I just watched the episode on the cost of medicine vs dying. The show that is on the other side of this conversation is Soylent Green. That show allows those at end of life to choose their own time. http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/soylent-green-trailer/589012b67f0ccdcdbb74589012b67f0ccdcdbb74-165822988690?q=soylent%20green&FORM=VIRE7
I canNOT believe you are saying to let sick people just die because it'll cost too much to help them live. I've had COPD for 9 years and have to be hospitalized at least twice a year because of it. Nobody better tell me that I'm too sick to be taken care of!!!!! Why doesn't our government take away the cause of COPD -- cigarettes? Ours is the 4th leading cause of death right now and as the baby boomers all get older, it is soon to be the 3rd leading cause of death. So you want all of us to stay home and die? What a sick show and a sick idea!
Honey Bunny, I'm so sorry you have COPD. It's a terribly debilitating disease. I want you to know, as a health professional, that no one wants you die at home alone. But you have to know the government cannot intervene in the choices you have already made or will make. You chose to smoke, so did my late husband. Don't make another foolish choice to prolong your life when you're in a coma and can't think for yourself anymore. Appoint a proxy to make that decision for you. I'm perfectly healthy, thank you God, but my daughter's my proxy already, and I told her not to revive me if there's no hope I can ever have another meanful conversation with her again. I'm sure you feel the same way.
The one thing that was said in this report that scares me is that we should not be making care decisions on a case-by-case basis. To me, that simply means that, under the new health care plan, the government will decide whether someone gets treatment or not. It starts out as being directed at the terminally ill who can't benefit from any further treatment, but it will eventually end with the elderly not being treated simply because of their age. Will we get to a point where anyone over 50 won't be treated? I'm completely against a blanket rule, and I believe these decisions SHOULD be made on a case-by-case basis.
As a veteran nurse who has watched both dignified deaths with the use of end-of-life care and deaths that were coupled with CPR and extraneous measures you can bet I've got a living will that states specifically what I want.
Give me the end-of-life care, let me keep my dignity without broken bones, trauma to my body and the harsh realism that modern technology can't increase my quality of life when it's time for me to leave this world.
I'd like to be like my mother who chose to leave this world as she lived it - in control of her destiny!
One of the patients shown had a hospital infection which was a complication to her original illness -- so I feel the hospital has the obligation to assist her. I don't want the decision of whether I live or die to be in the hands of a physician or hospital whose concern is the "bottom line".
My mother has lead a simple life and hopefully her death will be simple. There is be no funeral, no obituary, etc, her children are to cremate her and scattered her ashes. She states, "I did not come into this world fancy and I am not going out that way." My mother's biggest fears are losing her mind and living in a nursing home. She has instructed us that if this happens we are to take her to the Netherlands where it is legal for her to end her life. At first I refused, now after watching several other relatives lanquish in nursing homes for years I will honor her wish. It is not about the person but about money. Most people would not chose to spend their last years or months in a nursing home. I cannot count how many times I went to the nursing home and heard my grandmother yelling. "Jesus, come take me home." 3 1/2 years later she got her wish. She NEVER wanted to be in a nursing home but she had no choice. Strange that before she went in she only took a water pill and a blood pressure pill. Once in the nursing home they were giving her all kinds of pills several times a day and when her SS did not cover the cost of those pills they asked family to pay the difference. I hope when my time comes I able to chose. I will take the pain pills and stay at home and no funeral or obituary, etc I am no longer buying into that.
It's been observed, and often at risk to careers, that by far most medical expense is in the last 6 months of life and it does little good. Prolongs death at best, and has offered no insights into saving or prolonging healthy life.
The argument this leads to is that the end of life should be a focus on "Comfort and Dignity" and just accept that when people reach a certain age (a combination of genetics, wear and tear and health) their body starts to shut down and nothing in current medical understanding can halt it.
The money spent on the last 6 months+ of life should be diverted to more research and more health for the rest of the population. To keep more people healthy (yes, free health care could be easily provided for by this) more exercise/diet/fitness attention. And, more research into not pretending to cure the symptoms of age but trying to figure out how life's processes work and if indeed there are "Triggers" that can be manipulated.
