him and he gasps for air. The family protests when the patient's hands are tied so as to not scratch himself when due to the lack of hygiene, a rash developed on his skin that itches him very hard. The family witnesses nurses walking away when the patient is soiled and saying that there is no need to clean the patient because if they would clean him, he would only dirty himself again. The family is disallowed to give any help or relief to the patient when he chokes and no one is there or responds to the alarms, to suction him. A security guard is placed at the patient's bedside to watch that the family does not suction the patient because he may not die then. First, these pains are used to coerce the family into signing the patient's release to a long term care facility with none or very minimal medical care when the patient is acutely ill. Then, the pain inflicted on the patient is used as leverage to force the family to sign the DNR (do not resuscitate), which would assure the patient dies. When the family disagrees, regardless of the Living Will and the Power of Attorney signed by the patient in favor of his trusted family member, stating clearly that this family member is the only one entitled to give consent regarding receiving changing or withdrawing treatment, the doctors decide it's time to go legal to terminate this patient’s life. Testing & treatments get stopped completely without notifying the family or without approval of the Board.

 

9. After two months of untreated pneumonia, left with high fever and in agonizing pain in his chest and head, the patient becomes less responsive and less interactive. At this time, pain management is delivered religiously via pain medication and sedatives but all other testing, preventive or active treatments are withdrawn without the patient’s family knowledge or consent. The lack of treatment to the patient is kept secret in classified documents that are refused to the patient or the patient’s family. A security guard posted in the patient’s room ensures that no information is given to the patient’s family by any of the Hospital staff. While waiting for the Board Hearing, the doctor had already changed the plan of treatment for the patient without consent from the patient’s attorney. The doctor is not a specialist in neurology but he testifies in the Board Hearing that the patient is vegetative because in his opinion, the patient “meets the clinical criteria of a persistent vegetative state” because he had observed the patient for ten minutes before the Board Hearing and the patient was unable to interact in a meaningful way with his environment. The Consent and Capacity Board does not question the doctor at all, why he did not bring any evidence, why the diagnosis was reached without any neurological testing, why the Patient’s Chart was not brought to show what medication the patient is on, such as the pain killers or sedatives, why no lab results or vitals were presented to give an idea of the patient’s physical condition, nor does the Board have an issue with the fact that a neurological diagnosis was made by a generalist with no background in this highly specialized field and that he reached a diagnosis after only 10 minutes of observation when the article from the medical journal he cited in the Hearing was stipulating that it could only be reached after a lengthy period of observation of several weeks.

 

10. The Board does not question the doctor at all but prevents the patient’s attorney from entering into evidence any of the documents she had prepared including the patient’s medical Chart and interrupted and denied her the right to make her arguments by cutting off half the day that was dedicated to this Hearing and that was specifically the time allotted to the patient’s attorney closing arguments. Even then she was prepared to rush through but the doctor’s attorney took twice the time that she said she would so there was no time left for the closing arguments. The doctors asked the Board to have their power substituted for the power of attorney given by the patient to his family member that he trusted. Meanwhile, in the patient’s Chart results from EEGs, MRI of the head, and CT scans taken at various times throughout the patient’s Hospital stay, do not support the theory of a persistent vegetative state as advanced by the doctor although in the article he cited, it is specified that the supporting scientific neurological tests should be used with any clinical diagnosis. Since every one of the neurological tests, some as recent as one month prior to the application made by the doctor to the Board, are not supporting the clinical diagnosis made by a doctor who is not a specialist in the field, the diagnosis was wrong.

 

11. The Board dismissed every one of the testimonials from the attorney or the family and ignored the fact that the independent medical opinion requested by the Board was disallowed by the Hospital doctor. A man who was not vegetative was now effectively declared vegetative for the purpose of having his life terminated. A death sentence was handed out on a false pretense but still, it saves money: 0.1 penny per Ontario citizen a year and 0.00005% of the Ontario deficit yearly (had he been able to live for a year and had he been still in the Hospital for that long). The doctor gets appreciation for improving the efficiency of the Canadian Health Care system. The newspapers write about this judicial breakthrough where Hospitals are finally doing something right and where “no more heroic measures” are taken in order to save the life unworthy of living of a vegetative patient. The public cheers. The patient dies. The family appeals immediately the wrong decision of the Board but the Superior Court of Ontario grants the Hospital a motion to moot the Appeal based on the fact that the patient is dead. The patient is dead and justice is dead with him as are all his rights that were crushed in the process.

