Eluana Englaro Dies
Eluana Englaro has died. From the story:
Eluana Englaro, the 38-year-old comatose woman at the center of an Italian right-to-die case, died Monday night despite efforts by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to order doctors to feed her, the clinic said.This was too fast to have been caused by dehydration. Perhaps her body just gave out.
She had been in a coma since a 1992 car crash. A moment of silence was observed in the Senate, which was debating a law that would have forced the clinic in northern Italy where she was hospitalized to resume feeding her through a tube after nutrition was stopped at the request of the family.
I hope the Italian government looks into this issue in depth and with sobriety. Removing sustenance based on a patient's quality of life is too important to be left to rushed legislation pushed forward in a sensationalist media milieu. But I do think that food and fluids needs to be looked at differently than other forms of care--for reasons I laid out in the wake of Terri Schiavo's death. The law should reflect that.
RIP.
Labels: Eluana Englaro. Food and Fluids. Dehydration. Italy.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 1:37 PM
17 Comments
17 Comments:
>When people claim they would want the "plug pulled," many are worrying about being tethered to beeping machines in sterile intensive care units, not expressing a desire to be slowly dehydrated to death over 10-14 days. In the face of this potential misapprehension, we should create a distinction in law between food and water supplied through a tube and other forms of medical care. Withholding a respirator or antibiotics can lead to uncertain results. Take away anyone's food and water and they will die.<
Your words above ring so true to me Wesley, I would not want to be attached to any life support machines other than maybe a morphine machine like my dad had to take away his cancer pain while dying in his home but there's nothing wrong with a little Intravenous if my love ones see fit to let me have it.
Why would professional good people take away food and water so a patient can die?
So, so much to learn and understand!
>When people claim they would want the "plug pulled," many are worrying about being tethered to beeping machines in sterile intensive care units, not expressing a desire to be slowly dehydrated to death over 10-14 days. In the face of this potential misapprehension, we should create a distinction in law between food and water supplied through a tube and other forms of medical care. Withholding a respirator or antibiotics can lead to uncertain results. Take away anyone's food and water and they will die.<
Your words above ring so true to me Wesley, I would not want to be attached to any life support machines other than maybe a morphine machine like my dad had to take away his cancer pain while dying in his home but there's nothing wrong with a little Intravenous if my love ones see fit to let me have it.
Why would professional good people take away food and water so a patient can die?
So, so much to learn and understand!
I was struck by how quick it was as well. One speculation that has been raised concerns reports (I don't know how reliable) of fairly strong doses of sedation.
YNK (pronounced ink) - You Never Know. I wonder if there's any chance she had an infection or some other disorder that wasn't treated that lead to her rapid demise. It's very possible that if she was sick with something that could kill her, it might be overlooked in the course of this debate over feeding her. Or maybe it was intentionally ignored, as the "lesser evil" sort of thing. Like, a clinic didn't want to dehydrate her to death but didn't rapidly work on curing her of an infection, because the clinic was hoping that she would expire before the issue of dehydrating came to a fore. I don't mean it as an accusation. I'm wondering if it's a possibility is all. You kind of end up looking sideways at people involved in this issue because of how much abuse could be piled up in the name of "a peaceful death." Blah. My prayers go out to the woman and her family, even her father.
I am sick to my stomach over this. Doesn't SHS's entry here indicate that they had already discontinued feeding and the debate was now over to resume it? She was STARVED TO DEATH. No one except those at the hospital know the state she was in when she died "sooner." The world doesn't know what she went through, what was really going on. Even the Italian parliament doesn't. By its happening this way, by whatever means and as the result of whatever cause, a decision was avoided that could have set a precedent, and the risk of precident either way as the result of such a decision was avoided. That poor young woman.
T.E.: You are a good Christian to pray for the father. I'M sure not praying for him. Or for anyone else who would remove life support, or has done it, or favors the idea.
