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

Third Force News Scotland

10th January 2015 by CG Ross

I absolutely oppose this Bill. Suicide is wrong, because it is a refusal to accept our own humanity, which itself is defined by our kinship with God. All of us and our lives have value precisely because we are children of God. This is where our dignity comes from, not from some perception of independence and control, which are only apparent and not real anyway. My own mother was almost euthanized by default, all that was required was to rehydrate her properly, which thankfully did happen. This gave her four more years of life, and although frail and bedridden, these were good years for her and for us. Pain and death, when it comes is to be accepted, are to be accepted with courage-this also lends to our dignity, but does not define it. What we must also look to, as well as throwing out this Bill, (yet again in Scotland) is support for people who otherwise might be tempted into suicide, either through ill health, frailty or depression and loneliness. This very support would be undermined by such a Bill. Not only is this morally wrong, it is extremely dangerous

Read more at http://thirdforcenews.org.uk/health-and-social-care/polls/tfn-poll-should-assisted-suicide-be-made-legal#17AqiB8iSffBkEHb.99

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Christmas 2014

Christmas 2014 with Owen, Perry's and Randy's doggie.

picture posted by a friend of Randy's ...

Finally, a legal challenge.

Mortier Challenges the law

January 02, 2015

By Alex Schadenberg. International Chair - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

Tom Mortier, a chemistry professor, who lost his depressed mother, Godelieva De Troyer, to euthanasia in April 2012, has challenged the Belgian euthanasia law and the doctor who lethally injected his mother by launching a legal challenge at the European Court of Human Rights.

An article written by Kelsey Harkness and published in the Daily Signal concerns Mortier's case.

Harkness defines the Belgian euthanasia experience by explaining how it has expanded over time. She writes:

Although euthanasia laws originally were designed with terminally ill patients in mind, they have evolved to include persons with mental illness or physical disabilities, those who didn’t or couldn’t consent, and even children. 

In Belgium, where it is now legal for terminally ill children who are in great pain and have parental consent to end their lives, euthanasia results in about one in every 50 deaths.

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Slippery Slope...soon to happen here

Depressed woman dies by euthanasia in Belgium.

Professor Tom Mortier

This article was written by Tom Mortier and published on February 4, 2013 by Mercator.net under the title: How my mother died.

A mentally-ill Belgian woman sought euthanasia to escape her problems. The doctors told her, sure, why not?

How my mother died

Since 2002 a law was passed in Belgium that allowed people to be euthanised when they were suffering intractable and unbearable pain. Today euthanasia is more often granted to people suffering from mental illnesses like chronic depression, schizophrenia, chronic anorexia nervosa and borderline personality disorder, etc.

The law requires that a patient’s free decision has to be established before medical doctors can give the lethal injections.

My mother suffered from chronic depression. Two years ago she broke off all contact with me. In April 2012 she was euthanased at the hospital of Vrije Universiteit Brussel (the Free University of Brussels).

I was not involved in the decision-making process and the doctor who gave her the injection never contacted me.

Since then, my life has changed considerably. Up until now, I am still trying to understand how it is possible for euthanasia to be performed on physically healthy people without even contacting their children. The spokesman of the university hospital told me that everything happened according to my mother’s “free choice”. After my mother’s death, I talked to the doctor who gave her the injection and he told me that he was “absolutely certain” my mother didn’t want to live anymore.

The death of my mother has triggered a lot of questions. How is it possible that people can be euthanised in Belgium without close family or friends being contacted? Why does my country give medical doctors the exclusive power to decide over life and death? How do we judge what “unbearable suffering” is? What are the criteria to decide what “unbearable suffering” is? Can we rely on such a judgment for a mentally ill person?

After all, can a mentally ill person make a “free choice”? Why didn’t the doctors try to arrange a meeting between our mother and her children? How can a medical doctor be “absolutely certain” that his/her patient doesn’t want to live anymore? Why can’t we bear to see people suffering?

Some doctors at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel believe that euthanasia should be offered to anyone who wishes to end his/her life because of unbearable and meaningless suffering. All objections and restraints from the community are regarded as immoral and unjustifiable. These doctors are nowadays even discussing euthanasia for people suffering from autism and youngsters who are suicidal.