12. In the autopsy result it is shown that the patient was not vegetative and that his condition and death was due to asphyxiation because he was left with an untreated pneumonia for too long.. Heavy death of neurons new and old indicate that he suffered from lack of oxygen in the past, when he was left unsuctioned, and recently, when he died because of his compromised respiratory system due to untreated pneumonia. Also, he was moved out of the Ottawa Hospital one week prior to his death into the Montreal Jewish General. Here, they did treat and test him. After the cultures were ready (it takes four days or so for cultures to develop), it was shown that he had "ample growth of E-Coli bacteria in his lungs" just as he did all along during the 19.5 months in the Ottawa Hospital. where he was minimally treated, just enough to remain infected but to give the appearance that he was treated and then, when he was no longer treated at all it was hidden so no one would find out in the hope that perhaps so he would die "on his own". When the results came back from the blood cultures, unlike in the Ottawa Hospital, the Montreal Jewish General Hospital treated him immediately with the strongest broad spectrum antibiotic available and three days later when the autopsy was carried out, the results show that his lungs were cleared and that he had no more infected pneumonia and no bacterial growth in his lungs. Only very few remnants would show a trace of infection indicating that he had suffered from pneumonia. Hence, had he been treated from the start he would have been healed and out of the Hospital in two months instead of being tortured and dead after 19.5 months.

CONCLUSION:

A man is wrongfully killed due to a wrong decision of a Board that has no tests for elimination of false testimony presented by a medical professionalwho is not specialized in the field he is testifying in.

A Board fails to apply due diligence to find out why no medical test results are presented in the Hearing, why the patient was diagnosed vegetative only 10 minutes before the Hearing. The Board did not care to find out that while this patient was diagnosed clinically vegetative he was sedated and left untreated while infected with pneumonia until he got septic. The Board did not request to see any medical documentation regarding the patient’s actual physical condition or the medication he was given that might have caused him to become unresponsive and makes the wrong decision to let him die. The Supreme Court of Ontario finds that this case is moot because the patient died. The patient is denied all his rights, his rights to life, security and freedom. his rights to not be discriminated against based on age or handicap, his rights to receive the health care, insurance that he paid for with heavy tax dollars, denied his rights to a second independent medical opinion, denied his rights to leave a Hospital when he wants to do so, his rights to access his medical records which are kept hidden from him, as well as his rights to justice that are denied because he had the poor inspiration to die when the Board allowed the doctors to “just let him die”. The judge deemed it not necessary to spend his and his family’s tax dollars to deliver justice to him or to his family. It was deemed “not in public interest” because presumably he was not a citizen whose life was of a value equal to that of any criminal that gets stabbed to death in the process of committing a crime so this patient did not deserve justice. His life was of no value to the public and preserving it was of no value to the public therefore, the judge decided that it was not in the public interest to pursue this matter because he had already died. A man’s deliberate life removal was irrelevant to our justice system.

 

 

NOTE: when the medical establishment and the judicial establishment join hands for the purpose of imposing their will to terminate a human life on the person to whom that life belongs, a person who is often weaker and completely defenseless, such as the elderly and the handicapped, we end up with a society that has the values and behaviors of the Third Reich. The T4 program started with a legal entity equivalent to the Ontario Consent and Capacity Board, authorizing doctors to destroy their mentally ill patients in order to legitimize murder of patients by their doctors in the name of public interest. It was all done in a covert manner, with the appearance of propriety, with the authority of legal, medical and scientific professionals and under the compelling banner of compassion for the patient in whose interest they were acting. The scale was different but the similarities are staggering.

I am attaching a  that I would appreciate if you could print, sign and scan back to email to me at df1333@hotmail.com. Out of respect and/or love for my father or for me, please sign this Petition and help change a system that, if not changed, will some day, most likely, kill you or one of your loved ones too. Please distribute this petition to anyone you can think of that might sign it. Please follow me on twitter at Diana Ford‏@Snowsplendour  
dford1@rogers.com

 

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Pneumonia

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Diana Ford: How my father died.

