Will Euthanasia become normalized or are we already there.

Friday, October 17, 2014

Margaret Somerville: Should Canada permit assisted suicide.

This article was published by the Globe and Mail on October 15, 2015 as one of two articles comprising a debate between Margaret Somerville and Arthur Schafer.

Assisted suicide leads to normalization of euthanasia, harms the vulnerable and degrades our respect for the value of human life.

Margaret Somerville

By Margaret Somerville:

Euthanasia and assisted suicide go beyond personal ethics to involve social ethics. Advocates frequently resort to a personal story, often that of a suffering relative, to explain their stance. They avoid asking the question, “What does it say about a society that deals with the big problems of human existence by legalizing the ‘quick fix’ of inflicting death?” Such a society is abandoning the great philosophic traditions of Western civilization. Everything now depends only on majority opinion and technological capacity.

Moreover, euthanasia differentially implicates the most vulnerable members of a society. We can’t judge the ethical tone of a society by how it treats its strongest, most privileged, most powerful members, but by how it treats its weakest, most vulnerable and most in need.

The strongest case for legalizing euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide is at the level of the individual person, such as Sue Rodriguez or Dr. Donald Low, whose heartbreaking pleas for euthanasia rightly move us.

But we must also consider where such legalization would lead and what its impact would be on other people, the institutions of law and medicine, and the foundational values of society. And we must take into account, not just its impact in the present, but also in the future. Ask yourself: “How do you not want your great-great grandchildren to die?” As current reports from the Netherlands and Belgium, where euthanasia and assisted suicide are legal, show, euthanasia will be normalized and we will see an exponential increase in its use in ever broadening circumstances. That is, slippery slopes are unavoidable.

Initially, claims are made that euthanasia will be used only in rare cases on competent, consenting, dying adults who are in unrelievable pain and suffering. But these requirements don’t last. In the Netherlands, at least 4 percent of all deaths are by euthanasia and in Belgium on average there are five cases a day. It’s not rare. Children with disabilities can be euthanized (with their consent) as can those who are mentally, but not physically, ill or who wish to avoid future suffering. Belgium is currently debating euthanasia for people with Alzheimer’s Disease. Euthanasia is now so normalized only extreme cases make the media, such as two very recent ones, a prisoner who received euthanasia for unbearable suffering caused by imprisonment and an old lady who chose euthanasia instead of a nursing home, which she dreaded.

People are afraid to accept palliative care or necessary pain management because they fear euthanasia. We must be able to reassure them that we will kill their pain, but never intentionally kill them and we can’t do that if euthanasia or assisted suicide are legalized.

Seeing death as an appropriate response to suffering raises serious problems with respect to suicide prevention in general. It establishes suicide as an appropriate response to suffering. And society’s agreement to help elderly and vulnerable persons to kill themselves or to allow physicians to kill them sends a powerful message that their lives are not worth living. State-sanctioned suicide and euthanasia ask not that we attempt to preserve life -- the normal role of medicine and the state -- but that we accept and act communally upon a person’s judgment that his or her life is unworthy of continuance and become complicit in ending it.

And legalized euthanasia is abused. Just as we don’t report driving through a red light, doctors and nurses acting outside the law don’t report those cases. Abuse of old people with euthanasia is especially likely and should be seen as a major public-health threat. The combination of an ageing population, scarce healthcare resources and euthanasia is a lethal cocktail.

Confusion is used to promote public acceptance of euthanasia: Concealing language such as the euphemism “medical aid in dying.” An Ipsos marketing survey showed 60 per cent of 1000 Quebecers did not understand that this phrase meant a lethal injection and 40 per cent of just over 2000 Canadians did not comprehend that euthanasia meant that. Similarly, the “no difference” argument that assisted suicide is only an incremental extension of rights to refuse treatment that result in death promotes euthanasia through confusion. There is a radical difference between allowing a natural death to occur and killing a person.

This debate involves a clash of the values of respect for life and respect for individual autonomy. Anti-euthanasia advocates give priority to respect for life, pro-euthanasia to respect for individual autonomy.

But all societies in which reasonable people would want to live need to uphold respect for both each individual human life and for human life in general. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms affirms this for Canada. And legalizing euthanasia would harm the ability of medicine and law to carry the value of respect for life, as they must do for a secular society.