What scares me is that these doctors also seem to be controlling the Belgium media. Is this the society we want to evolve to? Are we going to control suicides in the nearby future by putting people out of their misery before they can do it themselves -- instead of investing in mental health and palliative care?

I believe that the appeal to “free choice” is becoming a dogma of convenience. We are rapidly changing into a society of absolute loneliness where we don’t want to take care of each other any more. And when we suffer, we ask our doctors to kill us, breaking fundamental biological and human laws. However, by doing this, we create new and insoluble problems.

Therefore, we really should rethink what we believe in. 

Is it life or is it death?

Tom Mortier PhD lectures in chemistry at Leuven University College. This article was written with the assistance of Dr Steven Bieseman and Professor Emeritus Herman De Dijn. It was originally published in the Belgian medical journal Artsenkrant.

Excepts from Stealth Euthanasia.(1)

A paragraph from Ron Panzer's 2013 online book, Stealth Euthanasia:

You may be surprised but today, many people have adopted the "quality of life" ethic where it's "ok" to end someone's life because they are seriously disabled, very elderly, have dementia or any number of other reasons.
  
Many of us have become numb to the killings so that we accept an increasingly larger category of lies that may be ended in a medical setting.

And many times, we don't call them "killings. "  We say, "We let him go."  "It was time." and to "let go" is certainly appropriate when someone is truly at the end of life, but when someone is not imminently dying and they end up dead, it really is a "medical killing."

A journey

I will be out of the City until the New Year 2015 so there will be no blog entries until then.

Just remember:

Medical DNRs have to be consented to by a patient otherwise they are illegal.  A DNR can hasten your death by days, weeks, months or years caused by errors, greed and apathy. (mistakes, coercion, abuse, quality of life lies, exhaustion). Did you know there are four levels of intervention at VCH; four different DNRs.

Although DNRs are commonly forced on patients I have yet to read of a doctor being charged with culpable attempted homicide.  In Randy's case he was able to live another five months.  The health professionals all  knew when a patient is going to die; it isn't a hidden science.  In fact I should never have been banned by the bullies of George Peasrson Centre.   I have yet to get a name of anyone who fabricated.  Like Hilter said the bigger the lie the more the people will believe.  I am rather disappointed in the legal system who took Dunne's medical assessment as correct.  He said Randy plateaued when in fact when no evidence was given..  In Any event on April 4 2014 Randy had septis and he was having multiple organ failure.  Dr. Dunne should have called me immediately so I would be with him.  He is a man with no compassion or feelings. But then he didn't have to as he hide behind a court order that could have been varied at any time. I want him tested for psychopathy..Then I will know it wasn't his fault as he won't have known what harm he was doing.  Dr. Robert Hare is at UBC and the test would take less than an hour.  Dr. Dunne should take it to prove his innocence.

Christmas 2010

Randy was at George Pearson Centre.  During the Christmas Party Tanu, the head nurse, said Randy was not up to going.  This was not true.  She was establishing her power. The others nurses said nothing.

Much like when I was looking at the headlines to the Province on the community table, Tanu grabbed it and said to buy my own.  Where is it written that it was her job to guard the Province.  Her job is to nurse not to engage herself over nothing.. No matter what I did she would find fault in me.

Tanu told me the first time I saw her at GPC that she could arrange that I never see Randy again.  Where did she get that power or has she managed over the years to do that to other family members.  Why would she say that to me.

She allowed Willey to cook gourmet spicy meals for himself in the community kitchen so patients like Randy had to suffer the smell as he could not eat. It was torture.  Did she care. She was told over and over to cease this and she still allowed it to happen. What cruelty.  This woman who told me that I wasn't allowed to speak to anyone unless they spoke to me first and then she would go around telling everyone not to talk to me. She did her best to isolate me and Randy from everyone. I wasn't even allowed to use the toilet unless a security guard accompanied me.  Humiliation after humiliation.The woman also made sure that the curtains circulating Randy would also be closed;. Management knew of these things and yet they did nothing. Dr. Dunne was of the opinion that others patients needed their privacy even if such privacy would cause harm; Randy could die.

