What are your thoughts on euthanasia in the medical field assisted suicide?

no armyretired You only have a year, I don't want to do a malpractice. I want to do a criminal case. It was more criminal than malpractice,hoperfully that statue of limitations has not run out.

It was not like that with my dad and grandma who also meant the world to me.

I would like to do that but that is way to painful. I cant go there.I would have to somehow get through what they did to her however that works and maybe that will be all I will ever be able to do.If I could do that It would be a miracle in itself. But I don't ever see myself being able to look at her actual death or even remembering what a good person she was. It is easier to not not have to deal with her at all. I don't want to think about how she should be here today had they not taken her life. It is too complicated and too overwhelming.

I wonder if it would be easier had it been an accident. That is why I am trying to talk to people about this to see if it could have possibly been some kind of an accident but the way people are reacting i'm thinking not.They all just want to turn the other cheek and act like she died naturally as if everything was all fine. Too bad I cant do that also but I cant trick myself that well. Your relatives must have been killed also.

So, can I ask you, where do you feel or believe that your Mom is today?

Jeannie I have quit posting because this has become totally irrationable and I would recommend her Dr. give her a little haldol or seroquil. For anyone who does not recognize Adivan it is actually Ativan (Lorazepam) Use all these drugs with caution in the elderly. (Got my helmet on)

Me too Veronica for these ramblings serve no purpose.

I feel sorry for the distressed woman. But she is not going to get what she needs from us. I hope she gets counseling.

Or ... could this be a hoax of some kind? The fact that she won't even say how old her mother was is very weird.

Anyway, I wish her peace. I'm done with this thread.

At least the facts are out there.Family should take proper precautions like mainly always guarding their loved ones if they are in hospital, nursing home or hospice The family should be completely involved in their loved ones health care when the loved one is in the hospital,nursing home or hospice. than hopefully medical abuse and neglect can not be as bad. Don't just say oh there is nothing I can do anyway if your loved one or you are wronged.There is always something you can do.

if you or a loved one is being wronged by the medical staff,call 911 if in immediate danger like I should have done. or call the ombudsman, call department of health, the joint commission. jointcommission/about/contactus.aspxthe, the medical board, the nursing board even elder abuse if it is an elder and make a complaint. If your loved one is wronged and you complain you have a better chance of making it out alive and well, instead of damaged from too many overdoses and euthanized.

Another thing if you make a complaint then there is more likely to be more change in the future when complaints are made.

if medical abuse and medical neglect is ignored it will continue. The more the medical staff gets away with it the more they will continue. It is up to us to help stop it. The family should ALWAYS complain when they have been wronged. If it is a suspicious death and the wrong information is on the death certificate. Call the coroner for an investigation or/and get an autopsy or drug testing on the body. You can talk that over with the coroner. The good medical staff can also pay more attention to their colleagues even if they do seem to be nice. that is how one medical serial killer was caught. Laws also have to be enforced and changed.

the first address does not work the second one works

drannapou
foxnews/story/2010/08/27/hurricane-katrina-deadly-legacy-at-memorial-medical-center.html

What I can't stand is people who refuse to view both sides of a debate nor give full account ......Dr Pou's charge was dropped in 2009. She is held in such high regard that she went on to help write Louisiana's legislation for disaster planning

Noone on this site would ever doubt that on very very rare occasions there will be a rogue doctor and God knows they deserve to experience hell on earth...no-one is questioning that at all as far as I can tell.

What I find disgusting is the implication that this is rife. I find it insulting to the care staff, the nurses and the doctors who day after day sometimes work in the most difficult circumstances and then find themselves lumped together under the banner of murderers.

You might only believe it is only one doctor or one nurse; you might believe it is a whole nursing home or whole hospital; but in handling this in such an outrageous manner the mud is thrown at the brilliant, the kind-hearted, the generous of time and care, those whose warmth has made the last days for hundreds and thousands a less fearful place.

But what really gets my goat more than anything else is that many carers feel the utmost guilt about not being able to cope with care-giving any more. The strain has become so great for them that they are faced with probably the most difficult decisions of their lives. Do I put my dying loved one into care....and then they read rants about murderers ...so now their guilt is multiplied ten fold and they decide to go on caring at huge risk to their own health and possibly their loved ones.

Sometimes their health is so damaged they never recover....physically or mentally.