Just as we now realize our actions could destroy our physical ecosystem and we must hold it in trust for future generations, we must also hold our metaphysical ecosystem — the collection of values, principles, beliefs, attitudes, shared stories, and so on that bind us together as a society —likewise, in trust for them. That requires that we reject euthanasia, but always react to pain and suffering with deep compassion and assistance to relieve it -- that we kill the pain and suffering, not the person with the pain and suffering. That requires that everyone who needs it receives good palliative care. At present at least 70 percent of such Canadians have no access, which is appalling and a serious breach of ethics.

Might, however, the strongest argument against euthanasia relate not to death, but to life? That argument is that normalizing euthanasia would destroy a sense of the unfathomable mystery of life and seriously damage our universal “human spirit,” especially our capacity to find meaning in life, that which makes life worth living.

To legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia is not an incremental change. It’s a seismic and radical change in one of the most important values on which our society and civilization is founded, respect for human life and its protection. We must employ our ethical imaginations to appreciate that and act accordingly.

Margaret Somerville is the founding Director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University and professor in faculties of Law and Medicine

Posted by Alex Schadenberg at 10:36 AM  
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Ebola, Ebola, Ebola, the tragedy of Ebola

The tragedy of Ebola in Texas is to my believe which I verily believe to be true is that the health care professionals and customs officials are so lazy that they do not read the newspaper or listen to the news. 

I was always amazed when I asked a question of a health care professional at George Pearson Centre and/orVancouver General Hospital how unknowing and arrogrant they were.  "I don't read the newspapers, I do not care what is going on, and what did Tanu say ... she doesn't have to worry as she is public servant and nothing will ever happen to her."

Each day all health care professionals and entry customs people in every country should be forced to do a touchscreen multiple choice test before they are even allowed on hospital or airport property.
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A good death is not guaranteed.

Assisted Suicide Cannot Promise Brittany Maynard a Good Death

October 9, 2014 by Administrators True Dignity Vermont 

Did you know that many assisted suicides experience complications? Assisted suicide is wrongly marketed to the public as a flawless, peaceful escape from suffering. It can be a painful and scary death. It can include gasping, muscle spasms, nausea, vomiting, panic, confusion, failure to produce unconsciousness, waking from unconsciousness and a failure to cause death

When I found Randy on November 18 2013 Randy was alone, scared and he did not want to die.  And yet there was an illegal DNR Order on him.  For some reason I was in control of myself and I called 911 and in the chaos that followed Randy was sent to VGH and he lived.  Otherwise GPC would have left him to die alone (without any palliative care) because of the DNR and the DNT Orders on him.  Those few minutes will live with me forever.  If that wasn't bad enough the whole scenario was repeated on December 26, 2013. This time there was an order to do not move Randy off GPC site and there were no instructions to phone the doctor on call.  If I wasn't there for those few minutes, I would have gotten a call in the middle of the night that Randy had died.

Like Ron Panzer said if you are targeted they (the medical community) will kill you one way or the other if you are chronic and non-productive if they ascribe to Stealth Euthanasia: Health Care Tyranny in America.:

 ..Just to remind, Randy was only 57. He had an accident resulting in a spinal cord injury and a trach.  He wasn't in pain enough to warrant euthanasia. I do not even know if he was in much  pain as they only gave him tylenol to lower his fevers. He only wanted to come home but the medical authority just threatened me that I would never see Randy again. They imprisoned him. On April 13 2014 Randy died from organ failures.  His immune system, his fragile body, couldn't fight off any more infections.

They knew he was dying and they won't let me be with him.  What monsters.  I did nothing to warrant such cruelty. How could they do that to my Randy.  His life had no meaning to them; there was no compassion; there was nothing.Who were they protecting.  None of these cry babies were taught to work under any stress or front time problems if there were any except those caused  by them..

As for the allegations against me a first year law student could deconstruct them to make VCH look vindictive, malicious and evil. The health facilities in BC are governed by bullies.






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Randy's 6 month anniversary of his death.

I am doing okay so far.  It is 13 minutes into the 13th of October, 2014.

Yesterday was a really bad day as I saw Randy everywhere. I so wanted him back. I was paralyzed with grief.

