Elderly patients 'helped to die to free up beds', warns doctor

Elderly patients 'helped to die to free up beds', warns doctor - Telegraph: Professor Patrick Pullicino has claimed that doctors are using a care pathway designed to help make people's final days more comfortable as an equivalent to euthanasia. The Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) is used in hospitals for patients who are terminally ill or are expected to die imminently. Under the pathway, doctors can withdraw treatment, food and water while patients are heavily sedated. Almost a third of patients - 130,000 - who die in hospital or under NHS care a year are on the LCP.

Christian Medical Comment: Is the NHS really killing 130,000 patients a year with the Liverpool Care Pathway?

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Ailing right-to-die champion fights to live

Sun News : Ailing right-to-die champion fights to live: After winning the right to die on her own terms, an emotional Gloria Taylor is now waging a battle to live. The West Kelowna resident, who suffers from Lou Gehrig's disease, is "living one day at a time" and hasn't made the decision on whether she will use the new law that allows her to have a doctor assist her in dying. "I am still here for living and I hope for a long time. When it is time it is God's will, not mine."

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Most people with locked-in syndrome do not wish to die

Most people with locked-in syndrome do not wish to die | NRL News Today: The overwhelming majority of people with severe disability–even with ‘locked-in syndrome’–do not wish to die but rather want support to live and the longer people have locked-in syndrome then generally the better they learn to cope with it and find meaning, purpose and contentment within the confines of the condition.

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Switzerland Welcomes Dr. Suicide Into Nursing Homes

Switzerland Welcomes Dr. Suicide Into Nursing Homes » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog: Switzerland, which already permits suicide purveyors to make a lot of money out of suicide tourism, is now bringing self termination into nursing homes and hospitals.

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Landmark assisted suicide case raises ‘arguable grounds for appeal'

Landmark assisted suicide case raises ‘arguable grounds for appeal’ - The Globe and Mail: Gloria Taylor is the only person in Canada who can legally seek physician-assisted suicide, but a lawyer who was involved in the landmark court case says he expects other terminally ill people to apply for the same exemption.

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Single Payer = Long Waits for Care

Single Payer = Long Waits for Care » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog: "We are often told that Canada’s single payer health system is the ideal for the USA. I once believed it. No longer. Canada rations care, occasionally by refusing coverage but mostly by loooo–ooo–ooong waits for needed tests and care. True, the country is trying to improve, but centralized control makes that tough. And now, the latest report card is in and it isn’t good."

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Loneliness in Older Persons: A Predictor of Functional Decline and Death

JAMA Network | Archives of Internal Medicine | Loneliness in Older PersonsA Predictor of Functional Decline and DeathLoneliness in Older Persons: Among participants who were older than 60 years, loneliness was a predictor of functional decline and death.

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Tim's Place restaurant takes unique approach thanks to special owner

Tim's Place restaurant takes unique approach thanks to special owner - CBS News: When Keith Harris' son Tim was born, a half-hearted smile was all he could muster. "Our pediatrician asked me if I knew what down syndrome was, and the world turned black at that moment," he told CBS News.

What a difference 26 years makes. Today, in sunny Albuquerque, you'd be hard pressed to find a more glowing father than Keith. Or a more shining example of what truly great parenting can accomplish.

Keith and wife Jeannie, who also have three typical boys, have raised them all with the same high-expectations. As a result, they're all successful. But, none are more successful than Tim, who not only lives on his own but owns his own restaurant. "He works for me," Tim said, pointing at his brother.

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Locked-in syndrome case goes even beyond assisted suicide and seeks to establish dangerous precedent

Locked-in syndrome case goes even beyond assisted suicide and seeks to establish dangerous precedent | NRL News Today: A case of ‘locked-in syndrome’ that is appearing before the courts tomorrow goes even beyond assisted suicide and seeks to introduce euthanasia through the back door.

Tony Nicklinson is 58 and paralysed from the neck down after suffering a stroke in 2005. He is seeking legal permission for a doctor actively to end his life.

The Ministry of Justice had previously argued that the case should be struck out on the grounds that it is a matter for parliament, rather than the courts, to decide. However the case has been allowed to go forward to a High Court hearing.

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Waiting for our son to wake up

Waiting for our son to wake up - CNN.com: The 17-year-old is in a persistent vegetative state after a beach accident deprived his brain of oxygen for more than 15 minutes. Ryan's parents, Bret and Janine Buchanan, turned their own bedroom into a hospital ward for their eldest son. Metal shelves in the room are stocked with adult diapers, splints, catheters and syringes. Increasingly, families like the Buchanans are bringing children with complex medical needs home for long-term care.

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End-of-Life Choices Shoud Be Clearly Mapped

End-of-Life Choices Shoud Be Clearly Mapped - NYTimes.com: Robert H. Laws, a retired judge in San Francisco, and his wife, Beatrice, knew it was important to have health care directives in place to help their doctors and their two sons make wise medical decisions should they ever be unable to speak for themselves. With forms from their lawyer, they completed living wills and assigned each other as health care agents.