Randy  was put in a pod where curtains were pulled all around him so the nurses or anyone else could hardly see him should he be in trouble as he could not call out for help or use a call bell.  Where in hell did that woman come from.  When she is on holidays everything goes well.  When she is there a heavy atmosphere of dread is there.  I still want to know how her friend Willey was allowed to live at GPC for eight years although he had a his own house to live in.  I assume he never trusted GPC and he lived there until his wife died. And all the staff on the ward was afraid of him; they all wanted to be his friend so he won't create fault to attack them.

Whilley was a bully.  He enjoyed upsetting people like when he told me he had a petition signed by all the nurses that they did not want me on the ward. He also told me other things that were insulting and untrue and I told this to GPCand they did nothing.

I would write notes to the social worker, Sam Greenspoon, about the bullying and what did he do to the notes which should have been kept, he told me he threw them out.  So much for expecting help from a social worker in the employ of Vancouver Coastal Health. A social worker who said he worked for Randy and me. Destroy all evidence of bullying; what other evidence has he destroyed.

Even on the 18th of November, 2013, the day Randy should have died and Tanu knew and everyone else including Dr. Dunne and Ro Ang, Randy would die that night.  Tanu told me that I wasn't allowed to stay with Randy at his bedside past 8:00 pm.

At 11:30 pm I got a phone call saying that Randy was dying.  I raced to GPC saw Randy gasping for air.  I was able to call 911 as Randy was wanting to live. Randy was chronic but he could have lived for years.  Randy did not consent to a DNR or a DNT.  He was in a death room with no one there.  GPC was so wanting Randy to die that  night that they forgot to mention to the late night nurse NOT to phone me until after Randy died. Randy did not die that night: faulty miscommunication..

Next step was for VCH to get me banned forever on hearsay evidence.

Randy was 57. I am 70. Randy liked older women.

Collateral Damage

Remind those who are for euthanasia/assisted suicide/medically assisted death that such deaths might be due to mistakes, coercion or abuse.  Who speaks for the dead after death.  Say NO, NO, NO.

If this is taken out of the Canadian Criminal Code then it is open season to kill.  What punishments will there be for mistakes, coercion or abuse.  Do you trust your doctor, do you trust your family. Everyone of us is vulnerable.  With our racing medical advances and legalities, no doctor can keep up: even they are vulnerable should he or his family become ill.

Can anyone live with the thought that you put someone down; at the moment it may seem the right thing to do, but years later it will still be there to haunt you over and over...

Anyone who is a position to make these death decisions should be tested by Dr. Robert Hare to determine if the anyone is psychopathic or not. It is the psychopaths among us who are pushing death as it gives them a commonality to belong to, a group who share no remorse. And these human robots are on their way to controlling us.

Tell your Senator and MP to Vote No to euthanasia/assisted suicide

larry.campbell@sen.parl.gc.ca

from Quebec Blog "Living with Dignity"

Bill S-225 isn’t good

Bill S-225 was recently introduced in the Senate of Canada. This bill aims to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide. It would do this by amending sections 14 and 251 of the Criminal Code of Canada. We oppose the legalization of euthanasia and physician assisted suicide because they are not needed. Efforts should go towards improving proper access to pain and symptom management to everyone who needs it. Efforts should also go towards improving suicide prevention and appropriate access to services for people with disabilities.

It is important we all speak to our Senators to ask them to vote NO and reject Bill S-225.
Senate Bill S-225 is based on MP Stephen Fletcher's own bills in the House of Commons (C-581 and C-582).  Bill S-225 will be debated in the Senate early in 2015.  The language on the bill is open to interpretation and opens the door for abuse. Safeguards don't protect people from abuse of euthanasia or physician assisted laws, but this bill is particularly bad news.
It would be easy, although erroneous, to think the so-called safeguards in the bill are solid. A closer look and analysis show significant problems.

Some of significant problems with Bill S-225

Adults only

Section 3(a) requires people to be 18 years old or more. However, there have already been calls to remove the age limit because it would be discrimination to deny access to euthanasia to younger people.

Illness, disease or disability

Section 3(c) requires people to have been diagnosed by a physician as having an illness, a disease or a disability, including disabilities caused by traumatic injuries. This opens up the door to a wide interpretation of the eligibility criteria. People with non-terminal and non-degenerative condition could be deemed eligible.

