The wink-wink urban legend.

In a report by Dr. James G. Salwitz dated February 6,2015 he writes The Line Between Comfort Care and Murder

"Do you mean that patients are deliberately killed by their physicians?"  Absolutely was the answer, confirmed by the nods of a nearly unanimous audience.

An older gentleman clarified "It's like wink-wink and then it's done."

...

Nonetheless for many mercy killing is part of the urban legend and is, wink-wink acceptable.  ....Are backroom medical murders really a ubiquitous dark secret?.

see http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2015/02line-comfort-car-murder.html

Apparently, medical murders are done in nursing homes in British Columbia, I was told this by a registered nurse.  It is so routine that nurses don't even consider that it is murder, it is just done.

ubiquitous means existing everywhere
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Open Meeting on Ethics of Medical Dying at SFU

There is a meeting in which Dr. Susan Hoghson will bespeaking on the Ethics of Medical Dying.  It should be interesting.  It is an open meeting at Bluson Hall Room 11028 at SFU Burnaby Campus.  The hall is next to the main bus loop at the top of the mountain.March 6, 2015 at 3:30 pm.  If you can find time, please attend.On the roof you will find 11028.

I attended the talk on March 6 2015 ( earlier today) the speaker said that the stats in Oregon proved that those that asked for assistance to kill themselves were not vulnerable: they were white, older,  college educated, middle class (rich but not ultra rich ) and minuscule in number.  So who started this madness.  This costly exercise in one's autonomy for a few at the expense of suicide.. So far no one has accused the medical establishment of anything but if it saved $resources it would seem plausible. 

18 November 2013: the day Randy should have died revisited

I woke up this morning again with the November 18 2013 incident haunting me.  I do not know why that incident was not investigated as I told enough people about it especially at emergency in VCH.  Who made the decision that Randy should die.  Ro the manager of GPC had some of Randy's stuff packed up and she asked me to take them home.  Thinking back I though it strange as he was in a large single room.  She knew what was going to happen.

And why was it that when Randy was in VGH he was full code and immediately upon his return to GPC Dunne changed the coding to DNR and DNT and no one told me.  At least the social worker should have told me but then he could have been under instructions not to. I relied on him to let me know what was happening. 

I want to thank that RN who was on night shift who phoned me that Randy was dying so I had the time to rush to GPC and save Randy.  I suspect the nurse did not know that I lived only a short distance from GPC.  By chance or whatever, I thank him..

And what did GPC do then, they decided to rob me of my right to ever see Randy again.  I remember telling Ro when she told me that this is what could happen I said that was impossible as the only thing they have on me is that I send emails....I suspect she was warning me not to talk about the DNR incident or I will never see Randy again.

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Can you believe this ...

National Post 9/6/2014 by Tom Blackwell

Nurses are putting pressure on doctors to kill patients.

"Contentious cases can have a deep impact on the health-care system, said Dr. Chris Doig, who has seen nurses quit the ICU after staff were forced to provide treatment they considered futile."

Now it is not up to a patient or a family member or a doctor, now it is up to a nurse.

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margaretdore@margaretdore.com

Physician-assisted suicide is against public policy:

a) it encourages people with years to live to throw away their lives
b) it creates new paths of elder abuse
c) it empowers healthcare systems to steer
 people to suicide.

Bereavement not ending: Lies and Brian Willliams (NBC)

I keeping thinking about how terribly Randy and I were treated by Vancouver Coastal Health and it is still going on.  I asked to see a patient at George Pearson Centre for the past six months and each time I am told that she is not up to it.  She is not saying she does not want to see me, it is George Pearson who is hindering it.

They constructively imprisoned Randy for years and now they are taking the right away from this woman who is totally disabled from seeing me.  I have no way to access her.  And believe it or not I am afraid of the mob hysteria I had encountered (assault) and bullying by staff and security at GPC.  Remember in October 2013 I attempted to remove Randy from the caustic environment from GPC and I was attacked.  Whatever I did was in self defensive.  AND it was Randy's wish as he wanted to leave as he hated GPC and his doctor (when you ask him what he thought of Dr. Dunne, Randy would give the finger) and finally I decided to get him away and do my fiduciary duty to him, I was attacked.

