This post is based on recent personal experience along the warning given in the President's Report from a recent issue of the Illinois Right to Life Committee newsletter. �
While most people are still focused on an "Advance Directive" in medical care which they have been convinced will only activate when someone is in great pain at the end of their life, changes in medical care are taking place which are of great importance. �This information should be studied in conjunction with information about the Nazi's Euthanasia program and reading of the book by Hoche and Binding from the '20s entitled "Release of a Life Devoid of Value." �Keep in mind that you or your family member are dependent on what members of a health care system are willing to do and one can be quickly moved from the status of one being helped to recovery to being considered a patient where help would be considered futile care once in a hospital or a nursing home. �Right now under at least one major �HMO plan the primary care doctor you trusted all along is replaced by a strange doctor once you are moved to a hospital or nursing home. �
The following is the President's Report from a recent issue of the Illinois Right To Life Newsletter. �A copy of the article is available from IRLC at 312-322-9300. �
----------------------------------------------------------------
"Update on Euthanasia - Futile Care Theory
It is becoming increasingly clear that the medical profession, hospitals and legislators are the "front men" for the euthanasia movement. �The discussion is moving away from assisted suicide and death with dignity to a new language of bioethics called the futile care theory.
"Wesley J. Smith, author of Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America, in an article in the July 23, 2001 issue of The Weekly Standard defines the terms: "Futile care theory holds that when a doctor believes the quality of a patient's life is too low to justify life-sustaining treatment, the doctor is entitled to refuse care as "inappropriate"--even if the treatment is wanted." Said Smith, "It is the equivalent of a hospital putting a sign over its entrance statiang :"We have the right to refuse service."
"The proponents of this theory are not quacks or even the typical members of the Euthanasia Society but rather doctors and philosophers who are part of the establishment. �Peter Singer of Princeton University, known for recommending that parents be allowed to determine if their baby is healthy and if not, to kill it, is a leader of this movement. �Though considered radical, his views are not rejected by the academic community. �In fact what has been rejected is the core value of Western civilization: All human beings possess equal moral worth.
"Proponents of the futile care theory often consider tube feeding as "futile" and "inappropriate." �The purpose of artificial nuitrition is to keep the body functioning. �Says Smith, "futilitarians reject tube feeding not because it doesn't work, but because it does. �It is not the treatment that is futile, but the patient." �(My personal comment - please note that tube feeding is not limited to people who are lying immobile in a coma as might be thought. �Inserting a feeding tube is a minor operation which can be done at bedside under anesthesia where a person cannot take nourishment through the throat for one reason or another.) �
"If the patients or families theaten to sue, the hospitals are working to insure that the courts acquiesce to the futile care theory by establishing protocols that determine when treatment can be refused and by placing language in state and federal legislation that would give government approval to the theory. �How widespread this has become is difficult to determine but medical journals have reported that several hospitals in Houston, Mercy Health Systems (Philadelphia Catholic Hospitals) and 24 out of 26 California hospitals have established such policies. �One of the purposes of these policies is to thwart patient' ability to obtain a court order to continue treatment.
"Federal and state legislation is now being introduced that would explicitly empower doctors to deny life sustaining treatment. �Senator Arlen Spector, a supporter of partial birth abortion and embryonic stem cell research, has introduced the Health Care Assurance Act, which purposts to expand health care for children and the disabled. �Buried in the bill is a section which denies that treatment must be offered or that an individual may demand treatment that is "futile or not medically indicated." �
"New York has two bills pending that would implement the futile care theory. �Some of the legislation applies to surrogate health care decision makers and allows a hospital ethics committee to approve or disapprove of treatment. ��Further, no member of the ethics committee would be allowed to testify as to the proceedings of the committee, empowering ethics committees to act in a atmosphere of secrecy and lack of accountability.
"Because end of life care constitutes only 10% �of the total health care expenditures, the establishment of futile care protocols is not the end but only the beginning. �Once won, the next step will be to restrict "marginally beneficial care." �........."
End of President's Report
The Weekly Standard article opens with a story of a father whose comatose teenage son was not given care for a fever that went up to 107 after an accident. �The father had excellent insurance. �Futile care is a general term and is not limited to one aspect of medical care. �
And from the article "....As currently written the (Spector) bill would be a disaster for the most vulnerable and defenseless among us: patents who are dehumanized and viewed as parasitic drains in limited health care resources. �..."
And "Moreover, hospitals (my comment --- and HMOs) have deep pockets from which to pay $500 per hour lawyers, the substantial fees of doctors and bioethicists who would testify that refusing wanted care is both ethical and standard medical practice. �Patients or caregivers, on the other hand, would have to pay lawyers and experts out of their own pocksts, potentially leading to financial ruin.
"In California, futile care theory has already been legalized. �A review of language recently put into the Probate Code finds that a 'health care provider or health care institution may decline to comply with an individual health care instruction or health care decision that requires medically ineffective health care (physiological futility) or health care contrary to generally accepted health care standards applicable to the health care provider or instititution.' �In other words, if an instititution defines certain types of wanted life-sustaining treatment as contrary to their internal standards, doctors can refuse to render the care. �At that point the doctor must cooperate with the transfer of the patient to another institution and continue to provide the care until transfer ' or until it appears that a transfer cannot be accomplished.' �Presumably if no other hospital agrees to take the patient, the non-treatment decision can be imposed unilaterally." �(My comment -- if you go outside the particular HMO system, you will not be covered by the HMO, so where do you go if there is no back-up money in the home.)....
"Thus medical futility is not an end but rather the beginning of a thousand mile journey leading directly to society-wide health care rationing--a euphemistic term for medical discrimination, based on subjective quality-of-life criteria, against patients who are elderly, expensive to care for, disabled or dying. �Eventually this will include all of us. �We ignore the threat of futile care theory at our own peril."
End of quotes from the article.
Change is gradual, hardly noticeable, until one day you may hear the words "Our ethics committe has determined that we no longer have to treat your (family member). �The proceedings were confidential. �You must trust us. �We are only doing it for the patient's own good. �We have decided the quality of their life is no longer there." ��Then again it can happen even if you never hear the words. �
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