Physical or psychological suffering

Section 3(c)(i) requires that the person be enduring physical or psychological suffering that they deem intolerable, and that cannot be alleviated by any treatment acceptable by the person.
This is a highly subjective criterion that cannot be properly evaluated. It would be impossible to use this criterion to deny a request. The statistics out of Oregon show that a very small percentage of people requesting physician assisted suicide do so because of physical suffering. In Belgium, a healthy 70 year old woman was euthanized after she became depressed due to the end of a long-term relationship. In the Netherlands, a 63 year old man was also euthanized because he was depressed and lonely after he retired.

Weakened capacities with no chance of improvement

Section 3(c)(ii) requires that the person is in a state of weakened capacities with no chance of improvement. What does that mean, exactly? Many people with disabilities or elderly individuals meet this criterion.

Sound mind

Section 3(d) requires the person to be of sound mind and fully able to understand the information provided. It is well known that depression is a significant risk factor in requests for euthanasia. In fact someone dealing with depression is 4 times more likely to request euthanasia. The number of euthanasia request granted for psychiatric patients in the Netherlands is growing exponentially.

Free choice

Section 3(e) requires the person to be acting voluntarily, free from coercion or undue influence. This is another criterion that is impossible to judge. Elder abuse is a growing problem and generally under-reported. In the Flanders region of Belgium, a third of euthanasias were done without explicit request.

Reporting requirements

Section 13 requires physicians to report the death of people they provided assistance to die to the Minister of Health within 30 days. As the person is already dead, it is not a safeguard. At best it will serve to gather data. However, no physician would self-report wrong-doing. Such reporting requirements do not guarantee that euthanasias or assisted deaths will be reported. 23% of euthanasias in the Netherlands were not reported. Nearly half of euthanasias in Flanders (Belgium) were not reported.

Vote No

Canada will not be different and these requirements are not going to protect people very well, nor very long. Regardless of your position on euthanasia and assisted suicide, you should oppose Bill S-225 as it is poorly written and provides no real safeguards.
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B C College of Physicians and Surgeons.1

26 November 2014

BC College of Physicians and Surgeons

300-669 Howe Street,

Vancouver, B. C,.

Attention: Sharon Thomson

Gentlemen:

Subject:  Dr. James Vincent Dunne

               Randy Michael Walker

I received your 175 page bundle today and you have missed the point.  I want to know what Dunne’s response was to why he put an illegal DNR and DNT Order on Randy on November 15, 2013, and other times and didn’t take it off when requested to do so. 

Inferring that I am a bitch rather than doing my fiduciary duty to Randy is insulting.  VCH and in particular Dr. Dunne knew I was Randy’s representative from 2010 and yet he lied to you.  The Old Boy’s network isn’t going to work this time. Three representation agreements were in his file.

Where are the emails that I sent to Dr. Dunne.  I want my memory to be refreshed.  I want the information you sent resent with all that is blanked out inserted.  This is a quasi-judicial proceedings and you can’t withhold that information from me.

Yours very truly,

Audrey Jane Laferriere

5976 Cambie Street

Vancouver, BC

V5Z 3A9

604-321-2276

FAX  604-733-3503

FAX  250-953-3195

PS notes to blog readers:

Remember to contact both you MLA and MP and ask him/her to insist on a full investigation of why the medical system is broken.  What happened to us should never have happened.  If a patient dies because of an unconsented DNR,  it is murder.  And they imprisoned Randy in hospital for no lawful reason. He was capable of making his own decisions so how did VCH decide otherwise and not even tell me that he had no capacity. 

There is a YouTube video on how the health authorities deal with the public: delay, deny, divide(patient from family), discredit and demoralize. 

One wrongful death caused by assisted suicide or euthanasia is one death too many.  How do you know if that person really really really wants to be dead.  How can anyone know that with certainty.How would I know that of myself.

Daniela imprisoned by four nurses as her grandmother dies ...

My name is Daniela. I am 46 years old and live in Oregon. I believe my grandmother was killed in a hospital on June 24, 2014. She was in the emergency room for three hours; not the three days the hospital said she was..  The nurse told me that it was time to say goodbye and she died almost immediately upon receiving the morphone. I have the medical records, but there is no notation of any morphine she was given.