 In their panic the staff lied and said I alledgedly assaulted staff and even a police officer (not true) that woman security guard Karen Marshall she put a choke hold on me which is illegal and which she confessed to in a report.  I have a picture of the bruising to my arms when staff tried to pull me from holding on to Randy's wheelchair. She should have been fired for that alone and criminally charged.Nothing was formally  investigated; just forgotten.like other incidents.The Report is so inaccurate it says that Randy's wheelchair was a 20,000 lb electric chair and I was using it as a weapon; not true, it was a light-weight manual wheel chair which I could move with a finger. Even the police would do nothing except to convince me to leave Randy there.

Remember I was doing my fiduciary duty to Randy as his representative/guardian/substitute decision maker, and Randy's repeated request to be removed from GPC, There are numerous emails to VGH and also my verbal requests to verify this..

But since the court of public opinion, the media, won't  investigate, because of some source of theirs who  alledged that I commited an assault and I was distraught because of my over concern for Randy, they won't get involved as they were afraid (a reporter told me) that it would make matters worse.

How worse can it get, Randy is dead now and VCH banned me from seeing Randy before he died. Randy was on his death bed, why else would Dr. Dunne put a DNR Order on him without his consent and then Dunne bans me from seeing Randy.  Barbaric and malicious.

A DNR was bad enough but to make sure Randy would die on November 18 2013, Dr. Dunne put a Do Not Transfer Order on Randy as well.  So Randy would be stopped from going to VGH if he needed acute care and he did need it on November 18 2013.  He would have died if I did get to him before he did..

Remember the DNR incident happened on November 18 2013 and Randy died on April 13 2014.

440,163

A DNR in British Columbia.

From wikipedia

Canada

 In 1995, the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Hospital Association, the Canadian Nursing Association, and the Catholic Health Association of Canada worked with the Canadian Bar Association to clarify and create a Joint Statement on Resuscitate Interventions guideline for use to determine when and how DNR orders are assigned.^[12] DNR orders must be discussed by doctors with the patient or patient agents or patient's significant others. Unilateral DNR by medical professionals can only be used if the patient is in a vegetative state.<sup>[12]

In British Columbia it seems that a patient doesn't have to be consulted.   When Randy's DNR was placed on him in November 15 2013 he nor I were consulted.  Only his doctor.  This was criminal mischief by Dr. Dunn. Dr. Dunn never explained why he put the DNR on Randy.  I want to know why.

 440975</sup>

Flashback: Tanu November 2010

I woke up this morning February 2 2015 shaking in a cold sweat crying and thinking of Randy.
The first day I went to Randy in 2010 (after VGH attempted to hide him)(I found him by accident) I was told by Nurse Ratchet that I was not to touch the bed or be given a chair nor was I allowed to talk to anyone unless I was spoken to first. Trust her she said as she had the power so that I would never see Randy again.  What policy book did she get that from. I am sure there is such a book be it verbal rather than written which only supervisors are privy to.

And she managed to get me 100% banned from seeing Randy in 2014 while he was dying.  There was nothing in the banning letters in January 2014 that said I could see Randy if he was near real death. After his death I cried for months and could do nothing to mitigate my loss.

Who are these people who make a game of demoralizing patients and their families.  And to make it worse to get me banned VCH got outside consultants who did not talk to me but did  write damaging reports that I was not allowed to dispute or know about.  In fact they say what they want because they are protected saying it is confidential. The consultants used hearsay from staff.  What a waste of money. What deceit. If I was an employee I would be horrified that they were doing this to them as well.

Another woman supervisor also told me in 2011 that I would never see Randy even on his death bed.  Her name was Ms. Linda Rose. This was after I asked the Chairman of the Board Kip Woodward for an investigation. When I relayed this to a social worker she said that it was something Linda Rose would do..