A woman at the Senior Centre said it took her four years to get over her husband's death and she didn't even like him.  So it might seem that I still have 3.5 years to go.

I still do not understand how Vancouver Coastal Health allowed us to be so victimized. A system of policies which they do not follow unless it suits them.  Even the direction of the chair, Kip Woodward was disrespected.  I suspect Kip was convinced by the government that if he quit the Board it would tarnish the reputation of the government and its health system and Randy and I were expendable. They gambled that no one would take any notice of us.  

The individual means nothing; only what is good for the government.  The majority that is made up of tax paying citizens who believe that they will be treated fairly.  .

Randy so wanted to live.  He would try his very best to get better.  I remember in 2012 after St. Paul's gave him a passey muir speaking valve so he could speak and they surprised me when I attended at Christmas and I heard Randy say  he loved me.  It was a whisper but it was an audible whisper.

GPC should have been exercising his vocal cords but they didn't.  I suspect the cuts were part of Ostrow's mean management policy. Yes, it was called mean management.

But when Randy was returned to George Pearson Centre against his will and mine, I fought to have him remain at St. Pauls.  St. Pausl said I had no proof that GPC wasn't safe.

 GPC took away his talking valve not because Randy could not handle it but because VGH screwed up (staff can't read instructions) and three patients died while using them. Of course that wasn't the reason GPC used on Randy, it was that Randy's secretions were too heavy.  Not true.

Randy always said I was stupid so can someone tell me why Moira Stilwell, MLA for Langara, would tell me when I spoke to her in January 2014 not to picket GPC.  She asked me what I was going to do about the banning and I said I wanted to picket.  She said do not do that.  I do not know why she would tell me not to do a legal protest but then at that time I was so demoralized I could hardly find my shoes in the mornings.  Even now I still feel like picketing GPC with a sign that GPC banned me.  The use of the property is for patients and their families, so VCH telling me that they have the right to ban me if they want as it is private property doesn't sound right. I did not have $200,000 to fight the system nor did I have a powerful support network. The media and the support advocacy groups support did not come to by aid. 

Randy was so angry with the RTs that he would not allow them to suction him or change his trach.  Randy was so stubborn.  He allowed the floor nurses to do it.  Randy said he won't allow the RTs to touch him until he got his passey muir valve back again. The RTs were very upset over Randy's refusal to have them touch him.  How deceitfully cruel VGH was.

Death Panels: When Bureaucrats in Canada Decide Whether You Live or Die

by Wesley J. Smith | LifeNews.com | 10/3/14 3:09 PM

Medical futility disputes often involve the question of harming the patient. Family/patient believe they should decide what constitutes “harm” in these cases, and that for the patient/family, the greatest harm would be death.  Hence, they insist that efficacious treatment to extend life continue–as the way to avoid harm. That is, after all, a fundamental purpose of medicine when staying alive is wanted.

Bioethicists and some doctors believe that they get to decide what constitutes “harm.” Thus, if a patient is unlikely to recover or ever lead a “meaningful” life, they insist on being able to stop wanted treatment.

Religion is also a large factor in many of these situations. The secularist view sees suffering as the worst harm. Many religions, particularly more traditional approaches to Catholicism, Islam, and Judaism, differ. Thus, forcing treatment to cease is often viewed as disrespecting freedom of religion.

At the same time, many futilitiarians believe in judging “harm” on a macro level. They look beyond the patient to perceived emotional harm to the family–and the morale of the reluctant medical team–as well as financial harm to society by “investing” resources on the patient supposedly more wisely spent elsewhere.

So who gets to decide the meaning of “harm” in a particular situation–the patient/family or the technocrats?
Canada has established a bureaucratic board to make these decisions when doctors/bioethicists and patients/families disagree. From the Toronto Star story:

In Ontario, intractable, life-and-death disputes between physicians and patients’ families sometimes end up before a unique provincial body charged with wading into complex issues of medicine, ethics and faith. The little-known Consent and Capacity Board (CCB) — the only one of its kind in North America, perhaps anywhere — is a working laboratory for the most pressing issue facing Canada’s healthcare system: the end of life.
When a physician’s treatment proposal is challenged by a family member whose loved one can no longer communicate their wishes, doctors can make an application to the CCB. The Board then convenes a hearing within seven days, often in hospital board rooms, headed by a lawyer, a public member and a medical professional, typically a psychiatrist.
The panel’s job is a mix of legal arguments and character analysis. It must ultimately determine an incapacitated patient’s “prior wishes” or “best interests.” The panel must then issue a binding order within 24 hours of the hearing’s conclusion — a remarkably fast and economical process relative to the courts.