They dutifully checked off various boxes about not wanting artificial ventilation, tube feeding and the like. But what they did not know was how limiting and confusing those directions could be.

For example, Judge Laws said in an interview, he’d want to be ventilated temporarily if he had pneumonia and the procedure kept him alive until antibiotics kicked in and he could breathe well enough on his own. What he would not want is to be on a ventilator indefinitely, or to have his heart restarted if he had a terminal illness or would end up mentally impaired.

Nuances like these, unfortunately, escape the attention of a vast majority of people who have completed advance directives, and may also discourage others from creating directives in the first place.

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Do Brain Scans of Comatose Patients Reveal a Conscious State?

Do Brain Scans of Comatose Patients Reveal a Conscious State?: Scientific American: Patient 23 was only 24 years old when his life was devastated by a car accident. Alive but unresponsive, he had been languishing in what neurologists refer to as a vegetative state for five years, when a neuro-scientist and his colleagues put him into a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine and started asking him questions. Incredibly, he provided answers. A change in blood flow to certain parts of the man's injured brain convinced researchers that patient 23 was conscious and able to communicate. It was the first time that anyone had exchanged information with someone in a vegetative state.

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Canada edges closer to legalising assisted suicide

BioEdge: Canada edges closer to legalising assisted suicide: The issue of euthanasia in Canada is no longer simmering on a back burner. After the Supreme Court of British Columbia found yesterday that Criminal Code provisions which prohibit doctors from helping their patients commit suicide are unconstitutional, it is on a full, rolling boil.

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What we weren’t told about Terry Pratchett’s ‘award-winning’ euthanasia documentary

What we weren’t told about Terry Pratchett’s ‘award-winning’ euthanasia documentary | NRL News Today: Fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett won a Bafta for his ‘documentary’ Choosing To Die, in which he followed a man with motor neurone disease to Switzerland in order to film him killing himself at the Dignitas facility. The man’s wife, who was clearly very uncomfortable about the whole event, but went along with it out of deference to her husband, was prevented from comforting him as he died by one of the facility staff.

At a recent meeting where Peter Saunders of the Christian Medical Fellowship was speaking a woman told him  she had always supported assisted suicide before seeing the film, but that watching it had caused her to change her mind. She now strongly opposes a change in the law.

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How to Identify Pain in Dementia Patients

Dementia Care – How to Identify Pain in Dementia Patients: Anyone can become a better pain detective when they know the signs.

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British Columbia Supreme Court legalizes assisted suicide and euthanasia

ALEX SCHADENBERG: BC SUPRME COURT DECISION TO LEGALIZE ASSISTED SUICIDE & EUTHANASIA, A RECIPE FOR ELDER ABUSE THAT THREATHENS THE SAFETY, SECURITY AND EQUALITY OF CANADIANS.: The BC Supreme Court released its decision in Carter v. AG Canada today. It carves exceptions into the laws allowing Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Canada.

The Federal Parliament of Canada recently considered legalization of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in a bill that came before the House in 2010. Bill C-384 was overwhelmingly defeated based upon concerns related to the prospect of the abuse of seniors, people with disabilities, the lack of an effective national suicide prevention strategy, and the lack of access to good palliative care in Canada.

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BMJ wants doctors to go soft on assisted suicide

BMJ wants doctors to go soft on assisted suicide | News | The Christian Institute: The British Medical Journal wants doctors to end their opposition to assisted suicide, but critics say it would put vulnerable patients at risk.

The BMJ is one of Britain’s leading medical journals, and its editor has called for doctors groups to adopt a ‘neutral’ stance. But other doctors have urged fellow professionals to stand firm and continue to protect elderly and disabled patients from being pressured into assisted suicide.

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Doctors face ban on denying treatment to elderly

Doctors face ban on denying treatment to elderly - Telegraph: Nurses and carers will also face a legal duty to consider the “well-being and dignity” of the elderly. The legal ban on age discrimination in public services will come into force in October. It follows a series of shocking reports showing that older people often suffer sub-standard care and uneven treatment in the NHS and the social care system.

Editor: A ban on denying. That's hard to get your head around.

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Checklist approach to be tested in end-of-life care planning

Checklist approach to be tested in end-of-life care planning - amednews.com: Medical checklists have helped improve surgical safety and eliminate bloodstream infections. Now physicians will study their effect on advance care planning for cancer patients.

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Swiss to vote on whether to allow assisted suicide groups in nursing homes

Swiss to vote on whether to allow assisted suicide groups in nursing homes | LifeSiteNews.com: On Sunday June 17, citizens in the Swiss Canton Vaud will be voting on a referendum on whether or not to allow assisted suicide groups to work within the nursing homes. Exit, the leading assisted suicide group in Switzerland, has been pushing its way into Swiss nursing homes. Exit, who are celebrating 30 years as a group, are an assisted suicide group that works by selling memberships to people who support the concept of assisted suicide and then charging fees to people when they aid their suicide death.