Who trains these people to be borderline psychopaths. Or do they just learn it on the job.:It is a game to them to see how long it takes to demoralize their prey. I see no other justification for causing such harm. I scream inside myself knowing how Randy was terrorized not knowing if he would ever see me again.  These medical bully-psychos are all around us in positions of minuet power that slowly compound causing incredible harm bordering on the barbaric. They are actors; they have no guilt or horror. 

I am not the only one they ban from hospitals in this way. It is noticeable: one day family members/friends are there, the next day they are never seen again. Again who is going to go against VCH after you are demoralized . Cameras should be in every ward to make sure that the nurses and patients and family members are treated with respect. I asked for a full investigation into all the allegations from 2010 and it was never done.


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Fear of imposed death by hospitals

In the Netherlands, where euthanasia is legal, reports circulate regularly about elderly people refusing to go to the hospital for fear that a physician will deem their life unworthy. The “right to die” quite easily becomes the “obligation to die” once physicians start becoming judge and executor.

James A. Avery, MD, The Daily Progress. 

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

http://www.dailyprogress.com/starexponent/opinion/reader-s-views-physician-assisted-suicide-is-a-bad-idea/article_b7904700-a6fc-11e4-9979-f3c89d8d588b.html

READER'S VIEWS: Physician-assisted suicide is a bad idea

Posted: Thursday, January 29, 2015 12:00 am

READER'S VIEWS: Physician-assisted suicide is a bad idea James A. Avery, MD The Daily Progress

In the dark ages of medicine, physicians routinely ended the life of their patients. However, since the time of Hippocrates ­ 2500 years ago, physicians have promised their patients that they will not intentionally terminate a life.

When, as he wrote in the Decorum, “patients become overmastered by their disease,” physicians agreed to not hasten or prolong death. “Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always” was the basic strategy. Of course, since that earlier time and, up to today, physicians have always been tempted to help desperate and despondent patients kill themselves. Time and time again, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide causes were championed – only to be ultimately rejected by the medical profession and almost all cultures.

G. K. Chesterton once said, “Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.” Since the time of Hippocrates, medicine has made huge advances in our ability to control and manage pain. So, I ask, why has there been a recent effort to take down this fence?

Certainly, the recent highly publicized case of Brittany Maynard, a winsome and attractive 29 year-old newlywed, has renewed the old tiresome arguments. Diagnosed with a brain tumor, Brittany moved from California, where she was born and raised, to Oregon where right-to-die laws are legal. On November 1, 2014, physicians prescribed a massive dose of life-ending barbiturates so Brittany could kill herself before many of the symptoms she feared and imagined could develop. It’s a sad and tragic story but the conclusion that suicide was the compassionate solution was even sadder.

As a board-certified hospice physician, I have personally taken care of many young people with brain tumors. I have found that once the hospice team addresses their suffering in all dimensions – physical, emotional, social, and spiritual – and reassures them about the future, anxieties are reduced and a peaceful death is the norm.

There are many reasons why I oppose physician-assisted suicide but let me focus on one of them here: it will change the medical profession in a dramatic and negative way. I don’t believe it is commonly known by most people that physicians in almost all countries are forbidden from participating in capital punishment. And, when physicians are inducted into the military, they do not bear arms. There are fundamental reasons for this and these go to the heart and soul of medicine: physicians heal and comfort – they do not kill.

In the Netherlands, where euthanasia is legal, reports circulate regularly about elderly people refusing to go to the hospital for fear that a physician will deem their life unworthy. The “right to die” quite easily becomes the “obligation to die” once physicians start becoming judge and executor.

Patients want their physicians to care for them without pondering and considering whether “they are worth the effort”. Taking care of seriously ill and dying patients is hard work - just ask any physician who does hospice or palliative medicine. “Assisted suicide is the easy way out for doctors,” said Johns Hopkins physician, Paul McHugh, “physician-assisted suicide tears down the time-honored barrier protecting patients from physician mischief.” Patients want a caring physician who tries his best to cure, comfort always, reassure them when they are despondent, honor reasonable wishes, and labor for their good.