The photograph to the left is of Elisabeth Koczur.
The last wish my grandma had was for a drink of water. I don't think I will ever forget how she looked at me expecting help. Four nurses in the room imprisoned me and I could not move. I was forced to keep looking in her eyes as she pleaded for water. Why was I not allowed to grant her last wish?

Our family is in shock and is having emotional problems because of what we witnessed. My grandma went to the hospital with abdominal pain and shortness of breath. There, according to the medical records, she was diagnosed to have congestive heart failure, but, when she went into cardiac arrest, they did not attempt to resuscitate her. If she had received proper treatment, she might be here with us today. 
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danieladogar@hotmail.com

My Randy was only 57 when he died and we live in Canada.  I think back to Monday November 18 2013 when he was scheduled to die because of an illegal DNR because he was chronic.  I found him gasping for air and I was able to treat/save him; the nurses at George Pearson Centre did not attempt to stop me. Compared to Daniela what a narrow escape I had. In January of 2014 I was banned from seeing Randy and on April 13, 2014, he died.  He was in intensive care at VGH and I was told he had multiple organ failure.  I do not understand this as the coroner later changed the autopsy to accidental: the accident of 2010.

note  ...when a person is dying a natural death you give him water, a wet facecloth on his lips, or a piece of ice or ice chips to suck on.  Giving morphine (a pain killer) will cause slow breathing and if given too high a dose can cause death.            

 

Missey is dead.

On Saturday November 8 2014 early morning Randy's dog, Missey, died.  I found her under the vanity.  My living space is void without her presence. 
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Being handicapped with a doggie, pouring rain, and a taxi

Yesterday was a long day.  As I exited a Blacktop cab at 8:00 in the morning my shoes got soaking wet from the pouring rain.  All day I had no shoes or socks.  I was barefoot and cold. When I have to wait I usually read but I forgot my glasses at home so the day went very slowly.  The good thing was that I had an extra pair of Depends.

I had to wait until 4:00 at which time I phoned for a Blacktop cab with a lift to pick me and Missey from Boundary and Lougheed so that we can get home.  It was pouring rain again.  The dispatcher ;said a cab would be there shortly.  I waited twenty minutes and I knew it would not be coming shortly as the cab would have called my cell saying it was in the neighbourhood.  The lady at the professional building said she would talk to Blacktop as my fear that no cab would arrive was unfounded. 

So from thereon she tried every twenty to thirty minutes to call Blacktop as to the ETA and was told that I was on the high priority list.  It turned out that I was on the high priority list to be avoided.  Finally at 5:00 o'clock the woman was told that Blacktop only had two vans and both were in downtown Vancouver. Not true. Blacktop has at least 27 vans.  Finally at 6:30 my cell phone rings and it was a Blacktop cabbie responding to my 4:00 o'clock call. He had just dropped off a fare on Hastings and Boundary and saw my call on his display.  The dispatcher was lying as no cab was ever on its way.
    
This whole thing flashed back to 2011 when I tried to get a cab for myself and the doggies at the Delta Hotel downtown Vancouver.  It was pouring rain.  Two cabs refused to take us as two passengers were doggies.  Finally, what seemed like hours a cab came who was willing to take us to 41st and Cambie. Again the weather was pouring rain and I soaking wet. 

On top of the $30.00 fare I had to pay $15.00 for Missey.  A handicapped person in a wheelchair that required a van would have not be charged $15.00 and he would have been more work than a doggie who just laid on the floor of the van. I got very bad service from Blacktop which was witnessed because I was handicapped with a doggie. 

I still haven't unpacked Randy's belongings from George Pearson Centre  as I know there will be a flood of emotion when I touch each item of clothing.  Even getting Randy's stuff from GPC proved to be difficult but that is another segment.It will be seven months since Randy died on April 13 2014 so I will unpack his stuff on November 13, 2014. 

I am still thinking on how to deconstruct the Calder Report: there is so much information to deconstruct.  I still cannot believe VCH doing this.  I cannot understand why the media isn't investigating the report.  Just leaving me by myself with the sharks isn't right.

