First, housekeeping: I’m saving my thoughts, etc. on Terrie’s story until tomorrow. I’ve removed the “part 1” from the title of the blog post with her story since it really doesn’t belong there.
In the meantime, William Peace at BadCripple read Terrie’s story and it caused some scary thoughts and memories to surface:
Excerpt:
I vividly recall late one night asking a rehab nurse why there were no people with a high level SCIs on the ward. She looked at me with an odd expression and replied “think about it”. Naive, I thought and thought and could not think of an answer that made sense. The nurse shook her head and told me to raise my level of injury from T-3 to C-3 and asked me if I really wanted to live that sort of life. After a pause I said not but that was not up to me, people had the right to choose. Such a decision I thought was made by doctor, patient, and family. Again she shook her head. That decision, she told me, was made in the ER and operating rooms by doctors. Patients who would be dependent upon a respirator and unable to independently move died. “They were allowed to die with dignity” she told me.
The instance described in the excerpt is from some 30 years ago. Peace fears – as do I – that stories like Terrie’s (minus the survival) are becoming more common over time. Can we prove that? No. But the fact that it’s happening at all is an outrage.
And, btw, if some medical professional writes me to tell me this hardly ever happens… The fact that is that they won’t have any more hard data to base that belief on than I do in regard to my own suspicions. –Stephen Drake
Reminds me of stories about doctors making similar decisions, in hospital delivery rooms when a baby is born with a visible disability, and we only hear about it,when a “professional” “blows the whistle” or…
someone like P. Singer claims it happens and wants to make it a “right” for parents… There’s a thread through all these ways we are trashed. (Is that word too harsh?)
what about the new quality of life index that will be in the new health care bill that is being debated today in Congress? See LifeNews.com for more information.
sanda,
If you go to the bad cripple blog, you’ll see that another blogger has brought up the same issue that you highlight.
Anonymous,
QALYs and DALYs aren’t new – I seem to remember an attempt by the previous administration to attach them to some health care policy.
Oddly enough, I’m not as concerned about the proposals in the current health care bill. For one thing, proposals are out in the open. For another thing, plenty of eyes are on the proposals – including the eyes of major disability advocacy organizations.
This clandestine ending of lives through pressure on families (or worse, as in Bill Peace’s story) is even more urgent since the existence of these practices are pretty much denied by the medical profession. –Stephen Drake