We had to kill our patients

[pete f]

If you think this is not a daily occurance in America you are foolish.

while not happening on the same scale perhaps, this sort of thing happens every day and is not murder, or medical malpractice, but instead, the true answer to the hippocratic oath Upon graduation, many medical students take a modern version of the oath written by Louis Lasagna in 1964.
Hippocratic Oath -- Modern Version

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.


I have seen this happen twice.
I was sad to lose who i lost, but the fight was over, the battle lost. what was left was only the path of destiny. But death was slow and painful and
and it was only going to make my loved one suffer inexcusably not to help death come sooner. The look in the eyes of the one I was with at the end who welcomed the release that the drugs provided was the one thing that released me from guilt.

 

[Joejojoba111]

But what about rights? What about rights. A person has rights to life. If they want to die, or they told someone to kill them, that's that. But it's THEIR choice, it has to be THEIR choice.

No man or woman should have the power to make that choice for them, or against their will.

If you say to a person, "We have to leave, we have to. We can't take you with us, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. Would you like something to make the end come quickly and painlessly?" and they say "yes", there's no problem.

But when you look around and realize it just took you 5 minutes, and you have 500 more people to talk to, and that makes 2500 minutes, and that's almost 2 days of talking ... And then you say, "Ah hell just give 'em each some poison and let's get out of here."

It's different. Like when you are starving so you eat a dead person. It's different from when you're starving so you make a person dead and eat them.

 

[telewinz]

As a Practising ICU RN this make me very mad.

As a realist and a person facing death sometime in the future, it gives me hope that MY needs and desires may take priority over the the "values" of the hired help/by-standers. I hope that doctor is MY doctor when MY time comes. Agony seems to last forever, it's the quality of life that matters, not the quantity. Besides, ODing the terminally ill is/has been a common practice for centuries. It's just not talked about in front of the children or in "polite society", it upsets them as reality sometimes will.

No man or woman should have the power to make that choice for them, or against their will.

Yet you complain about the additional taxes/insurance fees required to care for the destitute terminally ill. What options are left? Will you accept a few terminally ill in your house to increase our resources? Will you still hold to your beliefs after a few minutes of witnessing their agony? A few hours? A few days? How about MONTHS! Will YOU assume their medical bills? No offense but I suspect that your beliefs would collaspe like a house of cards if they were REALLY put to the test.

 

[RealGun]

Euthanasia should have its place, not be patently illegal just to make those not involved feel good.

 

[Joejojoba111]

""Quote:
No man or woman should have the power to make that choice for them, or against their will.""

telewinz:
"Yet you complain about the additional taxes/insurance fees required to care for the destitute terminally ill. What options are left? Will you accept a few terminally ill in your house to increase our resources? Will you still hold to your beliefs after a few minutes of witnessing their agony? A few hours? A few days? How about MONTHS! Will YOU assume their medical bills? No offense but I suspect that your beliefs would collaspe like a house of cards if they were REALLY put to the test."


Telewinz, I told you where my line is. I feel it's wrong to kill someone without their consent. I feel that drawing the line anywhere else is a grave mistake.

Now you anwer my question: How many dollars must a person's treatment cost before they should be killed?

 

[Iain]

I don't think you'll find that the Daily Mail is particularly communist.

It falls to the right, and between the tabloids and the (in many cases, former) broadsheets.

It loves stories about how asylum seekers are destroying the country.

 

[beerslurpy]

Telewinz, I told you where my line is. I feel it's wrong to kill someone without their consent. I feel that drawing the line anywhere else is a grave mistake.

How about treating them without my consent? Its my money and I dont want it wasted.

 

[iapetus]

Iain

I don't think you'll find that the Daily Mail is particularly communist.

It falls to the right, and between the tabloids and the (in many cases, former) broadsheets.

It loves stories about how asylum seekers are destroying the country.

... and single mothers, young people, gypsies, rock music, the media, video games, liberals*, the left*, Europe, America, multiculturalism, "trendy teachers", the decline of Christianity, etc. Although asylum seekers are probably its biggest target.

(* These terms aren't necesarily interchangeable in the UK as they are in the US.)

They also like screaching about how tyrannical the government is, whenever it tries to restrict anything that Daily Mail readers like doing, and then turning round and calling for a massive crackdown on swearing in movies, raves, and anything else they don't approve of.

They also have celebrity/fashion sections, where they spitefully and mercilessly attack any celebrity who has been spotted looking less attractive/well dressed than they normally are.


The Mail is basically a tabloid for people who are too stuck-up to admit they read tabloids.

 

[M67]

sounds like one of those norweigean countries where the doctors can choose to kill you if THEY feel you are not worth spending money on.

Citation? Reference?

Weekly World News, maybe?

First, there is some geographical confustion, the region referred to is probably Scandinavia? If so, the statement is wrong. Euthanasia at the request of the patient is illegal, as in considered murder, in all the Scandinavian countries. Any such act without the informed consent of the patient would definitely, absolutely be treated as premeditated murder.

The only places I can think of that allow euthanasia at the repeated request (not merely consent) of the patient, is the Netherlands, Oregon and possibly Belgium. In Switzerland "assisted suicide" is legal, and can be performed by non-physicians.

 

[Iain]

Iapetus

It is actually the one paper that really gets up my nose, often for the reasons you mention.

Daily Mail readers should be allowed all the freedoms they, as good moral people, deserve, but asylum seekers and single mothers should be interned somewhere smelly.

The DM reader truly is the person (along with many Guardian readers) that wants the govt to treat everyone else in the country like a child, yet expects to be treated like an adult themselves.

 

[R.H. Lee]

How about treating them without my consent? Its my money and I dont want it wasted.

How is it your money? I'd wager you VOLUNTARILY turned it over, then you VOLUNTARILY verified you turned it over when you filed your tax return. Any claim you had on it has long been forfeited.