PS  At around 6:00 pm the receptionist decided to call Yellow cabs who said that a cab would be there in ten minutes.  In a panic I said to her not to do that as no cab would come because the cabs companies are hooked up to a common computer and then no one would come if a caller called multiple cabs and I would be blacklisted.  She didn't believe me.  The ten minutes came and went and no yellow cab.  Searching Black Top cabs on the internet there was a rant about Black Top and Yellow Cab doing this.  Cabs should be designated emergency vehicles if the customer says so or the points of pickup or departure are at a hospital which in this case it was: an animal hospital.

The Most Dangerous Person in the State

To Hyfeland, it was not up to the doctor to decide whether the patient was "happy or unhappy, worthwhile or not." Should the doctor make these decisions, "the consequences would be unforeseeable and the doctor could well become the most dangerous person in the state."

Rationing of care based on quality of life as decided by the doctors is happening now in our hospitals. They rationed Randy's care to hasten his death. .They won't even let me see him until I got a supreme court order so I could watch him die.

According to the internet Euthanasia is illegal in China and Russia (abortions are legal).

Where is Mary Turner.  Is she alive, is she dead, is she in Alberta.  I am thinking of going  to  the police and report her missing.  They would have to locate her and determine if I the person who saved her life would like to see me.  I think so.


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Maggie Karner Connecticut Fund

This post is to counter Britanny Magnard's Fund found on the internet and You Tube.  It is a statement of a young woman, Maggie Karner, from Connecticut, who wants to fight for every moment of her life.  She should get equal billing.

  So the 10 million of you who have seen Britanny's web site/You Tube video should also see Maggie Karner's.  Even the letter Maggie drafted out you can partially see it, in her words. The family being together at the end of life which is what every person who dies wants.  Maggie's father wants his family to be cohesive and loving and the extra time allotted to forgive and get to know each other again..The pain of the body is nothing. 

We live in a ghastly world why can't we be allowed a Norman Rockwell death. 

By allowing the elderly and the chronic to live it creates work (taxes) paid by employees and for medical supplies so what is the rush to hasten their deaths.This is a viable industry. Soon we will not have a medical industry like the manufacturing industry which is destroying North America. I do not think we can outsource near dead bodies.

More money is paid on lotteries than is paid for the care of the elderly and those in chronic care. What cost is three more months of life.

To see Maggie Karner's video connect with Euthanasia Prevention Coalition International News and Information.and listen to Maggie's letter to Brittany October 30 2014.  It would be something if these women would join forces for life.  info@epcc.ca, 1-877-439-3348 Alexander Schadenberg

Family Institute of Connecticut, 77 Buckington Street, Hartford, Ct./ 1-800-548-006

Margaret  Dore, Choice is an Illusion: 10001 4th Avenue #44 Seatle Washington 98154 1-206,223,1922

Ron Panzer, Hospice Patients Alliance, 4680 Shank Street, NE, Rockford, MI 49341, 616-866-9127

Compassion and Choices and its affiliates have spend millions of dollars on convincing Americans that they have a right to die even convincing state governments to allow death for those who are not productive (DNRs)..They have made a multimillion dollar industry for themselves (a make work project killing people)  .Biomedics is unethical.  It is another word for cost accounting. Sick people are not $commodities. Scarcity of medical resources can/has been created to allow rationing of care which in turn forces sleath euthanasia.

 Maggie Karner now has a YouTube video: A letter to Brittany Maynard.


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25 October 2014

I attended an all candidates meeting this afternoon.  I discovered the CEDAR civic party and I would ask that you vote for them.  During the years I contacted all the other political parties to help me with my banning from Vancouver Coastal Health.  I never heard anything from them.  I suggested to CEDAR that the city could use moral suasion to ensure that no one gets banned from a facility in Vancouver unless there is a court order.  One of the candidates said he was a lawyer and that he had a client that was banned and he understood the problem.  I told him that banninig isn't just for one or two individuals; it was a serious problem which is not documented.  The only way not to be banned is to show up only at Christmas for ten minutes and also make sure your first language is not English. 

I read the platform for the CEDAR civic party and I would vote for it and so should you. There is no other alternative except to vote for the candidates that are independent.

Some light news....

CNN Opinion dated October 14 2014 The danger of assisted suicide laws by Marilyn Golden


"At less than $300, assisted suicide is, to put it bluntly, the cheapest treatment for a terminal illness."

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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.