Hospice Care: Back Door to Euthanasia?
A friend's husband died yesterday at home, the day after a visiting hospice nurse announced that he would die in a day or two. Let's call him Bill.
Bill's do-it-yourselver family had decided to bypass the funeral home. His body was washed by his wife and the hospice nurse and is "resting comfortably on a mattress on the dining room table."
I don't have a problem with the home viewing. I think it's great actually. I would do that myself, if I had someone die at home and the help I needed to pull it off.
But I do have a problem with how he died.
At the web page set up for Bill at CaringBridge.org, I was disturbed to see today that the wife's closest friend commented how happy she was that Bill's sufferings were "shortened."
That set off a red alert for me.
For a long time, I have suspected that hospice routines are often euthanasia in disguise.
And so I googled "hospice euthanasia."
One account I came across occurred in a hospice (not in home care). A newly-admitted man (I'll call him Joseph) had a bedsore and was eating the day he was admitted. They would not give Joseph antibiotics to continue to treat his bed sore and refused to give him food or water (ostensibly to prevent aspiration). And without medical necessity, according to the RN who was a friend of the family and present at the bedside, they started giving him large doses of morphine.
When the wife protested that her husband had eaten breakfast on the day he was admitted without any problem and she saw no reason why he would not be allowed to eat, the hospice nurse told the wife that she [the wife] just didn't get it, her husband was going to die in three days. She callously said this in the man's presence.
The RN who wrote the article reported that the hospice nurse's confidence in her prediction was due to long practice. The hospice nurse knew that three days was about how long it takes a person to die of dehydration after they start terminal sedation.
Reading this, I recalled that the hospice nurse at my friend Bill's home predicted Bill's death in a day or two. I now suspect she was able to do so because it's all part of the normal hospice procedure. She too knows how long it takes a person to die of dehydration. Bill had been taking a lot of morphine for quite some time. He had gotten a head start with the dehydration since he hadn't been able to drink water for days. He was already starving, since he hadn't been able to eat for weeks, and he was skin and bones.
When I wrote an email a few days ago to his wife and asked about tube feeding, because it might make him more comfortable (it could provide water along with the nourishment), she replie, "No feeding tube. Bill is dying, and neither of us cares to prolong the process any longer than necessary."
The truth about dying is that our lives and our deaths are in the hands of God. He made us and we live and die according to His will. To take our own lives is called suicide. To take another person's life is murder. The 10 Commandments are still in effect whether we believe in them or not.
Posted @ 5/08/2011 10:03:00 AM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
Rather, the natural moral law is still in effect, as Christ fulfilled the Judaic law. No Catholic --- and no man --- is required to keep the Sabbath holy. We have the Lord's Day instead.
Not to nitpick, but it seemed important.
Thanks for the clarification, B.B. I automatically translate in my mind the commandment about keeping holy the sabbath into the Christian Sunday.
Interesting blog. I googled "hospice euthanasia" and found your site. I believe they made this choice for my father just two weeks ago. Please continue to research this topic, I know I will.
I believe that many people are unaware of this even being a possibility with hospice and this information needs to get out. I know this was the case with us and am still in shock that he is gone.
Thank you for this blog. This just happened to one of my 16 year old disabled patients (I am a home care nurse) just last week. When I tried to see if something could be done to stop it, I found out the hard way that Hospice had already taken over. He was gone in less than 24 hrs after "terminal sedation". And for the record, he was perfectly stable.
That is a horrible story and very frightening. I would like to add that I do not think that this is the norm as people I know who were terminal (but not in immediate danger of death) were not given this type of "treatment" at all.
One Catholic priest I knew was on hospice for perhaps 3 or 4 months and the main difference for him was his quality of life improved when he could stop testing his blood sugar (he was diabetic). He took meals as long as he was able and seemed very at peace.
Although we are allowed to refuse medical care, food and especially water are not considered "medical care". They are simply imperative for life.
That said, sometimes as patients near death they do refuse most food and water, for whatever reason. At what point is it right to supersede their wishes and force IVs or tube feedings? I don't think that's an easy one to answer.
My father passed away on Christmas. On the Friday before he died, he passed out early in the morning. A nurse determined he was in congestive heart failure, yet, after several weeks of low white cell counts, he developed a high fever that morning. A doctor never examined him. He was immediately given morphine as soon as he began to come to, but was denied fluid or food. They said he couldn't swallow. Certainly, since they added atavan to the morphine by mouth, he wasn't able to communicate. Yet, he tried desperately to suck on the mouthwash swab. I argued, but my sister, a nurse, was his power of attorney. She insisted that he was under hospice care and that giving him fluids would drown him. So he dehydrated over the weekend and my objections were ignored. I'm haunted by this. The same thing was done to my mother in the same nursing home and I couldn't stop that either. They take advantage of your grief and tell you that you aren't accepting their death and you should let them go---but God, not like that. I'm so upset. After reading these blogs, I knew I was right all along, but the system is so difficult to fight because it's so legalized. God have mercy on us.
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