So … back to our original question: was poisoning Brittany the best response a physician can offer a sad, desperate, and frightened young girl? I, like almost all physicians for the last 2500 years, emphatically say “no.”

Thirty-seven years ago, I entered medical school with the goal of reducing human suffering; the years have taught me that the physician-assisted suicide is not the answer for compassionate end of life care. The answer, in my view, is skilled compassionate hospice care.

James A. Avery, MD is the CEO of Hospice of the Piedmont.

440883
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Brain Dead or Heart Dead

In Jahi McMath's case her treatment was withheld because, in effect, someone decided she was not “there” anymore. This is otherwise known as the legal fiction of “brain death.” One must ask the obvious question, as did the astute physician Dr. Paul Byrne: if the brain were truly “dead” as was alleged, what force then caused the heart to still beat?

I suspect for heart transplants you need a beating heart else the heart organ would be dead and not transferable.  So, a donor must be brain dead but still alive. (my conclusion)

http://lifelegalguardians.org

440865
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Assisted Suicide legislation a slippery slope

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/scotland/assisted-suicide-plans-naive-1.803459

Assisted suicide plans 'naive'

By PRESS ASSOCIATION, 23 January 2015 6.46pm. Updated: 24 January 2015 12:13pm.

The Courier

Elderly parents could be encouraged to kill themselves by their children to prevent costly care bills eating into their inheritance if assisted suicide is legalised, MSPs have been warned.

Proposals to allow sick people - including teenagers as young as 16 and elderly people - to seek help to end their own lives have been attacked by palliative care experts and religious groups.

The Assisted Suicide (Scotland) Bill is "dangerously naive" and so vague it could legalise assisted suicide by loaded gun, experts said in submissions to Holyrood's Health Committee.

Dr Stephen Hutchison, consultant physician in palliative medicine at the Highland Hospice in Inverness, said: "In the UK, elder abuse affects over half a million people, with the perpetrators commonly being friends or family.

"In the face of chronic illness and dependence, and the prospect of expensive care eroding the family's inheritance, the availability of assisted suicide could create further risk to the frail and elderly and expose them to unhealthy societal and internal pressures."

International evidence suggests the legalisation of assisted suicide could be the start of a "slippery slope" to a wider acceptance of suicide for non-life limiting conditions, he added.

He said: "The relaxation of criteria and disregard for the law as seen elsewhere is almost certain to be replicated here if assisted suicide was to be legalised. To argue otherwise is dangerously naive."

In Belgium, a transsexual was euthanised following a failed sex change, deaf twins ended their lives because they feared going blind, while a women with depression and another woman with anorexia died by euthanasia, he said.

An elderly Italian lady received assisted suicide in Switzerland "because she was distressed about losing her looks", and another sought death "because she felt unable to adjust to the modern world", he said.

One doctor in Oregon "encouraged a sick man to have assisted suicide, much to the alarm of his wife" but he went on to live a further five years, he said.

Professor Marie Fallon and Dr David Jeffrey said the Bill "represents a paradigm shift in medical ethics which will have a damaging effect on the doctor-patient relationship".

They said: "The Bill is alarmingly vague as to the means of suicide. As it stands, could it include supplying the patient with a loaded gun?"

The Muslim Council of Scotland said: "Evidence shows that wherever assisted suicide is legalised, it inevitably leads to increasingly more people becoming eligible to end their lives prematurely, the recent example of Belgium's extension of euthanasia to children confirming that in this area the slippery slope is real."

The Children's Hospice Association said: "For neuro-developmental reasons, young people up to the age of about 25 years old do not fully associate their own death with permanent erasure from existence.

"This is extremely important because it means a young person might ask for assisted suicide for reasons that have nothing to do with an actual desire to die in the sense that death is understood by older adults."

The experts will give evidence to the Health Committee on Tuesday.y PRESS ASSOCIATION, 23 January 2015 6.46pm. Updated: 24 January 2015 12:13pm.

Children who want to hasten death of relative for money

Two examples are explained by Jim Shockley, probate lawyer.  It is worth the time to watch.