Anybody who hasn't been in the position of having to make the decision has no business offering an opinion. After you've been there, come talk to me about it.

 

[Rockstar]

Why don't we get some quotes from The National Enquirer while we're at it? Doctors generally are fairly intelligent people. You think a medical doctor is going to piss away a career and spend time in prison by admitting to a journalist or anybody else that he/she'd committed murder? Let's get out of Lala Land and discuss something of the Real World.

 

[El Tejon]

I declare bearthread.

Everything in a hospital is done, in triplicate while supervised, to avoid who, boy and girls? Yes, that's right, the lawyers. Can you imagine the litigation field day here?

Besides, everyone knows that George Bush and other black-hearted Republicans are really responsible for everything bad, real or imagined, that happens in New Orleans.

 

[stealthmode]

Jay, just so you dont think im making stuff up i will look up some stuff for you.

heres some articles.

i saw a real good article on yahoo news probably from AP several months ago describing what they did to the old people where the families would come back for a visit and find out their loved ones were killed without them knowing. the doctors are playing god. dont they have socialized medicine over there?

http://www.boston.com/yourlife/heal...10/study_newborn_euthanasia_often_unreported/

http://www.kfmb.com/story.php?id=7167

http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2005/mar/11/yehey/opinion/20050311opi5.html

 

[LawDog]

http://www.internationaltaskforce.org/fctholl.htm

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/smith200312230101.asp

http://www.euthanasia.com/nethcases.html

LawDog

 

[Feanaro]

I'd wager you VOLUNTARILY turned it over, then you VOLUNTARILY verified you turned it over when you filed your tax return.

And if you don't voluntarily hand over those taxes at the right time, what happens? You have to pay even more taxes. If you still don't pay, you go to jail. If you don't voluntarily go to jail, they can take you to jail involuntarily. Or kill you if you put up a fight. Yep, taxes are totally [/i]voluntary[/i]. Like armed robbery.

 

[Rockstar]

Owing taxes is not a crime. You won't go to jail for owing taxes. If owing taxes were a crime, I'd be serving three life sentences.

 

[telewinz]

How many dollars must a person's treatment cost before they should be killed?

How much can they afford? How much can their insurance company pay ($1,000,000 lifetime?), How much are YOU willing to pay in increased taxes to foot the bill? How much can we afford to waste on a lost cause? The truth is human life has ALWAYS had a price tax, some just don't cope well with the "hardball" questions. In every society someone has to be responsible and balance the budget or the whole system fails. You don't have to be godlike to answer that question but being an accountant helps. We all know that some human lives are invaluable to society and some are worthless, despite what is taught in elementary school. It part of the growing-up process. If you or I can't face the reality of "limited resources" that doesn't make the problem disappear...it's done out of sight so that our sensibilities are not offended.

 

[Joejojoba111]

I see, it's sort of like the triage center. Like in that show MASH, where they'd line all the stretchers up outside the operating room. And they'd identify those most likely to survie if operated on. And then the commissar would put a bullet in the head of the rest of them.

Gotcha.

Also, might I point out that it took extra time and money to kill people rather than let them be... Just to show that even on the hearless murder level the action was not sound even in a fiscal sense.

 

[kikilee]

while not happening on the same scale perhaps, this sort of thing happens every day and is not murder, or medical malpractice, but instead, the true answer to the hippocratic oath

My father-in-law passed away in Jan, He was afflicted with brain cancer. After it was determined he could not recover, his feeding tube was pulled, his pain medication increased. He died 6 days later. Starved to death painlessly.

 

[Hutch]

I hope I don't sound like a GSC or wannabee, but if there was ever a time I could ever envision fighting to the death, with whatever means come to hand, it would be to protect helpless hospital patients from the Visigoths. Notice I said "helpless", not "hopeless". What was a helpless person before the levee broke might well become hopeless as the situation deteriorates, but I couldn't leave those behind if I had any hope of defending thiem until rescue came along.

Again, I hope this doesn't sound like mindless chest-thumping. Regarding the end-of-life debate, well, that's above my pay grade. I'm trying to imagine the mental state of a caregiver, having pushed the plunger (or whatever) then hearing the sound of the helicopter on the roof. Too much for me, I tell ya.

 

[Cosmoline]

I've learned to take any reporting from UK papers with a very large grain of salt. For one thing, they are universally anti-American and are taking every opportunity to cut us down.

 

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, I'm afraid this may have some relevance:

La. Nursing Home Owners Charged in Deaths

BATON ROUGE, La. - The husband-and-wife owners of a nursing home near New Orleans were charged Tuesday with negligent homicide in the deaths of 34 people during the flooding unleashed by Hurricane Katrina.

The case represents the first major prosecution to come out of the disaster.

The owners of St. Rita's Nursing Home in Chalmette "were asked if they wanted to move (the patients). They did not. They were warned repeatedly that this storm was coming," Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti said.

And a bit further down,

The attorney general said he is also investigating the discovery of more than 40 corpses at flooded-out Memorial Medical Center, in New Orleans' Uptown section.

I expect the autopsies will be enlightening.

 

[SouthpawShootr]

The attorney general said he is also investigating the discovery of more than 40 corpses at flooded-out Memorial Medical Center, in New Orleans' Uptown section.

Hope he's just as quick to charge the people involved in this one too. More people died and he's "investigating." Sounds to me like the hospital administrator should be next.

 

[Cosmoline]

No surprise on the nursing home. The owners ignored their responsibility to evacuate their residents. The hospitals, also, seem to have been caught completely by surprise with absolutely no plans to evacuate patients or keep themselves operating for an extended period in flood conditions. They should have and certainly could have had agreements with hospitals upstate to take patients ahead of the storm.