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God-given Ability in Disability

God-given Ability in Disability | Radio | Joni and Friends: Often when people define disability, they speak on what a person cannot do. And although what they say may be true, we must remember the ‘ability’ in disability, because we are ‘able’ in He who is more than able.

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Group, voters challenge Massachusetts assisted suicide measure

Group, voters challenge Massachusetts assisted suicide measure | LifeSiteNews.com: A legal challenge is underway against a proposed initiative that would legalize assisted suicide in Massachusetts. More than 60 voters filed a challenge before the state Supreme Court on May 17, requesting that the initiative be amended to clarify its language. However, the Court has not held hearings on the request, and the wording is not expected to be changed.

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Right-to-die movement sees gains as world ages

Right-to-die movement sees gains as world ages | Reuters: Right-to-die activists hope more countries will allow assisted suicide or euthanasia in coming years as the world population ages, but opponents are determined to stop them, a dispute that flared ahead of competing conferences in Switzerland.

Ted Goodwin, the American president of the World Federation of Right-to-Die Societies, said the election of Socialist Francois Hollande as French president could help the euthanasia cause in Europe. Hollande has said he favors euthanasia under strict conditions. "If France falls into line, I believe Germany will also adopt it. That is a game changer in Europe," he said, noting support for reform was also gaining traction in Australia and Massachusetts. "Things are happening slowly but surely."

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is organizing an alternative conference on Friday to coincide with the public part of the Right-to-Die gathering in Zurich.

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When a patient visit includes a request for prayer

When a patient visit includes a request for prayer - amednews.com: Physicians are accustomed to fielding many challenging questions from patients, but there is one query that they may find especially flummoxing, considering the delicate terrain it requires them to traverse. The question: “Doctor, will you pray with me?”

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Bringing the Hospital Home for the Tiniest of Patients

Bringing the Hospital Home for the Tiniest of Patients - WSJ.com: Many children, not just preemies, now are surviving conditions that were once considered insurmountable thanks to advances in technology and neonatal care. And a growing number of families are learning to manage the needs of a fragile child at home as home-care technologies become more widely available, and amid pressure on hospitals to trim costs.

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More Seniors Being Mistreated As U.S. Population Ages

More Seniors Are Being Mistreated As Our Population Ages - US Politics Today: A 2009 study conducted by the Institute for Justice, found that as many as 11 percent of the elderly living in community settings experienced some form of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse or neglect. The Government Accountability Office has noted weakness in the government oversight of nursing homes and enforcement of state and federal safeguards meant to protect residents from potentially abusive individuals. The most recent issue of the Public Policy & Aging Report, published by the National Academy on an Aging Society, similarly found that as many as one in ten seniors over the age of 60 is suffering from some kind of abuse or neglect.

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Man sentenced for smothering his wife

ALEX SCHADENBERG: Lavery (83) sentenced to two year conditional sentence for manslaughter for smothering his wife.: Noel Lavery, 83, who was convicted of manslaughter for smothering his wife to death, was given a two year conditional sentence to be served in the community. Lavery must serve 240 community service hours while under his two year house arrest, and he must serve another 120 community service hours while serving another two years of probation.

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Only one-third of Russians support euthanasia

ALEX SCHADENBERG: Only one-third of Russians support euthanasia: A recent poll published by the Russian state-run Public Opinion Foundation found that 32% of Russians supported euthanasia, 32% of Russians oppose euthanasia and 36% had no opinion.

20% of the respondents stated that they had never heard of euthanasia. This statistic proves Alex Schadenberg's theory that certain ideas are not natural.

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Is euthanasia for the living or the dying?

Deborah Coddington: Is euthanasia for the living or the dying? - Health - NZ Herald News: It's all very well signing up to voluntary euthanasia, but who's going to administer all these lethal injections? Who's going to get them to sip the glass of water so they can swallow their "peaceful pills" so they can "quietly slip away." That's the question nobody wants to address.

. . . [A]s I watched [my mother breathe her last], I saw that like birth, death is hard work. . . . Cheyne-Stokes breathing, what the dying do near the end, is what my mother did for two days and a night. But she wasn't in pain, she was just dying. And even though she was deeply unconscious, I have no doubt she knew we were there. When it was time, she just stopped breathing, much like when a baby is born and starts breathing. Mum peacefully took a couple of last breaths. This was death with dignity.

More than once we compared the waiting to sitting around dozing and waiting for a baby to be born. And why shouldn't it be? But now we want to sanitise death. Is this really for the person dying, or is it in truth for those still living? We want designer deaths, to go with designer births
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Disabled Hymn Writers

Disabled Hymn Writers Stories | Radio | Joni and Friends: Fanny Crosby, was totally blind. Joni believes her visual impairment added to the richness and depth of those words she wrote. In fact, she wrote over 6,000 hymns including “Tell Me the Story of Jesus” and (my real favorite) “To God Be the Glory.”

But she’s not alone.George Matheson he was blind and he composed, “O Love that Wilt Not Let Me Go.” “Sweet Hour of Prayer,” was written by William Walford and he was also blind. And there were other people with other disabilities who became famous hymn writers.

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