MODERN MEDICINE is amazing. We live in an age when lifesaving organs can be transplanted, when intricate surgeries can be performed through an incision the size of a pinprick, when an implanted manmade device can do the body's work. In short, we live in an age when medical marvels can and do occur.
But the unprecedented science and technology available to us today cannot change one fact of life: There comes a time when death is inevitable. Science may be able to force air into a dying person's lungs or pump nutrients into the digestive system. In short, science can prolong the dying process. But is that really what we want from our health care system?
That's a dilemma that is playing out in a New Jersey appellate court, where judges are being asked to determine whether physicians should be compelled to artificially sustain a dying person's life. The legal drama stems from a case at Trinitas Regional Medical Center in Elizabeth where a team of physicians spent more than a year treating an unresponsive patient who was in a permanent vegetative state with multiple organ failure.
The patient could not breathe on his own, eat on his own or respond to outside stimuli. He was being kept alive purely through science. Five different physicians agreed that there was no hope for his condition to improve and that the requested treatment — kidney dialysis — would not change that outcome. But the patient had not stated his end-of-life preferences ahead of time, and his family ordered the life-sustaining treatments to continue indefinitely.
Full Article and Source;
N.J. Court Has Chance to Influence Compassionate End-of-Life Care
8 comments:
What is the solution to this problem? How can you force people to make advance directives?
And even if they do, there would have to be a central repository, available online to medical facilities in case of medical emergency. That can be done, at reasonably low cost to taxpayers.
For those who do not, there has to be a statutory formula for testing and ultimate cutoff, based on a time element, and yes, overriding family wishes when no advance directives are in place.
Doing so and publicizing it widely could motivate people into executing advance directives.
Amazing it is... that in this world some are kept alive purely by science and others such as Gary Harvey, they want to end his life by starvation.
http://helpbringgaryhome.com/
The Word of God says, "There is a time to live and a time to die." I believe that if we put God first, our world would be a much better place!!!
I agree with Holly let Gary Harvey go home.
As far as this particular case, it is a very difficult decision for a family because the person did not have a directive.
It is a difficult decision for the courts.
It is a difficult decision for the medical community.
Medical technology is a double edged sword under these circumstances. It is a personal family matter and very difficult for all involved.
I posted this comment to the article source three times and it's yet to be posted to the article:
I am always amazed when stories break about people waking up from comas after several years or PVS diagnosis. Because every one, without fail, has a history of all the experts lining up saying there was so hope for the patient originally – just as you are stating in your article to illustrate what you are calling “compassionate end of life care.”
At what point is life not worthy of saving with the marvels of medicine? If a person needs a respirator to breathe, feeding tube to eat, and assistance to move is able to talk and express him/herself, are we going to terminate them too? Or is it just the unresponsive people – or whom we have judged are unresponsive? In other words, if you can’t protect yourself by saying “no,” then it’s curtains?
There is a clear double standard that isn’t often talked about. Ageism. What’s accepted for children isn’t accepted for adults. If a child needs a feeding tube to obtain nutrition, that feeding tube is labeled, “assistance.” If an elderly or disabled person needs a feeding tube, that’s labeled “artificial means.”
Terminating someone’s life by dehydration and starvation is a painful and torturous death. There’s nothing dignified about it. I believe life is either sacred or it’s not. 100% black and white – no gray. There is no “death with dignity.”
These decisions are left to God. It's our job to make every effort to preserve life. Let God decide when to end it.
Doctors are not always right. That is why second opinions have become second nature. When the doctors line up as experts, my radar goes off and I start to question their motives.
The Compassionate thing for Chemung County to do is send Gary Harvey home for the time he has left.
Killing someone is not compassionate.
I think in the NJ case, they're wanting to kill the person to save money. It's always about money.
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