Death wishes

Published September 19, 2014

by Gary Pearce, Talking About Politics, September 18, 2014.

Like many people who have more years behind them than ahead of them, I regularly read the obituaries. First I look for people or families I know. Then I look for their ages. Then I look for the signs of how they died. Many times it says “after a long period of declining health,” “after a long and valiant struggle with (fill in the blank),” etc.

So I was struck by a new study, “Dying in America,” which says, “Americans suffer needless discomfort and undergo unwanted and costly care as they die, in part because of a medical system ruled by perverse incentives for aggressive care and not enough conversation about what people want.”

How many of us want to be kept alive by machines and invasive procedures that add a few weeks or months to our lives, but nothing to the quality of our lives?

Maybe this is something we famously selfish and self-absorbed Baby Boomers can do for our country. After all, a huge chunk of the national health care bill – like Medicare – goes to end-of-life care. Let’s save the next generation some money and save ourselves some suffering. Let’s get serious about planning for the end so we can be at home and free from pain, respirators, feeding tubes and powerful drugs. Let’s get over Sarah Palin’s rhetoric about “death panels” and get serious.

http://www.talkingaboutpolitics.com

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September 19, 2014 at 4:55 pm
Hazel Dilts says:

Amen! I believe that we treat our pets much better than our loved ones. I strongly believe in the right to die whether our illness is mental i.e. Alzheimers, cancer, or whatever. I do not want my hard earned resources to be wasted paying doctors and hospitals for care that will not provide any quality to my life. I want it to go to pay for my grandchildren's education.

I and my doctor, sign a NC MOST form every year and I have a very complete and detailed end of life form which I signed and had notarized. I just wish that NC, like some other states, had a way to register our MOST form so that our wishes could be made known without doctors or EMT's having to see an original of the form. I keep mine on my refrigerator at home, but if I become deathly ill while away from home, a photocopy is worthless. By the time the medical pros know about the form I probably will already have been resuscitated and/or hooked up to "life" saving machines which is totally against my wishes.

Thank you for discussing this issue.

PS: I also believe in doctor assisted suicide!