End of Life Care Should Not End Life
Ken Connor
The subject of how best to honor and care for those facing death due to
terminal illness or old age has always been controversial.
As talk of "death panels" and "rationing" stirs debate over the
government's proper role in health care, two new studies funded by the
National Institutes of Health are lending new weight to the argument
that, when it comes to providing end-of-life care for the elderly and
terminally ill, sometimes less is better.
The studies, featured in the New England Journal of Medicine, document
how certain medical therapies implemented in the final months of a
patient's life often cause emotional and physical stress and pain,
effectively negating any positive benefits associated with such
treatments.
However, those worried that a government takeover of health care will
result in health care rationing in keeping with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel's
"complete lives" theory view these studies with alarm—and for good
reason.
In a culture where "quality of life" is increasingly viewed as the
predominant justification for abortion, assisted suicide, and even
infanticide, there is a legitimate concern that these kinds of studies
will be used by the government to advance policies that endanger
society's most vulnerable members.
The pivotal question is not whether difficult end-of-life decisions
must sometimes be made, or whether—as the NIH studies
indicate—sometimes the best decision is to forego heroic measures in
favor of simply keeping a patient comfortable in his or her final
days.
The traditions of hospice and palliative care, for example, both work
to keep dying individuals in a state of dignity and comfort without
resorting to extraordinary, and ultimately futile, measures. The
question is who should make these decisions.
Government-run health care has ominous implications because it
supplants individual doctor-patient relationships with generalized
protocols crafted by bureaucrats who have no way of accounting for the
particular needs of the human beings affected by them.
These protocols are often drafted with cost-cutting goals and resource
management in mind—not the criteria most want at the top of the list
when it comes to life and death medical care.
At many hospitals and nursing homes in the United Kingdom, for example,
elderly patients deemed close to death are placed in a "care pathway"
designed to ease the dying process and conserve medical
resources.
Once it is determined that a patient is near death, life sustaining
fluids and medicines are withdrawn and the patient is placed under
heavy sedation.
As bioethicist Wesley J. Smith describes it, "the Pathway misuses the
legitimate treatment of palliative sedation, and mutates it in some
cases into a method of causing death, known as terminal sedation.
This means that sedation is sometimes administered, not because the
individual patient actually needs the procedure, but because he or she
has been reduced to a category member, and that's how members of the
category are treated."
When this kind of one-size-fits-all approach is employed, casualties
are inevitable. One man has already lost his life due to the
misapplication of England's bureaucratic approach to end-of-life
care.
At the other end of life spectrum, last month a woman in England was
forced to watch her premature infant struggle to survive without
medical care for hours before finally dying on the delivery room
table. The reason?
Doctors told the new mother that "national regulations" prevented them
from providing medical care because the baby was born two days too
early to qualify for life-saving measures.
In Canada, the government recently decided to end funding for a
medication that adds an additional nine months to the lives of colon
cancer patients. Why? "Clinical" evidence suggested that the additional
months of life were not worth the cost of the medication.
In each of these situations, end-of-life decisions were made without
the input of, and sometimes against the explicit wishes of, the
individuals involved. These treatments are not being employed as one
option among many—they are being imposed uniformly as a matter of
policy.
Few would deny that some measure of reform is needed in the health care
arena. Our country is on the threshold of a veritable Senior Tsunami;
an enormous age wave is coming.
As America increasingly becomes a mass geriatric society, large numbers
of the elderly will soon need acute and long term care. Yet, even as
the demand for medical care is increasing, Medicare funds are in short
supply, and something's got to give.
But if our leaders in Washington are unable or unwilling to come up
with a uniquely American solution to this problem, and if the looming
health care crisis continues to be exploited by leaders on the Left
simply as a means to a greater ideological end, there is good reason to
fear that the cold comfort of England's "care pathway" approach to
end-of-life care may be coming soon to a hospital near you.
Contact: Ken Connor
Source: CNSNews.com
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Date: October
26, 2009
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The IFRL is the largest grassroots pro-life organization in
Illinois. A non-profit organization, that serves as the state
coordinating body for local pro-life chapters representing thousands of
Illinois citizens working to restore respect for all human life in our
society. The IFRL is composed of people of different political
persuasions, various faiths and diverse economic, social and ethnic
backgrounds. Since 1973 the Illinois Federation for Right to Life has
been working to end abortion and restore legal protection to those members of the
human family who are threatened by abortion, infanticide and euthanasia. Diverse though we are, we hold one common belief - that
every human being has an inalienable right to life that is precious and must be protected. IFRL is
dedicated to restoring the right to life to the unborn, and protection
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