See Jim Shockley, MTSS against Euthanasia, You Tube 4.49 minutes.

re dangers of a living will (advance directive)
re undue influence
re morphine to hasten death

Grief

Grief is not easy.  It can throw our lives into anguish and upheaval, and we are left wondering how to deal with it.

It takes time and a thousand tears to accept the death of someone you love . . . you may receive great comfort from people who have been in the place of sadness where you are now.  In our sorrow, we are all connected.

Susan Florence

Slippery, slippery, slippery

Canadian Proposal Would Allow Doctors to Euthanize Mentally Disabled Patients

by Wesley J. Smith | Ottawa, Canada | LifeNews.com | 1/16/15 11:05 AM

In the 1990s by the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that assisted suicide is not a constitutional right. But the Court has again taken up the issue–and hence, I suspect the handwriting is on the wall.
That seems so clear that culture of death advocates are already making serious proposals to determine the look of the beast that seems to be a-aborning. University of Victoria bioethicist Eike-Henner W. Kluge has made news with a “Legislative Proposal” that would:
1. Establish euthanasia death courts–also being proposed in the UK–in a country that doesn’t permit capital punishment;
2. Allow a broad license to be euthanized based on almost wholly subjective criteria;
3. Allow the courts to order the incompetent to be euthanized.
Here are a few specifics. First, the right to be killed would be totally subjective, based on “values” of the person wanting to die:

If a person suffers from an incurable and irremediable disease or medical condition, and if that person experiences the disease or condition as violating the fundamental values of that person.

Good grief, that could mean anything beyond the transitory.
There would be Death Courts:

that person may make application to a superior court for permission to request the assistance of a physician in terminating his life as quickly and as painlessly as possible in keeping with the fundamental values of that person;

Can you imagine who would teach the judges about how to decide these issues? It wouldn’t be professors or “experts” who believe in the sanctity/equality of human life or the Hippocratic Oath!
At least the suicidal patient has to be “competent.” But wait! The incompetent could be killed too:

Any person who suffers from an incurable and irremediable disease or medical condition, and who, by reason of incompetence, is unable to make application to a court as allowed under sec. yyy.1, may have such application made for him by a duly empowered proxy decision-maker using appropriate standards of proxy decision-making.

People who were never competent could be killed, by the way. What could go wrong?
Maybe I missed it, but there are no conscience exemptions provided for doctors–or for that matter, judges.
Also note: The killing would be paid for by the government as Canada as a single payer health care system.

Please don’t say that Canada would never adopt a killing regime so unconstrained as Kluge’s proposal. Quebec’s new law is almost as radical.
At the very least can we finally acknowledge that this issue is not about terminal illness?
Of course we can’t. We live in culture that shelters from reality through the intentional embrace of pretense.
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. 
.
This is what they were doing to Randy.  He was declared incompetent in February 2014 by Dr. Dunne, a doctor who Randy did not want, and although I was Randy's representative, I was not told.  At the same time they were making a subjective case against me for being incompetent as well. How could they do this without even talking to or notifying me. We do not have to wait for legislation it is already here. They wanted him to agree to a DNR Order thus the next time he got pneumonia his heart rate would exceed what is normal and he would die. I am not even talking about assisted suicide, I am talking DNRs.
.
. 

Supply creates Demand

We demand, and death is obtained not because we suffer, but because we are afraid at the thought of suffering ... 

The countries that are questioning possible legalization should be aware that supply creates demand. 

When euthanasia was authorized twelve years ago in Belgium, it was presented as an ethical transgression, an exception reserved for extreme situations. Twelve years later, its scope has expanded considerably.

Etienne Montero
author of Appointment with Death 

My mother died fom a mild stroke

By Kate Kelly

katekellyis@yahoo.com

I watched an old woman die of hunger and thirst. She had Alzheimer's, this old woman, was child-like, trusting, vulnerable, with a child's delight at treats of chocolate and ice cream, and a child's fear and frustration when tired or ill.

I watched her die for six days and nights.