So my comment to all of you faced with the need to put someone you love into care....do due diligence, check the hospital/care home you intend to be using and then make informed choices. By all means monitor and if there is something you are not happy with inform people verbally. If you can diary the date and time of your concerns that would be really good so that the next time you are faced with a concern you can write to them citing the first incident.

I would expect there to be concerns about loved ones - you love them for gods sake but please please don't get the impression that ALL these places are killing machines - they truly are not

Jude, I couldn't have said it better, you are so right.

The only medical staff and medical facilities that I hate were the ones that hurt and killed my mom. The rest I was happy with like the ONE DOCTOR who saved my mom after she was never taken care of before and his ENTIRE STAFF and 2 MORE NURSES at that same hospital.There was a NURSE who had not only took care of my mom but everyone who came in contact with her, loved her, she was absolutely. wonderful.There was also a CNA who I really liked she was absolutely fantastic.

So even at the worst medical facilities I can still find a few good staff.I really hated how the bad ones were so polite and very friendly so they could gain my trust then they would drug my mom half to death after I told them she had this severe sensitivity. WTH. Sometimes they did it right in front of me threatening to call security if I did not let them.They would get the doctor to prescribe these very deadly sedatives to my mom. Next thing haldol and adivan would be going into her by iv or by injection. it happened even when she was supposed to be in there recovering from an overdose.Those 5 facilities felt like a horror movie.

My mom was polite and respectful I also had always thought that all medical staff and facilities were great and treated the staff very well. That did not matter cause she would get drugged and even handcuffed. One nurse showed her mercy,one time when my mom asked the nurse as she so kindly looked into the nurses eyes "why are you doing this to me what have I ever done to deserve this".Then the nurse gave her a break and that was the first time she did not get drugged.I know that there are good nurses. My friend who is an RN is a very good person and I also know some awesome CNAs who are the very best when it comes to elder care.They all have hearts of gold.

That was just our immediate area. I have always been a positive happy go lucky person. This experience has definitely changed me for the worse.

It may be different in England.I know there was some problems but at least they were fixed. They have not really even been addressed here.

FIVE facilities????????????
Handcuffed?????????????? Was she transferred from a prison facility.
I am tired scraping the mud off my raincoat (Makintosh Jude!!)
This begins to read like notes from a mad house.

Dear flowgo: While I am still concerned for you, I no longer think it is helpful for you for me to attempt to address your issues, because it may be harming you rather than helping you. Get some professional help, follow it, then come back and let us know how you are doing in a new post. Take care of yourself.

Do you think you will be okay? Capitalizing says you are shouting.

The capitol letters button was on ooops my mistake

At first I was empathic but with each telling this story gets embroidered more and more. First it was one bad facility now it is five....The nurses got the doctors to prescribe....rubbish. She was handcuffed? And you want us to believe that? I can tell you if my mother was ever handcuffed, I would have kicked up such a hullabaloo that there would be no need to call a lawyer the police would have been there immediately....but you didnt call them did you? Is that where your guilt lies..... that you watched and did nothing to stop them?

Seems to me you are the one who needs help. There is of course abuse 15000 alleged cases in Britain last year and 5000 of those were upheld and that is shocking and outrageous but remember that there are 500,000 older people living in care homes so we are still talking a staggering 1% which is appalling, however that may be much less when you conmsider 1 person may have as many as 10 allegations against him/her.

That is no excuse and you should always check monitor etc but this garbage? Sorry dont beleive any of it now.. It now sounds like the rantings of someone consumed with guilt whoi, when they cannot get agreement develops the situation more and more until it becomes impossible to beleive.

She talked the nurse out of it the nurse showed her mercy and did not drug her

All five facilities would drug her if I left for a second. and 2 did drug her in front of me and yes I should have called 911 when that happened.I even tried to get in between them and my mom and that is when they said they were going to call security. That is when I should have ran to a phone and called 911. weather I was there or not they did not have a right to do that

Why don't we just change the name of this thread for its obviously self-indulgent rubbish, most of it. A meaningful conversation about the topic at hand would allow for differences of opinion and not everyone being bashed on the head by one persons constant rants. I M O.

I have not had a chance to read through all of the comments... however, Flowgo, if I am to derive from some of your comments, specifically,

"Even if you are there they (doctors?nurses? the system?) still can manage to do damage, but it is not as bad usually.They can take a perfectly healthy elder and make them look like a frail invalid a matter of hours.There are staff who are very good at this."

