…edless to say, this made everything worse. She soon accepted a job with a cruise ship line and sailed away. True story — happened in New Jersey. Is suicide still against the law there? More recently, another friend was searching for a way out. He was not in physical pain. He was not terminally ill. His problem was that he was in a nursing home and the conditions there were not good. What he needed was a Health Care Advocate — someone to advocate f…
…ferring money to providers than giving care to the public. In addition the World Socialist Web Site featured an essay by Kate Randall titled “The voice of the ruling class.” Randall makes some excellent points, although NDY doesn’t think Nazi analogies – even careful ones like the brief one in this essay – are very useful. We’d also disagree with the characterization of Obama’s health care reform efforts as “an unprecedented attack on health care…
…think about this right away, while you still can. Write down specific instructions in an advance directive for your loved ones who will be your surrogate decision makers to follow. This will save everyone a lot of anguish. Believe me, I know. I made a well-meaning but profoundly ill-advised medical decision on behalf of my aunt and now she must live with the consequences. Two years ago my aunt was hospitalized due to a sudden, unexplained but tem…
…ed by Oregon law co-author Barbara Coombs Lee last fall at a Connecticut forum. As the online journal CTNewsJunkie reported, “Coombs Lee also said the [Oregon-style] legislation would exclude people with dementia and cognitive declines, since they could not make the choice for themselves. ‘It is an issue for another day but is no less compelling,’” she said. Coombs Lee is now the president of the group Compassion & Choices, the saccharine rebrandi…
…elly: There’s no telling how many souls Shari Hope Kelly escorted into the world during her decades as a labor and delivery nurse. Nor can one quantify the innumerable psyches she soothed as a rape crisis counselor and an instructor in social science at Pima Community College. And Kelly treated herself as compassionately as she did all others. She spent years thoughtfully formulating a plan. She long suspected the day would come when the physical…