"How our death can be planned and inflicted upon us when we don't want to die."

My father died July 11th, 2012, after fighting to live for 20 months,  He had no terminal illness. He was not comatose or vegetative.

My father died of an infection in the lungs that no one ever took the trouble to treat him for in an appropriate fashion and that was maintained by the medical staff in his lungs for the past 20 months.

He had been in the Ottawa Hospital from November 2010 to July 4th, 2012, when I finally got the approval to move him to the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal.

He died in the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal while I was talking to his doctors about what to do to help his pneumonia that had not been treated in the Ottawa Hospital for 2 months prior to the transfer.

After having inflicted pain and irreversible damage repeatedly, in order to cover for their wrong doings, the doctors at the Ottawa Hospital decided it was time for him to die.

They made an application to the Consent and Capacity Board of Ontario to have all medical treatment withdrawn from my father and in case he got worse, to pull out his feeding tube and let him starve to death.

The Province of Ontario, via the Consent and Capacity Board it created, approved their application to have my father's life terminated. In order to get this accomplished, the doctors at the Ottawa Hospital used lies and false claims. Meanwhile, even before any approval from the Board and without my knowledge or consent, the doctors had stopped all testing and all treatment for my father at the beginning of May, despite the fact that all tests from May 7th, 2012 indicated that he had acute pneumonia and desperately needed treatment. They had also denied my requests to have him transferred on three prior occasions and instead of helping to discharge him, they placed a security guard at his bedside to ensure that he does not get moved out of the Hospital.

In the autopsy result it is shown that my father was not vegetative and that his condition and death was due to asphyxiation because he was left with an untreated pneumonia for too long. Heavy death of neurons new and old indicate that he suffered from lack of oxygen in the past, when he was left unsuctioned, and recently, when he died because of his compromised respiratory system due to the old untreated pneumonia. Because he was moved out of the Ottawa Hospital one week prior to his death and into the Montreal Jewish General  the doctor in the Montreal Hospital tested and treated him. After the cultures were ready (it takes four days or so for cultures to develop), it was shown that he had "ample growth of E-Coli bacteria in his lungs" just as he did all along during the 19.5 months in the Ottawa Hospital, where he was only minimally treated until they stopped treating him entirely for two months before he died, fact that was hidden in the hope that perhaps so he would die "on his own". However, after the cultures were ready, the doctor in Montreal did treat my father for the 2.5 days before his death. Unfortunately it was too late for my father to gain the necessary strength to survive. However, it is very meaningful. because when the results came back from the autopsy report, it was shown that the 2.5 days of treatment he received at the Montreal Jewish General Hospital with a strong broad spectrum antibiotic was enough to clear his lungs entirely and that the theory of being unable to treat his pneumonia in 19.5 months at the Ottawa Hospital was indeed untrue. After only 2.5 days there was no more infection or just a negligible amount of bacterial growth in his lungs. Hence, had he been treated from the start, he would have been healed and out of the Hospital in two months instead of being tortured and dead after 19.5 months. The plan to let him die so it would save money backfired and instead of costing the system 2 months of Hospital stay, it ended up costing the system 19.5 months of Hospital stay and his life!

My father was the most generous, kindest, most giving and most altruistic human being I have ever known in my entire life.

He never did, nor would have hurt anyone but instead, he helped many people, practically, he helped anyone he could!

My father did and would have done anything to live longer in order to be with me and my mother even for just one more month!

Truth is he could have easily lived longer because, aside for a treatable pneumonia (if he had been given the proper antibiotics on time), there was nothing life threatening or seriously wrong with him.

His life was stolen from him. His life was denied to him. It was unfairly and callously terminated against his will.

He was killed by the Canadian Health Care System despite his struggle of 20 months and his wishes to live as long as possible.

His healers turned to killers at the Ottawa Hospital to cover for their incompetence and damages caused to my dad.

My father never enjoyed the "right to life, freedom and security" as promised to us by our Constitution.