It seems to me that these futility cases are so relatively few and far between that coercion should rarely–if ever–be used.

These are subjective decisions. Establishing bureaucratic boards would sow mistrust for the system
 and validate the concept of “death panels.”

And talk about the potential for abuse of power. Why should strangers to the patient be given so much authority,in effect, empowered to impose their values over those of the family?
No. Education and continual mediation should be the watchword. Doctors should be brutally frank about the consequences of continuing care. But barring very rare circumstances, the patient/family should have the final word.

LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith, J.D., is a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture and a bioethics attorney who blogs at Human Exeptionalism. 

I just read another report saying that the Consent and Capacity Board is flawed ... so there is no safeguards.  I will link it when I find it.

Your comments to Moira Stilwell, MLA, Vancouver-Langara moira.stilwell.mla@leg.bc.ca

When Does Suffering Begin

Quebec euthanasia law a bad precedent

By Farzana Hassan, Toronto Sun

First posted: Thursday, June 12, 2014 06:28 PM EDT | Updated: Thursday, June 12, 2014 06:33 PM EDT

Article

The inescapable problem with any human being’s decision to end his or her own life is that the action is irreversible.
Of all the arguments against euthanasia, this for me is the most compelling.
Granted, many people endure situations that appear to be hopeless, where death will be the inevitable end for someone who is already suffering pain and anguish.
But on rare occasions such situations are resolved without the finality of euthanasia.
Diagnoses have been reversed. Patients thought to be terminally ill or near death have regained their health.
Sun News Network reported this week on the recovery of an eight-year-old British girl named Claudia Burkill, who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer three years ago.
It is therefore baffling the Quebec National Assembly has voted overwhelmingly in favour of euthanasia.
Of course, Quebec MPs nominally voted to legalize “Medical Aid in Dying”, as the vague and disingenuous language of Bill 52 terms it.
Everyone knows euthanasia has now been legalized in Quebec.
The federal government has called it such and there is no way to disguise the decision with euphemisms.
Euthanasia legislation in countries like Belgium, whose model Quebec seeks to emulate, has taken their citizens down a dark path.
Two deaf Belgian twins were euthanized after they learned they would also go blind.
A 44-year-old man, who underwent a sex change operation, chose death because of “unbearable psychological suffering” after the surgery went awry.
It’s feasible that psychiatric counseling and medication could have helped this individual emerge from such a depressed state.
The original purpose of euthanasia was to relieve dying patients of unbearable physical pain.
It has now been expanded to include people opting to die because they cannot cope with psychological problems.
To consider death as the answer to all of life’s burdens is not a healthy trend for any society.
A death cult seems to be emerging in countries where euthanasia has been legalized.
Advances in medicine and psychiatry offer the prospects of relieving many types of physical and mental hardships people face in future.
An irreversible decision to die deprives individuals of the opportunity to face their psychological problems and, with help, overcome them.
How can a euthanasia law ensure patients won’t be pressured into it by others, even if they are well-intentioned, for which there is no guarantee?
Perhaps it may become the appropriate and loving thing to do for an ill and elderly parent whose children stand to gain an inheritance, to make a tidy exit with no fuss.
In this way, choosing death can become the norm — even expected.
The Quebec law allows doctors to end the life of patients with “incurable disease, incurable illness which is causing unbearable suffering.”
This is too broad a statement, and contains great scope for abuse.
Chronic back pain could be considered an incurable disease.
The sufferer may mention the possibility of euthanasia at some low point and eventually be pressured into going through with what started as a mere wish the pain would subside.
Laws have been put in place to protect such abuses in medical practice.
Let’s hope the federal government will challenge Quebec’s euthanasia law as unconstitutional.
It runs counter to the medical philosophy of doing no harm.
Its intention of curtailing pain is noble.
However, at the very least, it deprives people of hope, and runs the risk of normalizing voluntary death.
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What a brain dead person could be worth to the economy.

