Euthanasia is a very touchy subject, especially within the medical field. As a healthcare advocate, it is our job as professionals to better the lives of our patients. What happens when there is nothing more you can do?
I understand, being a Home Health Aide that works a lot with Hospice, that comfort care is important. But truly, when a suffering patient looks to you to ease the pain what do you do? Should you apologize and say their is nothing more I can do?
I can hardly say no more treats to my cat when he gives puppy dog eyes, much less a patient dying alone of cancer. In my opinion, for what it is worth, Euthanasia is most certainly not murder and should never be referred to as such.
If Euthanasia was legal, but very strict in regulations and rules, it would be very beneficial to many terminally ill patients. This may be the only healthcare decision a patient makes within their life, and they should be allowed to make such a decision when conditions permit. We all have choices in this world, what gives you or I the right to take such choices away from someone in such a situation.
What is your opinion? Do you agree or disagree? Do you have a story, personal or not that pertains to this topic?
They have issued formal statements and clearly condemned the misuse of terminal sedation to end lives when there is no intractable physical pain, no delirium, no psychosis and no terminal agitation.
First of all, terminal sedation is not the act of bringing about death through sedative narcotics. It is the act of sedating a terminal patient in their last hours. It is not the drugs administered that "kills" the patient, it is the pre-existing illness that placed them on hospice in the first place.
Putting an alert and oriented patient who is not experiencing untreatable pain or dyspnea into a fatal medically induced coma is NOT terminal sedation as practiced by the hospice team. If the patient consented to such a thing, it would be called assisted suicide. If they did not consent, it would be called murder.
If you're really suggesting hospice workers purposefully administer lethal doses to alert, treatable patients against their will, then I'm surprised you haven't been sued for libel.
Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.
First of all, terminal sedation is not the act of bringing about death through sedative narcotics. It is the act of sedating a terminal patient in their last hours. It is not the drugs administered that "kills" the patient, it is the pre-existing illness that placed them on hospice in the first place.
Putting an alert and oriented patient who is not experiencing untreatable pain or dyspnea into a fatal medically induced coma is NOT terminal sedation as practiced by the hospice team. If the patient consented to such a thing, it would be called assisted suicide. If they did not consent, it would be called murder.
If you're really suggesting hospice workers purposefully administer lethal doses to alert, treatable patients against their will, then I'm surprised you haven't been sued for libel.
So much for the polite, enlightening, and engaging thread regarding the ethics of euthanasia itself. I feel like I need a tin foil hat to be here, and a scalding how shower + vanco on my way out.
Ron, you stated none of is engaging in an objective conversation regarding this topic, and yet every post prior to you joining the conversation WAS all of those things and more.
What you left out of your anecdote-laden comments was whether the people who were "killed" consented to and/or requested their deaths.
No, I never stated that none of you were objective. That is not what was written (I was replying to a specific post, not all, but forgot to use the "quote" button so that the relevant post was shown above what I wrote).
You ask about whether people killed consented to or requested their deaths. The prominent physician mentioned in the BBC article about the Liverpool Pathway deaths clearly indicated patients were killed involuntarily, and if you do not like the term, "killed," you could accurately describe it as death being imposed involuntarily.
There are widespread reports of involuntary euthanasia admitted to by nurses in Belgium. this is just one of hundreds of articles about it:
There are many reports of involuntary imposed deaths occurring in the health care systems, whether here in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. or elsewhere. I do believe that involuntary euthanasia is not ethical. Or do you approve of such, like the nurses in Belgium?
No, I never stated that none of you were objective. That is not what was written (I was replying to a specific post, not all, but forgot to use the "quote" button so that the relevant post was shown above what I wrote).
You ask about whether people killed consented to or requested their deaths. The prominent physician mentioned in the BBC article about the Liverpool Pathway deaths clearly indicated patients were killed involuntarily, and if you do not like the term, "killed," you could accurately describe it as death being imposed involuntarily.