Living was always a fight, a struggle, something that people wanted to take away from him.

His life was threatened many times until it was finally and permanently taken away from him by the men in white coats from the Canadian Hospitals.

When he was still a small child, his family fled Austria to save his life. Not long after that, Romania signed allegiance with the Nazis and his life was once again at risk.

I found out from books, written and published by people whose names he did not even know or remember, that my father, while in forced labor camps, had organized several barracks of younger people to attend to additional forced labor shifts, additional to the required times, in order to replace the barracks of older people on their shifts of forced labor so as to save those older people's lives. My father did not think that the elderly or the frail were disposable material, the way the doctors here think. He believed that every life is worth saving and that every human being came with mothers and fathers, children, wives and loved ones who would be crushed if this person was hurt or if they died. My father was a true human being: he was thoughtful and respectful of others. He did not live only for himself and think only of himself. He thought of all and fought for all around him to be protected and safe. He even put his own life at risk to protect other people's lives, people who were older, sicker and more frail than him and he never told anyone about this until the book was published and his actions were applauded by total strangers who were there at the time, remembering and grateful to him.

This is something that some of the doctors here, in our beautiful, democratic Canada, appear not to believe in. Far too often our Health Care professionals treat people like disposable goods that need to be thrown out when damaged or old. The doctrine of "if you can't heal them, kill them" is applied far too often along with a less obvious doctrine of "if healing them costs too much or takes too long, better kill them".

The way they do it is they withdraw treatment until their patients die "of natural causes". For example, like in my father's case, they will not treat pneumonias until the pneumonias get so strong that the patients die asphixiated and then they turn around and call it a "natural cause". After that, they go and tell the family "he went peacefully", meaning that dying suffocated was  right, without pain, easy and a natural death that the patient deserved. These doctors have no shame in killing their patients when the patients have the audacity of being inconveniently ill for longer than what is financially acceptable. I would have paid these murderers anything to let my father live, only they parade around pretending they are saintlier than saints and claim it's not about money. Meanwhile, they cost me $50,000 in legal and ambulance fees anyway or my dad would have been killed long ago. Murder is a convenient tool that covers their incompetence, negligence and all the damages they inflict upon their patients. Letting the patient die is the weapon of choice.

My father's assassins had the audacity and the arrogance to pretend that they had my father's interest at heart more than I did, that they knew him better than I did, that they knew better what he wished, what was in his best interest and what was of benefit to him. They argued that they saved him from suffering when they killed him. I think that this argument could be made for every living being on Earth because everyone suffers in one way or another.

The doctors argued that my father's dignity needed to be saved and that's why it was good for him to die. Clearly, this is an argument that could be brought in favor of killing every person who is unable to walk or move on their own. Therefore, what they are advocating is the killing of all handicapped or mentally ill patients. In reality, my father was completely dignified and if there was ever dignity anywhere, my father would have been the symbol of it. They think being ill is undignified but do not see that murdering their own patients is the most undignified, the most perverse and the most despicable behaviour a doctor could ever have. By their logic, these doctors, who go around murdering patients in the name of preserving dignity, are the ones who should be put to death first, since they lack not only dignity itself, but the understanding of what dignity means. In fact, they would not know dignity if it walked up to them and shook hands with them. Completely inhuman and devoid of all human feelings, they walk around dressed in human skin, bringing nothing but agony and despair to their patients and their patients' families.

To all of you who have written and called me to offer me condoleances, to all of you who sincerely have compassion and feel the pain I feel, instead of feeling sorry for me or my dad, please do something useful for me, for him, for you and for all of us: oppose our murderous medical system and the courts who give approval to doctors to kill their own patients, thereby handing death sentences to innocent people. This is not what we have doctors for. This is not what we have medical health care insurance for. This is not what we pay taxes for. This is not what we subsidise the doctors' university studies for. I do not mourn my father because my heart and my soul died the day he got assassinated by his doctors. Therefore, I cannot feel anything but outrage. My heart is dead, my feelings are numb, my humanity is at risk but my mind and my logic are very much alive. It is from my reasoning that this outrage is born, not from my feelings or from my emotions! I am a very rational and logical person when I tell you that this cannot and should not be allowed to go on!