Shocking Report Will Reveal How Doctors Hasten Death to Harvest Patients’ Organs

by Bobby Schindler, Brad Mattes | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 9/26/14 6:51 PM


A silent and deadly epidemic is moving across America. No one is broadcasting it. No one is writing about it. Almost no one is even talking about it. But every day in hospitals, nursing homes and hospices across the country, more and more of our medically vulnerable loved ones are being euthanized.

Indeed, some physicians have admitted to this behavior. A 1998 article from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported that hastening death is occurring and is not rare. In a survey of 355 oncologists, “(15.8%) reported participating in euthanasia or physician assisted suicide,” and “38 of 53 (72%) oncologists described clearly defined cases of euthanasia or physician assisted suicide.¹

These decisions are being made by paid medical professionals. And loved ones, to their horror, are finding they’re not even part of the discussion. The patients’ crimes? They’re charged with having insufficient quality of life, being too expensive to keep alive, and being beyond the reach of medical science and therefore beyond hope.

Such judgments may lie behind what seems to be an increase in the “brain death” diagnosis. The difficulty of making a pinpoint diagnosis in such complex neurological matters—and the lucrative financial incentives to harvest organs—will ultimately propel this issue into the forefront of public consciousness and discourse.

Not surprisingly, the current procurement market for human tissues and organs in the United States is booming, driven by insufficient supply and heavy demand. According to The Milliman Report (see page 4), if all tissues and 11 organs could be harvested from a single patient declared brain-dead, however unlikely, the going rate for procurement would exceed half a million dollars. If all costs related to those 11 transplants are counted—preparation, physicians’ services, post-op care and the like—the money involved exceeds $5.5 million.²

For more information about this troubling issue, visit www.lifeissues.org and www.lifeandhope.com.

Sincerely for the vulnerable among us,

Bradley Mattes	Bobby Schindler
Executive Director	Executive Director
Life Issues Institute	Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network

Calder's Report

I keep thinking about Calder's Report and how inaccurate and misleading it is and the damage it caused me and Randy.  This is about health care not a covert CIA operation in which the government relies on  erroneous reports as truth.. How can the health authority be the author of this injustice.  And it is sitting in the courthouse for anyone to read and photocopy (No. S142003).  And there is nothing I can do about it. Sue them, what a joke that is.

I remember the times I was told by visitors to Randy that they would visit him with bubbles coming from his trach and no nurse to suction him.   What about the bad nursing he received and I wasn't there to make sure he was looked after because of the banning. This was the whole point of my banning I now believe and it had nothing to do with me being overfriendly. Like Randy said I am really really really stupid.The deceit and the abuse of authority is vomitoid. 

If nursing is understaffed then the nurses should be picketing outside on the sidewalk on their days off..

Quote from Bobby Schindler 6/13/2008 When your life becomes difficult, change your life, not your morals.  Faced with difficult life choices today, too many have become too comfortable acting immorally.

A thought, I will ask the new seniors advocate appointed by the government to do something: Isobel Mackenzie.What a joke, you say. Yes, a joke.  I already asked for her help from her months ago and she never answered my email. Appear that something is happening.  Another puppet of the Ministry of Health whose primary job is to refer individuals to appropriate agencies but first you must face your abusers. Delay, until the victims pass and the children inherit.

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Musings

It is Saturday, September 20 2014.  I had a great deal of activity this past week.  I still do not understand how affidavits can go missing from the court house.  This time it was my Affidavit containing the police reports and all of them were not compatible with those of Paladin Security.. This in direct contrast with the dangers imposed by my behavioir towards staff, visitors, and residents.  I am pushing seventy and I do not recall any physical violence that I ever imposed on anyone.  VCH staff acted without forethought and in haste without regard to the law or the best interests of Randy.  On October 21, 2013, it was self-defence. I pushed the mob away from me and Randy. I should get an apologize and those that mobbed us should be arrested.