Now, an argument like this is turned into a "Death Panel" fear mongering by reactionary shouters and aided by a now for profit only industry that only cares about money in the quickest way possible. That's why it's not spoken this much outside a 'fringe'. But I have seen relatives die after many trips to the hospital. The doctors didn't really prolong any life, just put off death. But when their bodies decided to shut down that was the end, outside of a painful dance of "Treatments". IMO, they still would have died at the exact same second, the doctors should have just doped 'em up on sedatives so the pain wouldn't distract them and bring in a line of family, lawyers if they have any land/property issues, and if they care a priest.
I am a sixty four year old mother and grandmother who has faced end of life questions and searched my soul for answers. Dieing is not easy for some of us. For most people is is something unplanned that just happens at a time when we least expect it. often the decisions are left up to someone else. This is why when I was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension three years ago, i tried to find answers that would work for me and my family. i made a will and living will. There are all kinds of living wills. I saw my mother-in-law die in a hospital after a stroke at age 94. She had signed to with hold food and water. it was a horrible slow death. It took a week. She was not in intensive care. They only swabed her mouth out with water on a sponge. the only pain meds she got were a suppository of tylenol. She was a great lady who raised nine children. she was very brave. I do not want that for me. When I was told that it would cost $8000. per month for two pills to keep me alive, which medicare would pay for, I said no. I went in to a drug study and stayed in it for two years. i was most disappointed in the results. The doctors and nurses in the study were most disrespectiful and not at all honest. i could write a book just about those two years. I was at a major medical center here in maine and after a year i transfered to the same study in boston.I was worse there. They promised me medical care in exchange for participation in the study. I did not get any care. the dr in charge of the study in Boston was on the board of directors of the drug company sponoring the study. i finally got a dr who helped me get off the study (god bless him)At present I am on one fda approved drug at about$1600.00 per month the drug is Adcircia. I am doing well. End stage of this disease is not a pretty picture. At some point I will need to decide if I will allow a permanent i.v. site and a infusion pump to medicate me 24 hrs a day. I am blessed with a good family but i don't want to burden them. You show pictures of people dieing in intensive care costing lots of money. Well, I am sitting here alive facing that same senario. I worked my whole life, I was a productive member of this country. I am not a coward, a selfish person, i do not want to bankrupt this country with my care. We don't get to pick the time when the heart stops beating.
there is no approved protocol for death, by insurance companies, or medicare or the health care profession......YET That is one freedom the government has not taken away......YET Honestly, to be fair about this subject of end of life health care, You need to go into the nursing homes and see the old people who die there with little or no end of life care. I am sure that is where you will find me one day.
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Give me the end-of-life care, let me keep my dignity without broken bones, trauma to my body and the harsh realism that modern technology can't increase my quality of life when it's time for me to leave this world.
I'd like to be like my mother who chose to leave this world as she lived it - in control of her destiny!
The argument this leads to is that the end of life should be a focus on "Comfort and Dignity" and just accept that when people reach a certain age (a combination of genetics, wear and tear and health) their body starts to shut down and nothing in current medical understanding can halt it.
The money spent on the last 6 months+ of life should be diverted to more research and more health for the rest of the population. To keep more people healthy (yes, free health care could be easily provided for by this) more exercise/diet/fitness attention. And, more research into not pretending to cure the symptoms of age but trying to figure out how life's processes work and if indeed there are "Triggers" that can be manipulated.
Now, an argument like this is turned into a "Death Panel" fear mongering by reactionary shouters and aided by a now for profit only industry that only cares about money in the quickest way possible. That's why it's not spoken this much outside a 'fringe'. But I have seen relatives die after many trips to the hospital. The doctors didn't really prolong any life, just put off death. But when their bodies decided to shut down that was the end, outside of a painful dance of "Treatments". IMO, they still would have died at the exact same second, the doctors should have just doped 'em up on sedatives so the pain wouldn't distract them and bring in a line of family, lawyers if they have any land/property issues, and if they care a priest.
there is no approved protocol for death, by insurance companies, or medicare or the health care profession......YET That is one freedom the government has not taken away......YET Honestly, to be fair about this subject of end of life health care, You need to go into the nursing homes and see the old people who die there with little or no end of life care. I am sure that is where you will find me one day.