I work in the healthcare system with families and seniors with complex conditions everyday, and deal with palliative issues on a constant basis. I am not sure of all the details of your particular situation - but I do feel that there was definitely no relationship of trust between yourself and your mother's caregivers/health care team.

Why this did not exist - I do not know - but this essential mistrust between the health care team and yourself appears to have defined every encounter you had with the system thereafter.

I will be the first to say - the system is horrible at treating seniors with complex conditions. The system is horrible at listening to patients and families, and learning to address their needs. It is, after all, a "system". Trying to make this large healthcare system be personalized to all is not an easy task. When someone is sick and families are vulnerable, we only want what is best for us and no one else - there is nobody in the system BUT us. I know I would feel the same way.

I however do not believe that there is a grand conspiracy with legalizing euthanasia. I am personally not a supporter of euthanasia - I instead support palliative care, despite a passionate plea from Dr. Donald Low:

youtube/watch?v=hqpfdxrtuY0

See his plea here:

youtube/watch?v=q3jgSkxV1rw

I wish you the best Flowgo, and hope you find some peace.

Judecorrection one of the facilities did it 2 times in front of me.One time I begged them to not drug her. I told the nurse she had a sensitivity reaction to this drug. The nurse would say as long as she was not allergic and her throat would not swell up and close then they were allowed to treat with this deadly sedatives as much as possible. I even thought about telling a lie that she did have an allergic reaction, but they would look in her chart and find out otherwise. I even stepped in between them and her.Then they threaten to call the security cause I was not letting them treat her. I should have gone down the hall and called 911 even if they were threatening to have their security throw me out by that time she still would have got the haldol anyway. They were not treating her.They only treated her with sedatives haldol/adivan cocktails. That is not what I call treating. Then the other time, they closed the curtain in front of my face when I tried to come over there.I could not find a hospital that helped an elder who was overdosed or for treatment of this skin infection.


Regardless if I did not do the right thing to protect her against this terrible staff by calling 911, that does not give them the right to medically abuse elders this way NO MATTER WHAT. What about the elders who have no family. A nurse told me that her nursing home residents go to this hospital and die often. She says that the ones who die are usually the ones with no family.

I do think there is something horribly wrong going on here in these hospitals regarding powerful sedatives and elders.Haldol and ativan is a very dangerous drug it is especially dangerous to elders yet they use haldol/ativans on patients who should not get these drugs and they use tremendous amounts.

There is one thing that changed after my complaint in this hospital. They put in a little safety measure for patients with reactions. Before they are allowed to give any meds including sedatives, the doctor himself has to check the patients record on the computer to see if the patient has any kind of reactions including sensitivity to a drug. So at least a little good was done hopefully it can slow down the haldol administration but still that is just a little start

I think from what I figured out my mom had something like nms a very severe reaction that can kill.Yet she managed to survive not only this reaction that could have killed her with a very small amount of haldol/adivan, but they gave her enough to damage and kill someone with out a reaction.That shows how strong my mom was.She was not a frail elder. Frail elders would really be in danger.The dnr may have helped get as many drugs as they wanted but they could have done it anyway.

I can totally understand how no one can make sense out of it cause I myself also can not make sense out of it either.

OwenWong I always trusted until this happened.

OwenWong Euthanasia is done there was no reason to euthanize my mom she was in coma state from haldol and adivan and other sedatives. Unless they thought that she was too damaged from the deadly sedatives. I never said conspiracy to euthanize. I only said that I know it is done.if they did not want my mom dead why would they have given her enough haldol,adivan coctail to kill her with the investigators even confirmed this. Could it have been a mistake and not euthanasia if they are that stupid with the knowledge of administering dangerous sedatives then what business do they have doing this. If this was a stupid mistake can you think of any other reasons why they would have given her this much sedatives. I would think a nurse and doctor would know and if there is any kind of reaction then why do they still give it???? The treatment that she got was not the treatment of patient that they want to live love to hear everyone's opinion. This is why I dont think it is right for the staff to playG..d

Innocent people lose their lives from medical staff that play G....d. the staff should never be allowed to do this.