Deconstructing Calder's Report
Within days of Randy being first admitted to George Pearson Centre in 2010, he got an infection and had to be returned to Vancouver Coastal Health.  It was during this time that Randy wrote a letter to Dr. Roberts saying that he did not want to return to George Pearson Center and he wanted me to be involved in all decision making.  I scotched taped the letter to Randy's bed frame and bulletin wall.  Instead of discussing with us the problems, they abruptly moved Randy in Vancouver General Hospital and I could not find him.  This is what the first Paladin incident was about.  The next day when I went to visit Randy, Security was called and we left.  I had two friends of Randy with me then and no there was no shouting or disrespectful behaviour. The friends could not believe the actions of VGH.  I only wanted to see Randy and VGH choose to hide him. They even put a no contract order on without Randy's knowledge.  They imprisoned him.against his wishes. No police were called. This nonsense was documented by a document that was seven pages long by Paladin. VGH again sent Randy back to GPC against Randy's instructions..It is a joke to say that VCH are partners in care. Kim Sinclair authored this mess.

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Dr. Moira Stilwell

If you as a reader is disturbed by the way the medical establishment behaves, email Randy's MLA, Dr.Moira Stilwell.  

Moria.stilwell.mla@leg.bc.ca or phone her office at 604.660.8360 and tell her so. 

Her address is: 7283 Cambie Street, Vancouver, B.C. V6P 3H2
(right across from George Pearson Centre).

If she gets 200,000 emails and/or phone calls, better yet letters, things will swiftly change. It has got to. We can't be bullied by the medical authorities to the detriment of our security of person. 

You might also want to tell your doctor that you disapprove of what is happening on my blog or your own personal experiences.  All the doctors are members of the College of Physicians and Surgeons and they can institute changes quicker than the government.  


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The day after Randy's fifth's month anniversary of his death

I survived yesterday quite well.  I was surprised.  I did not cry once.  However, I did have flashbacks.

When I first was banned from seeing Randy in 2011 I asked one of the nurses if she would wheel Randy in his wheelchair to the common visitor's room so he could look out and see me on the sidewalk.  This she did.  They left him there alone.  He did not know what was happening.  He could see me.  He was gnarling at the large windows trying to get to me.  It was heart breaking.  I never asked for the staff to do this again. Now I am crying.

I still have to finish deconstructing Calder's report.  What Vancouver Coastal Health has done to discredit me is so bizarre it has to be believable.  I asked this past week for the report of  Dr. Georgia Nemetz, a psychologist in private practice who had been brought in by VCHA to conduct debriefings with GPC employees following the October 21, 2013, incident: the incident in which I was attacked by staff and security at GPC when I attempted to remove Randy from GPC.I acted in self-defence. When I receive it I will deconstruct it as well.

In Calder's Affidavit paragraph 19 he states that if I continue to have any access to GPC that there is a significant risk that staff at GPC, including Dr. Jame Dunne, who is crucial to the operation of GPC's respiratory ward, will quit or refuse to work on the respiratory ward at GPC.  Where in hell did he get that from.  Yes, Dr. Dunne do us a favour and quit. Just to reiterate in three years I spoke to Dunne a total of three times: totalling twenty minutes. I sent him numerous emails and he never replied to one of them.  As far as I am concerned this respected member of the medical establishment is a cry baby and don't get me going about Dr. John Fleetham, a bigger cry baby than Dr. Dunne..

In paragraph 20, Calder says that VCH has done all that it can to accommodate me in my requests to access Mr. Walker.  VCH is under significant pressure from other residents of GPC, families of those residents, staff at GPC, and WORKSAFE BC to protect the safety of all parties involved.  What residents, what families, what staff and I was told by Worksafe BC that they would never ask for the banning of anyone. And how did VCH accommodate me. They abused their powers and flaunted the law, no broke the law.. And now my Randy is dead, him being robbed of the time we could have been together.

What is wrong with Calder's and Nemetz's reports is I speculate that they were never made aware of the fact that Randy was not a prisoner at GPC and I only acted in self-defence.  Neither of them talked to me or saw the police report. I did not hit a police officer which Calder alledges. How could I intimidate staff at GPC when the staff are the experts in how to intimidate. What about the bruising I received on October 22, 2013 to which I have a witness. 

The best one is in paragraph 21 where Calder says that my behavior increases the risk of injury to herself.  Does that mean that staff is going to physically attack me again.  How can Clark, Wilson, VCH's lawyers allow such garbage to be entered as evidence against me wanting to see Randy.  But then lawyers do exactly what their clients tell them.