Out of our responsibility as human beings, out of our civic duty, out of our love for our children or grandchildren, out of our concern for the well being of the futurte generations, we must fight this murderous system of disposing of "life unworthy of life", by not treating the handicapped, the mentally ill, the elderly or the "useless babies". Our emergency rooms should never turn the ill away. Our acute care or critical care units should always accept all acutely or critically ill patients instead of letting them die outside these units, our doctors should not unilaterally decide to withdraw treatment from the sick, they should not be the ones to decide who should live and who should die, they should provide care to all their patients equally, preserve and prolong life but never deliberately end it. Our courts should not give approval to the doctors to terminate the life of their patients. Our health insurance is what we all paid into and it must not be denied to us when we need it most! The fact that it is widely practiced is no excuse, on the contrary, it is an evil that has to be annihilated. This evil spreads like a mushroom, like a cancer and that's why it must be opposed, faught and eradicated. We have to change this. The thinking behind it, the inertia to do something about this problem and the complacency we have living with a murderous system, hoping that if we say and do nothing, it will never affect us, must be stopped.Those who think that living longer is a threat and not a blessing, those who think that Health Care is a privilege, not an insurance that must pay up when claimed, like any other insurance, those who think that the elderly should not be covered by health insurance, do not belong in a democratic country and should give up their own benefits first before they go to ask that other people's benefits be curtailed. I do not want to live in a state that approves medical professionals to add killing to their professional responsibilities. I do not want my doctors to have approval to murder, approval that comes from Courts and Boards created by the state to eliminate the weak. I do not want social Darwinism in my country.

My children and I will never forget or forgive what happened to my father and to us, here, in Canada at the hand of those who were supposed to help. We are marked. Our hearts and souls are mutilated. It happened to many before us and it will happen to many more if we don't do something to stop it. It is not because my father died that we feel so dead inside but because he should not have died murdered at the hands of those who should have helped him, who were there to save his life, his own doctors!

Those of you who have compassion and feel the pain I feel, instead of feeling sorry for me or for my dad, please sign this Petition to oppose our system where our Courts and State created Boards give approval to doctors to unilaterally decide to “let their own patients die”, in contradiction to the patient’s wishes or to the family members’ decisions. In doing so, this system has become a system of handing out death sentences to innocent people. This is not what we have doctors for! This is not what we have medical health care insurance for! This is not what we pay taxes for! This is not what we subsidise the doctors' university studies for!

I am attaching a  that I would appreciate if you could print, sign and scan back to email to me at: df1333@hotmail.com. Out of respect and/or love for my father or for me, please sign this Petition and help change a system that, if not changed, will some day, most likely, kill you or one of your loved ones too. Please distribute this petition to anyone you can think of that might sign it. Please follow me on twitter at Diana Ford‏@Snowsplendour

On line Petition:  Stop the involuntary euthanizing of patients in Canadian hospitals

CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW TO READ MORE

My Father: What happened to him and how he was treated by the Ottawa hospital.

Exact step by step procedure that was followed by the Ottawa Hospital doctors in order to obtain a wrongful decision from the Ontario Consent and Capacity Board to “let my father die”

Thank you so much,

Diana Ford

An account of why we should get rid of advanced directives

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/magazine/a-life-or-death-situation.html?pagewanted=all&_rgf=0

This report was published in the New York Times magazine.  It was about Margaret Pabst Battin an academic who has made a very comfortable living by propagandizing pro-choice until she was faced with it with her husband. The future is always unknown.

Maggie has been characterized by the pro-life movement as being a dangerous woman.

Because of Maggie's being acclaimed an expert witness, advance directives and DNRs should be made illegal. No one can foresee the future.Thank you Maggie for making your expert witnessing a lie.

Up to two years ago I did not know what an advanced directive was nor did I understand the DNR.  I though a DNR was only used in advanced causes of terminal illness.  When/why did all this change..  I was of the belief that an advance directive was a directive to your family as to funeral arrangements.  I did not know that it is a directive on how you want to die.  Forgive me for thinking otherwise.

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