There are widespread reports of involuntary euthanasia admitted to by nurses in Belgium. this is just one of hundreds of articles about it:
There are many reports of involuntary imposed deaths occurring in the health care systems, whether here in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. or elsewhere. I do believe that involuntary euthanasia is not ethical. Or do you approve of such, like the nurses in Belgium?
I really don't understand why you keep talking about these things happening in other countries. I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) the majority of the respondents in this thread are American, including you. I also don't understand why you keep quoting things that are alluded to in the Daily Mail. That is not what I would call a reputable, first-hand, scientific publication that can be trusted for accurate health-care information reporting. Stating "there are many reports of...." is no better than saying, "you'll never believe what my grandma told me Aunt Jenny's dog walker's hairdresser said the other day." Are you, or are you not, a nurse? I don't mean the kind of nurse that the MAs say they are in the STD clinic downtown when they answer the phone and are asked to book an appointment to screen for herpes. I mean an actual, licensed, graduated-from-a-nursing-program-and-passed-the-NCLEX, really-for-real, nurse. Nurses tend to understand what a reliable resource is.
I can't believe how disrespectful some of you are behaving. Now you're asking if he's a real nurse? His organization is highly respected by medical professionals from all over the U.S.
Ron came here to help clarify what was being said and to educate the hospice workers on here who DO care that the name of their specialty "hospice" is shared with advocates of euthanasia.
He has given you links to articles on the subject. He has used his real name. Are any of you willing to give your real names and credentials, or will you keep hiding behind screen names spewing the same hateful garbage? Why is it so hard for you to accept any of this?
"True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it." Karl Popper
Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
Ron came here to help clarify what was being said and to educate the hospice workers on here who DO care that the name of their specialty "hospice" is shared with advocates of euthanasia.
Speaking for Ron are you? Inside his head, are you?
Ron was mistaken in his ASSumption that the hospice nursing professionals on this thread required or even desired to be "educated" by someone who is NOT an expert in the field but who does have very strong (albeit misguided) beliefs about the specialty of hospice.
I read the daily mail article in the link. Like others, I'm not sure what a British newspaper article about Belgian nurses has to do with American practice.
In any event, I feel there must be more to this article than meets the eye.
Why on earth would Belgian nurses be taking part in "terminations without request or consent"? How is that even defined? Is inducing terminal sedation with morphine considered "termination"? Is taking a brain dead pt off life support? I don't consider either of those scenarios "terminating" the patient. What are we saying, that these Belgian nurses are just straight up administering lethal potassium injections to patients who never gave any sort of consent to be euthanized? I'm sorry, im incredulous.
And how are we defining "request or consent" in this scenario? Maybe the patient never verbally told providers to euthanize, but their advance directives indicated to do so. Maybe the consent was provided by their medical POA.
And if the Belgian law clearly states that the euthanizing dose is to be administered by a physician, why would any nurse in his right mind do it himself? Everything I know about being a nurse tells me that that is one legal hot potato any nurse would be glad to pass off to the MD in a heartbeat.
If this article is taken at face value, it strongly implies Belgian nurses are stupid or immoral or both.
As President of the Hospice Patients Alliance in the USA, I've heard from family members about involuntary euthanasias being performed for the past twelve years. I've even had terminal patients call and say they were being forced to take morphine and other medications against their will. As a nurse I have seen many things including the hastening of death of patients through various means. Nurses who protest such crimes are often retaliated against by management. Hastening death and/or outright euthanasia is de facto legal (when the patient is "terminal") in the USA because no government prosecutor will charge nurses with a crime. Anyone who thinks these killings are rare is completely out-of-touch with the realities of health "care." James Bond had a license to kill and some nurses have a license and kill many more!
As President of the Hospice Patients Alliance in the USA, I've heard from family members about involuntary euthanasias being performed for the past twelve years. I've even had terminal patients call and say they were being forced to take morphine and other medications against their will.
Because family members never misunderstand what happens at end of life, and hospice patients are never confused.....