The deconstruction will continue...next post...

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Randy's fifth month anniversary of his death

I apologize again for not doing enough to save Randy.  Randy always said I was stupid and I agree.  I have been trying to puzzle what has happen these past years since his accident.
 
One does not need a constitutional challenge to tell Vancouver Coastal Health that it denied Randy his security of person and that they should have acted in his best interests.  As for me I was entrapped by a system that is not accountable to anyone: no jail time.

Doctors in Ontario have to follow the law re DNRs and informed consent.

At least in Ontario, doctors are finally instructed to follow the law: 


Doctors at a major Toronto hospital violated the law by unilaterally imposing a do-not-resuscitate order on an elderly patient against his family’s wishes, an Appeal Board has ruled in an extraordinary clash over end-of-life care.

go to National Post and type in DNR (father : Douglas DeGuerre ; daughter: Joy Wawrzyniak, who saw her father die and no one would help including the doctors who put the illegal DNR Order on her father).

This happened to me twice finding Randy needing acute care as he was heading for heart failure but I was lucky I called 911 and Randy's imminent death via DNR was averted.  

But then I was banned on January 29 2014 from both George Pearson Centre and all other Vancouver General Hospitals because of disrespectful conduct. Risk Management said the Order would be extended forever; this was confirmed by a letter from its lawyers.  

Randy finally died on April 13 2014 from organ failure. No one told me he had bad organs.

I had to get a Supreme Court Order to see Randy die in the ICU.  I had to get the Order by myself (self-counsel).  

I do not know how the Public Trustee and Guardian got involved but its lawyer was able to get an adjournment at the first court hearing for three weeks as Randy's condition was "plateaued" so I could not see Randy for another three weeks and a few days later he died. The PGT didn't care about Randy. If they did they would have made sure I had access to Randy.


If anyone knows how to get a hold of Joy Wawrzniak please refer her to this blog and thank her for fighting for her father since 2008.  I would like to talk to her. 604-321-2276

Postscript September 9, 2014, no mention of the Ontario decision is found in the Province or the Sun.  

I am also looking for Mary Turner who was/is a resident of Prince George.  She lives/lived across from the college.
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If you as a reader are disturbed by the way the medical establishment behaves, email Randy's MLA, Dr.Moira Stilwell.  Moria.stilwell.mla@leg.bc.ca or phone her office at 604.660.8360 and tell her so.If she gets 200,000 emails and/or phone calls, things will swiftly change. It has got to. We can't be bullied by the medical authorities to the detriment of our security of person. They want DNRs so they can take people's lives away from them before it is truly time.  Quality of life issues for the most part are bogus. What quality of life do I have: I am poor






 

April 13 2014 ICU VGH 3:00 pm

Quote from the Second Edition of Privileged Presence: Personal Stories of Connections in Health Care, by Liz Crocker & Bev Johnson, page 230.

"The wife knew that the end was near and asked the nurse if she could get into bed with her husband and snuggle.  And the answer was, Of course you can, dear."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This isn't what happened to me when I asked the nurse who had twenty years experience in the ICU if I could lay down next to Randy for a few minutes.

The nurse said  NO.  I said why not.  The nurse said that it was not allowed as it was a liability issue. I asked what liability. The nurse then said that the bed Randy was dying on belonged to the hospital.

I was taken aback with the refusal and the stupid reasoning, and backed slowly into an alcove.

As I stood there, slightly out of sight, two Paladin security guards ran to the pod questioning "where is she, where is she."  The nurse had called security.

What was security going to do: pull me out of the room by my hair screaming.

This VCH did to me and Randy.  This I will never forgive.

If you find this behavior vomitoid by VGH, email Randy's MLA, Moira Stilwell.  Moria.still.mla@leg.bc.ca or phone her office at 604.660.8360 and tell her so.

Deconstructing Calder's Erroneous Report Amended 29/08/14

The frist Paragraph 1 wrote by me is missing.  I will have to reconstruct it in the next day or two.  