Her and I fully trusted the hospitals at first that is why she went to the hospital in the first place. After she was sedated by deadly sedatives against her and my will more than once do you really expect that I am supposed to continue to trust at that point. Honestly all I could do and wanted to do was to protect her. I was not successful cause she was still killed. I would like to change laws so this will not continue to happen.

It is so sad how some of these healthcare professionals are mocking me and making fun of me after all that I have been through. You all know who you are and you should be ashamed of yourselves. I hope you don't have the same attitude as the nurses who treated my mom do. That is another good reason for euthanasia to stay out of the medical field. I don't think all the people on her are just taking care of their loved ones. More background checks should be done for medical staff.

I'm certainly not mocking you, Flowgo. I don't see a shred of fun in any of this discussion.

Drug overdoses and much worse, egregious mistakes - "never events" as they're called - do happen and will continue to happen as long as medicine is carried out by fallible human beings. The Medical Protection Society, which is one of two professional indemnity insurers in the UK to which every registered practitioner is obliged by law to subscribe as a condition of registration, publishes an annual case book of actions brought and claims made against doctors, some successful, some not, but each offering a lesson to be learned. The purpose is to make every doctor wake up in a cold sweat, which is actually how they react to the possibility that one day, but for the grace of God, it could be their mistake or oversight or arrogant assumption appearing in the next edition.

When, on top of a dead patient, which is the last thing they want or are equipped to deal with emotionally, they have to defend themselves against accusations of murder - of unlawfully taking a life with malice aforethought, that is, remember, and in the scenario you present applying considerable professional expertise to that crime, to boot - how do you expect them to react?

You make extreme accusations against not one but several people and institutions. This stretches credulity to the point where you make yourself sound absurd. The reason that I am not laughing - quite the opposite, I'm actually furious - is that your mother's tragedy, in the strict sense of the word tragedy, is an opportunity for people to LEARN and you, *you*, are making a mockery of it.

Worse, you are offering alarm and despondency to vulnerable people who come to this forum for help and support. They do need to stay alert to risks on their loved ones' behalf. They don't need to see a potential murderer behind every white coat.

Bullet point a timeline of events that took place, starting at the beginning of the treatment that led to the initial overdose, and I will read it carefully. Failing that I give up.

CountryMouse, thank you for The Post of the Year.

cm I don't think your were one of the ones I was referring to.

I know the difference between error and not. In one of the 5 facilities, I actually sat down with the nurse and explained to her in detail that my mom was in this hospital to recover from a previous sedative overdose, so she must not have sedatives. This is also noted in her chart. My mom would also (when not unconscious from and overdose) refuse sedatives.

I then step out and come back and my mom is unconscious. I look at my unconscious mom then look at the nurse in complete shock as the nurse tells me I could say no to these sedative drugs.Then why the hell did she not tell herself no before she drug my mom into a severe dangerous coma that lasted for at least 3 days and caused damage.What was wrong with her? Is that really considered a mistake? If so this is such a horrible mistake that if the staff is that incompetent to not understand the drug they are giving, the chart, or the family who says the patient can not have this drug then those facilities should not be open don't you think? I can tell you more horrible sedative horror stories that were so bad that I don't see how they could be mistakes unless the staff is absolutely mentally challenged. They did not have those kind of symptoms so then what is wrong with them.

A doctor at the beginning of all of this did give her ativan he gave her a little bit but she became agitated (symptom of nms sensitivity). He thought that she needed more so he gave her the right amount for her size and that was it, but it was too much for her. It knocked her out all day. He made an honest mistake.He apologized and appeared to be quite upset (A GOOD DOCTOR). he also said that she should never have ativan again because she can not tolerate it, she has a sensitivity. I appreciated his honesty and sincerity.He actually cared unlike the rest of these horrible staff who did as they pleased no matter how much havoc hell they caused my mom.

This kind of mistake happened at five facilities. Some she was closer to death then others and others she was getting damaged from it.They were all terrible accept the one with the good doctor but that was not one of the five. That happened at the beginning just before she had the procedure. That hospital was not so close or I would have taken her there. I actually should have taken her there instead of the others. The doctor who did the procedure did not want her to be drugged with sedatives.When I told him he was not ok with it.

I think that it could be big pharmacy business who are giving staff insensitive. Or staff that don't want to deal with patients so they put these patients in harms way without a care in the world, literally. At least when they do something wrong then they should at least be upset about it.