This is also happening in Canada i.e. pressuring patients to agree to DNRs

Marlene Deakins, RN, Supporting SB 5919. Arizona

"I hope that  with the proposed bill, doctors will get the message that they need to back off , to make sure that patients are freely choosing what’s best for them, as chosen by them."

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Dear Senator Padden, Members of the Law and Justice Committee and Senator Angel:

I am a Registered Nurse.  I am writing this letter in support of SB 5919, which would make it clear that persons asking about assisted suicide remain eligible to be told about options for cure or to extend life.  I hope that this law will provide protection for people like my brother, Wes Olfert, who died a few years ago (2011) in Washington State.

When he was first admitted to the hospital, he made the mistake of asking about assisted suicide.  I say a mistake, because this set off a chain of events that interfered with his care and caused him unnecessary stress in what turned out to be the last months of his life.

By asking the question, he was given a "palliative care" consult by a doctor who heavily and continually pressured him to give up on treatment before he was ready to do so.  It got so bad that Wes became fearful of this doctor and asked me and a friend to not leave him alone with her.

I hope that  with the proposed bill, doctors will get the message that they need to back off, to make sure that patients are freely choosing what’s best for them, as chosen by them.

Marlene Deakins, RN
Tuscon Arizona

I tried so hard.

As Randy lay unconscious on 13 April 2014 and VGH ICU would not let me hold him in my arms (they called security) I cried over and over saying to comatose Randy  That I was so sorry that I did everything I could do but they won't help him.  Randy only wanted to come home.  If he was going to die he wanted to be with me.  I couldn't even hold him, how cruel they were.The ICU bed belonged to the hospital so I could not touch it and there was a liability issue.  Critical thinking on the part of this third world imported nurse was shocking.

I buried Randy on the Island in a green grave ceremony.  It was a beautiful day among the trees and nature and sun and a light wind and the sound of life among the foliage and rockery..  I piled handful and handfuls of  pink carnations and small white flowers over his grave site.  The pink carnations symbolize that he will never be forgotten.  Carnations are a study flower and can last five-six weeks with light rain.

I promised that I was going to wear Randy's Steelers clothing as a tribute to his death but I haven't been able to do that yet.  He was a Steelers fan and most of his clothes were Steelers brand name.

At VGH I was only able to afford to pay for television for him so he could watch the Steelers games.  It was expensive $20.00 a day with tax and I remember he looked at me and moved his head up and moved his lips to say " thank you.".

Only patients that have extended medical get free television and a private room.  When I research the hospitality network I learned that VGH earns $1,000,000 a year for the televisions from the backs of the poor.   Televisions are cheap now so there is no reason except for the windfall the hospital gets so that most poor patients are without entertainment and families mostly cannot afford $600 a month..  I do not understand why a group hasn't made an issue of this yet.  But then I suppose the hospitality company that own the televisions are all doctors and everyone treads lightly with them.

Thinking of Randy

All day yesterday I couldn't stop thinking about Randy.  Life is so fragile and short.  I want him back.  He looked after me even when he was disabled.  I never regretted all the time I devoted to him.  I still haven't unpacked his belongings.  I think I will do it on April 13 2015, the anniversary of his death.
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Tim Hortons and free speech

On March 26 2015 as I regularly do I have a coffee and a donut at Tim Horton at the Pacific Centre mall.  I was sitting outside on its outside cafe area with my cart with my sign saying: The B.C. College of Doctors says it is okay to place DNRs on patients without consent.  The in-camera secret courts of the college have to go.

I was told that I had to remove the sign.  So I took the 20" X 30"sign and placed it against a tree on the sidewalk until I finished my coffee. I never talked to anyone and no one approached me. . The sign was my personal property so how can Tim Horton's tell me to remove it. What next a restraining order prohibiting me from doing commerce i.e. buying a coffee and sitting outside..

I then returned to the College at 559 Howe Street and walked up to St. Paul's Hospital.
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TED MARCH 16-20, 2015

It was like a magnet.  I had to return to TED for the rest of the week mostly in the pouring rain. I wanted someone from TED to read my sign.  Owen, the doggie, and I sat on a bench under a canopy most of the time on the Convention plaza.  Although I had my sign taped to the grocery cart no one from TED approached me except for one delegate who offered me a oatmeal cookie.  He said TED provided truck loads of catered food to the delegates.  I was watching his eyes and he never read my sign.  No one from TED read my sign. 

TED is an organization within the Sapling Foundation, a non-profit.  It would be interesting to know if the curator of TED,Chris Anderson, earns no more than 3X our minimum wage which is the criteria I use to determine if a non-profit is a true non-profit or a non-profit for profit i.e. a make work project to pay its top players millions of dollars in wages. Some young reporter might want to investigate this.

I meet a young (35 year old) man who said he did documentaries and was trying to get a TED delegate to talk to him.  If he reads this blog, will you please phone me.  604-321-2276

Randy and how much he wanted to live

I woke up this morning thinking of Randy and how much he wanted to live.  I remember when we were together I could not understand why he was so angry one day.  I asked if the nurses did something to him.  He said no.  I asked he if Dr. Dunn did something.  He said yes.  I was able to determine that Dr. Dunn told him that he would never get better and Randy was determined to prove him wrong.  Randy told me that he
did not need Dr. Dunn as I would help him.  And then those people said that I was not good for Randy and they got the public guardian and trustee involved so that I would never see Randy again.

The doctors do not work for their patients, their pieces of silver are paid by the government and they do what they are told.. The government says to meet budget projections; so the doctors ration care.

Patients like Randy are encouraged to give up. Randy was chronic and he was expensive to care for.  One doctor tells me that Randy will live and for me not to worry and another one on the same day at a different hospital at the same time puts an unauthorized DNR and DNT on Randy and puts him into a room to die.  A DNT means Do Not Transfer so if you are in a residential care facility you cannot go to an acute hospital: a recipe for certain death.

Being chronically ill is like winning the lottery; there are few winners. Lottery winners are not taxed but the chronically ill are heavily taxed by having their care rationed so their quality/enjoyment of life are lessened.

Email to TED

March 18 2015 copy of email mailed to where the buck stops: TED, slightly editted…

 On Monday I was told by TED that I wasn't allowed on what I believed was a very large public plaza mostly used by tourists in front of the Vancouver Convention Centre over looking the waterfront  that TED did not want anyone demonstrating on its turf:  TRUTH AND DARE. I did not go to the plaza with the intention of disturbing your delegates.  No fear, no delegate talked to me and no delegate even as much as glanced at my sign: they were too busy I assume with TRUTH and their own isolated personal world.  It did not offend me: it is just the way it is. 

My sign was a kindergarten craft board 20 inches X 30 inches sitting on a small personal grocery cart. And I was with my late husband's little doggie, Owen. The closest I came to the entrance was 500 feet. I was so bored and tired looking at the tourists that I was reading a newspaper sitting on a small blue blanket. My age has given me bad feet so I can’t walk or stand for long.

The information sign reads:  The BC College of Physicians says it is okay to place DNRs on patients without consent.  The secret courts of the College have to go. 

I have been randomly slowly walking the streets of downtown Vancouver with this sign on the shopping cart which also serves as a doggie wagon as Owen the doggie is getting old like me and doesn't want to walk much, he is 17 pounds, part poodle, part terri, cute, every afternoon for the past three weeks (M-F).  

How could TED put out the order to prevent a bereaving senior (first, Randy’s death and then the decision of the College) and Owen or anyone for any reason  from walking on what seems to be a public plaza.

TO: TED, where the buck stops

250 Hudson Street

Suite 1002

New York,

New York

10013

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