*The paragraph missing had to do with Calder's recommendation that I be permanently restricted from attending George Pearson Centre and from all other VCH facilities and this was incorporated in the Notice of Trespass letter I received on January 29 2014 and what risk management said.* 


Unless staff and Dr. Dunne are harshly interrogated by the police as if they were terrorists rather than saints, I will never know.  If I had not been there on November 18 2013 and December 26 2013 during my limited access to Randy and I calling 911 Randy would have died. Because of the missing paragraph, this sentence was to refer if the staff or Dr. Dunne shut off Randy's heart monitor (the audio).  This was conveniently countered later by Paladin Security who said the alarm was on after I brought it to management's attention.  Anything to save Palladin's multimillion contract with VCH. Randy's heart rate was 142 and 155 and maybe beyond.  In Randy's frail condition his heart rate should have been alarmed at 100.

The staff was instructed not to call 911 because Randy had a DNR on him. Randy did not have terminal cancer, he had respiratory problems, maybe a pneumonia (an infection), he wasn't at the end of a painful cancer death because he did not have cancer; he had a spinal cord injury due to an acquired brain injury. 

My ideation is that Mr. Calder be run out of his profession post haste.

His report was given to WorkSafeBC, Vancouver Coastal Health and the Public Guardian and Trustee. And now it is a court record accessible to the public in the Supreme Court Registry.
(Action No. S142003).

How could Vancouver Coastal Health commission such a disparaging report.


On a lighter note, I have custody of Randy's doggie being a mixed terrier-poodle. It is so spolit that it won't eat anything unless I feed him by spoon or else from my hand.   I suspect it is his way of getting undivided attention from me.  Like Randy when he stubbornly refused for months to have the respiratory technicians tend to him after they took away his passey-muir talking valve...  I blame myself for not fighting harder for Randy...They had no right to take away his means of communication limited although it could have been.  The first word he spoke to me as he looked at me and this is documented in his health record was the word "stupid."  And that is exactly what I am: stupid and also stupid for believing in the system.

August 22 2014

I checked with the court registry this afternoon to see if the two missing affidavits had appeared.  No.

I do not know what was in the affidavits that was so important.  Maybe it had something to do with not telling the truth.

In any event, I came across an email of one of the supposed "offending emails" I sent to Dr. James Dunne with cc to Dr. John Fleetham. One of the emails that caused Dr. Fleetham to abandon Randy as he could not provide Randy with objective care and one over which Dr. Dunne threatened to resign.

I did not receive a reply to this email.It took Dunne and Fleetham ten months to make mention of it or the one dated May 16, 2013.

Audrey Laferriere @gmail.com	6/19/13
to james.dunne, john.fleetham, frank.ryan

Further to my email to you dated May 16, 2013, to which you have not
replied to.  Please do.  

I also want to know why you are refusing to give Randy an oxygen tank
 for use when he is off site.  Someone telling me that he doesn't fit the 
criteria for home funding does not ring true or Ro telling me that an 
oxygen tank might explode the likelihood so remote that such a statement
is rendered ridiculous. Note:  I was given a second opinion saying that if Randy
was off site and was having difficulty the only thing that would save him would
be oxygen. I offered to pay for the oxygen.

Just like Randy cannot have a passey muir valve so he can speak
because there is no funding to monitor him.  I read the passey muir
web site and it says a passey muir valve helps swallowing so how can
you say that he can't swallow therefore he can't have a passey muir
valve. Randy can swallow, how else can he be rid of his mouth saliva.
I do not believe that you or you staff understands fully what a passey muir
is.

Your rationalization that suctioning only be as needed is based
when a patient is in intensive care and there is one-to-one nursing
and not in a ward with closed curtains and one nurse overseeing ten
patients as she walks down the middle of the ward each fifteen
minutes (????). NOTE: At times you can't even find a nurse on the ward.
They have no schedule they just walk by whenever whenever that is.

Even telling me that Randy can't have the curtains open in
the ward puts him at risk as staff cannot see him.  

I want Randy safe and it seems that you are doing everything possible
to make sure he is not safe.


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Assisted Suicide in Oregon

Stats from Oregon tell us that the reasons people ask for assisted suicide are loss of autonomy (93%), loss of ability to engage in enjoyable activities (89%) and feelings of being a burden on family, friends/caregivers (49%).

What this says to me those that want assisted suicide have been abandoned. All three reasons could be alleviated by a caring community.

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