I watched her suffer, and I listened to the medical practitioners, to a son who legally decided her fate, and to an eldest daughter who advised him and told me that the old woman, my mother, was "comfortable," except when she was "in distress," at which times the nurses medicated her to make her "comfortable" again.

I watched the old woman develop ulcerations inside her mouth as she became more and more dehydrated; the caregivers assured me these were not painful.

I listened to her breathing become more and more laboured, as her lungs became congested from the morphine administered every three to four hours, and later every hour.

That is what morphine does, you see. It relieves pain, but its cumulative effect is that eventually it shuts down the respiratory system.

No one explained why the old woman was given morphine in the first place, since she was conscious and trying to speak. It is normal that a mild stroke causes temporary inability to swallow, slurred speech, and a severe headache, but all of these are often reversed when the stroke victim is treated and the treatment includes nourishment and water.

The explanation for not giving nourishment and water - a feeding tube and IV (intravenous) - is that these were "extraordinary measures" for keeping someone alive.

I watched the old woman day and night for six days. The first night, after the first shot of morphine, her mouth hung open and her tongue started to roll and flutter. At the same time, her jaw trembled continuously.

This went on all night and into the early hours of the morning. Her mouth never closed again, except to clamp tightly on wet cloths placed on her lips. Her eyes were partially closed, but they moved back and forth, back and forth, becoming small slits after seven or eight hours, not closing fully until that long first night was over.

She opened her eyes only once after that, when the nurse was late with the morphine, on the third, or maybe the fourth, day.

The old woman started to moan.

Not moaning, said the nurses and the old woman's eldest daughter. Just air escaping from the lungs. Not moaning at all.

The old woman's eyes started to open, and the air escaping from the lungs sounded exactly like a moan of agony, as the old woman's face twisted in horrible contortions. I screamed, "Her eyes are opening! Oh, God. Oh, God!"

Even as the morphine, quickly injected by a disconcerted nurse, caused the old woman's eyes to close and her face to relax, I doubted its efficacy. I thought back to the night before, when I, in tears at the old woman's slow dying, had been confronted by a delegation of four of the nursing staff, each of them in turn trying to convince me that the old woman was not suffering in any way at all. The morphine, they said, takes away all pain.

But, I answered them, she can feel: she's squeezing my hand, and if I try to take my hand out of hers, she squeezes tighter, and when I hold a little piece of gauze to her lips, she tries to suck the water out of it. She's thirsty! This is a horror; this is cruelty!

No, they said. She's not thirsty. It's just reflex. But, I tell them, I watched her clamp her lips on the gauze so tightly that I had to pull to get it out of her mouth.

She reacts when you touch her feet, her legs, and her hair. If she can feel that she can feel thirst, I plead with them.

It's not the same, they tell me. She's not in pain.

I look at her. But what if you're wrong? I say. What if you're wrong?

They stand there, saying nothing. Then one looks at the old woman and says, we'd better turn her now. She and another care worker go about the business of repositioning the old woman, to keep her “comfortable" and the other two leave.

The days and nights went in and out of focus. I sat in a chair at the side of the old woman's bed, one hand grasped tightly by her hand. I slept an hour or two, here and there, waking always with a start.

"I'm here," I murmured, so the old woman would know I was keeping the promise I made to her on the first night, after her son and eldest daughter left to get some food, drink, and rest. I promised her then, "I will not leave here until you do."

The old woman was fading by the fourth day. Her eldest daughter had been visiting for an hour or so each day, usually mid-morning. This daughter, a former hospital worker, lightly stroked her mother's face and hair and timed the length of her mother's "breath apnea," the length of time her mother

stopped breathing.

She announced the number of seconds, and then counted the number of breaths between each stopped breath. Seven breaths, she said, 11 breaths.

Sometimes she described the progress of her mother's death, She's probably down to about 60 pounds now, she pronounced.

Sometimes - I'm not sure when I noticed it first - the nurses asked us to leave while they attended to the old woman. Other times they didn't. Once, perhaps on the fourth day, I told them I didn't have to leave: I had watched them turn her, I had seen her tiny naked body as they gently washed her. I didn't even flinch anymore when they injected the syringe of morphine.

