flowgo Asked June 2015
What are your thoughts on euthanasia in the medical field assisted suicide?
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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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.