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.