We have to give her a suppository, they said.

A suppository? Why?

For anxiety, they said.

Anxiety. So that she would appear to die with dignity. The morphine was no longer enough. This courageous old woman, who could face, who had faced, unimaginable hardships with nothing but her faith and her dignity, she could teach you about dignity, I thought to myself.

On the fifth day the eldest daughter visited twice. On her second visit, several staff members entered the room with her. They were all talking loudly, about nothing in particular, except for one care worker, fond of the old woman, who walked over to the bed and called the old woman's name loudly enough to interrupt the others' light conversation. She examined the old woman's hands, lifted the sheet covering her and looked at her legs and feet. She called the old woman's name again, and the care worker's face showed alarm.

How long has it been? she asked. She's not even mottling! (Mottling is the term given to describe the blackening of the feet and hands as the body, dehydrating, tries to preserve the vital organs by stopping the flow of blood to the limbs).

You know, continued the care worker, I don't think it's her time. It's been, what, five days? If she had been ready to go, she'd have gone in 24 hours.

The room went quiet. The care worker and I looked at each other. You're right, I said. The eldest daughter and one of the nurses began to tell her she was wrong, and a nurse hustled her out of the room.

By the sixth night I was not sure I could go on. I slept for an hour or so every four or five hours. I still sat in the chair by her bed, but now I slept with my head on bed, near her stomach.

The old woman's breathing was laboured, her will to live defying the system and the foolish young doctor who, on that first night, gave her 24 hours to live, as though he were God Himself.

My heart was breaking for her. I could do nothing to save her, could do nothing but suffer with her. I cried much of the time, but softly, so she would not know. I didn't want to add to her agony.

I had been there six days. She could no longer hold my hand, so I slipped my hand gently under hers. I felt an anguish so profound that I began to wonder if I could survive it.

The old woman's breathing was suddenly no longer laboured. Her breath eased from her, and her face - oh, her face had become the colour of pearls.

In a split second, the frown that had creased the line between her brows was smoothed away. Her head rested gently to one side. Two care workers entered the room. I saw them in my peripheral vision, but I kept my gaze on the old woman.

We're just going to turn her, one of the workers said.

No, I said, my mother is dying.

One of them left to get a nurse, and then the old woman - my dear mother, my little, child-like, beautiful mother - died.

I put my arms round her, kissed her poor, closed eyes and her now relaxed mouth, and held her limp, tiny body, no more struggling for breath.


I watched an old woman die of hunger and thirst. I watched her die for six days and nights. I watched her suffer, and struggle, and hold onto life.

She had not often found life easy, but she had always found it worthwhile. She was 94 years old. She had been born and had lived all her life in Canada. She had worked hard all her life, married, raised three children, voted, paid taxes, saved enough money to buy her own home, obeyed the laws, donated to charity, done volunteer work, paid her bills, and given much love and brought much joy to many, many people in her 94 years.

In return, in the spring of 2009, her son and her eldest daughter, with the permission and assistance of the law, because this old woman had had a mild stroke, refused her food and water. She could not swallow, so she would have needed the food and water administered artificially.

And the youngest daughter could do nothing except watch her mother die slowly, and write this, in the hope that my mother's death, like her life, will have made a difference. 

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Links

• The Final Seduction: Belgian Euthanasia Doctors Become Tourists at Auschwitz
• Critique of Canadian Senate Bill 225
• Bill 52 Is Lethal
• Donate to Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

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Euthanasia News and Information

More slippery slopes

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/politics/assisted-suicide-bill-may-be-at-odds-with-human-rights-legislation-says-law-society-of-scotland-1.784324

Scotland's Faculty of Advocates said more clarity was needed when it came to defining “life-shortening” illnesses, pointing out common conditions such as Type 2 diabetes and hepatitis could fall into this definition.
.

Margaret Somerville

"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."

Margaret Somerville,
Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill
Globe and Mail October 15 2014