You didn't read carefully what I have written. I have never equated hospice and euthanasia. That doesn't meant that the euthanasia movement has not influenced the hospice industry. The history clearly shows that it has and is part of the covert euthanasia movement as contrasted with the overt euthanasia movement that is represented by the likes of Compassion & Choices that work for legalization of assisted-suicide/ and or euthanasia.
So what exactly is it that you're claiming?
Euthanasia is intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering. The Greek word eu means good or well.
Is this you in the YouTube clip? I only listened to the first twenty minutes but from what I understand from it, the person talking isn't describing euthanasia.
1.21-1.39
We must confront the reality that there is suffering in life, especially at the end of life. We can not escape it nor can we prevent others from suffering totally and protect them from suffering at all. But we can care and serve and relieve what we can.
(This reminds me of Mother Theresa's thoughts on suffering. Personally I'm of the opinion that alleviating suffering is a priority, even if it means sedation. Suffering has no value).
6.22-6.36
There is real hatred by those who promote the culture of death for those who are pro-life. All pro-life leaders have been attacked or shunned in some way. Their voices have been suppressed in the media and in the high places of power.
The culture of death?? This is all rather melodramatic.
17.50-18.32
However, when the nurse at the bedside is the one who records what is happening in the medical record, if they have an agenda they can falsify the medical record to justify giving more pain medication than needed. And every nurse and doctor knows that the medical record is the legal record. So if they chart something happened that didn't happen or that the patient had pain when they didn't have pain, that's what the State Inspectors are going to look at and they'll say that the patient had pain. Therefore the pain medications were justified even though the patient had no pain and was killed because of the morphine that they gave, through lying.
An agenda. Falsify records. Killed. Lying.
What's the person in the YouTube clip actually saying about nurses?
19.15-19.47
I can't tell you how many times I've received calls from family members who reported that their loved one had been enrolled in hospice with a terminal illness but was not at the very end-stage active phase of dying. They tell me often about their loved one eating, drinking, talking, walking, even going shopping. In other words they were living their lives out, still interacting socially with others and the hospice nurse came out and the patient died within an hour or a day. These are not natural deaths.
So, eating, talking and walking and shopping... reasonably vital.. but dead an hour later? Really? I have to be honest. I don't believe this is true.
The plural of anecdote is not data. (And The Daily Mail Online is hardly a scientific journal).
@ronpanzer, whether or not you and the person in the clip that I quoted are the same person or not, I sense that you (the poster) have a political agenda regarding hospice and EOL related care and that you're now using AN as a platform.
I shudder when thinking about the anguish this message can cause vulnerable human beings.
I'm not a hospice nurse but I am deeply offended on the behalf of those of my fellow nurses who are.
Well, I have now watched an additional fifteen minutes of the Ron Panser YouTube clip. YouTube Ron seems to have been working with some killer nurses. Between approximately 20.00 and 30.00 a number of nefarious ways that his ex-coworkers used to kill patients/or that can be used to kill patients, are described. Deliberately using "dirty" (as opposed to clean or sterile) technique when doing trach care and handling urinary catheters in order to induce infections was described among others.
Another little gem was revealed..
31.24-31.30
While Christians and those of other faiths value family, socialists and utalitarians or atheists do not.
And then it goes on a bit about Nazis and eugenics..
BrandonLPN, LPN
3,358 Posts
First of all, terminal sedation is not the act of bringing about death through sedative narcotics. It is the act of sedating a terminal patient in their last hours. It is not the drugs administered that "kills" the patient, it is the pre-existing illness that placed them on hospice in the first place.
Putting an alert and oriented patient who is not experiencing untreatable pain or dyspnea into a fatal medically induced coma is NOT terminal sedation as practiced by the hospice team. If the patient consented to such a thing, it would be called assisted suicide. If they did not consent, it would be called murder.
If you're really suggesting hospice workers purposefully administer lethal doses to alert, treatable patients against their will, then I'm surprised you haven't been sued for libel.