Victor: That is an excellent point. When people say that, it does not cover all eventualities. They can't even imagine what the actual situation would be because it hasn't happened yet and they've never experienced any version of it. As for loved ones making the decision, I don't think anyone should be able to make the decision. Once a person is living with that kind of assistance, they are entitled to it and to its continuance, and their status is still that of someone alive. Would we take a cane away from a blind man, or a crutch, a walker, or a wheelchair away from someone who needs it? Because of "costs"? Well this is the same thing, isn't it. Except in this instance we don't have to watch the person struggle without it; they have been killed and their body disposed of.
Victor: Did you say "professional good people"? Well the answer is in the contradiction in terms, oxymoron, misnomer, or whatever it would be called when that description was applied to those who carry out such murders. Because it is murder, and they are murderers and nothing more. Anything in the law that enables such things to take place is fundamentally invalid.
SHS and Victor: Oops, I misread, and attributed what Wesley wrote to Victor. Well it's a good point, nevertheless. But I don't think that drawing distinctions between different types of life support is a good idea. It just puts the game on the home turf of those who invented it. A person should have every form of life support they need, without question. It should be unthinkable for hospitals, "medical professions," "bioethicists and ethics committees" (well with ethical medical practice they are unnecessary, and as things are they, well we know what they are; doctors and chaplains and the person's own clergy are enough for ethics, aren't they), "family," "loved ones," etc. to remove any form of life support. Now THAT would be a sane system. Yes some people do not want to continue "on machines." But allow them to opt out, and those who do want to live will BE "opted out," and if cost/benefit analysis is to be applied, that's where to apply it. The right of a person to live outweighs that of another person not to life. Death is worse than suffering. Modern technology, ever-advancing at such a rapid rate that The Hastings Institute issued a report several years ago advising against "living wills" because technology is advancing at a more rapid rate than people realize, and other techniques, can alleviate the suffering of those who do not want to be on life support without ending their lives. Death is a serious and irrevocable thing. If a person is on life support and is not able to ask to be taken off it, they must not be taken off it. I've lived through this situation (the person who was the patient was murdered); I've seen. Most people have NOT, and yet have opinions on the matter, about themselves, about others...courts can't address it properly, hospitals and doctors are in instance after instance not willing to follow the patient's real wishes, the families get "asked" to decide when it is not their decision, it's a mess. There is only one wise and humane way to address it, and that is to let the person live. Medical ethics, remember?
Oops again, I left out "ethical." There is only one ethical, wise, and humane way to address it; let life continue; do not do anything that will stop it from continuing. That is what is right. Anything else is not.
As for the "costs" and "resources" question, I just noted the only way in which cost/benefit is properly applicable, and in order not to have as many people using "life support" resources in the first place, doctors and hospital need simply focus on proper care, good organization, and change of attitude, rather than spending time and energy, in the wrong attitude, on "ethics committees," "policy," "meetings" and other nonsense, trying to convince patients and their families to "choose" DNR for those who don't want it, etc. The patient is the customer, and the customer is always right (hospitals do get paid in money, don't they, whether from the patient's pocket or from the insurance the patient has worked hard to have, paid premiums on, etc., and if for example medicaid benefits are paying the costs, well, the patient is still the customer). Hospitals have conveniently forgotten this reality, and act as if they are entitled to ignore it. I believe that medical malpractice should be a criminal, not a civil, matter. Too many free passes are given to doctors by this society; that's how things got this way. No one held a gun to their head and insisted they practice medicine; they chose to and they know they have people's lives in their hands; they must be held responsible for the consequences. I know of one situation after another in which the patient ONLY ENDED UP ON LIFE SUPPORT AS THE RESULT OF DOCTOR AND HOSPITAL NEGLIGENCE, and then the plug was pulled on the patient, who was able to continue to live on live support and wanted to continue to live, against their own will. Yes, that's how it IS. Enough with this "debate" over "withdrawing life support." The problem begins with the medical profession and with hospitals; THEY cause the "resource problem." As for "choice" about life support, what's that word again? ("Choice.") This is part of the same syndrome SHS has just addressed re the octoplets.
But nobody starves to death in four days. For that matter, unless a person is already pretty dehydrated to begin with, people don't dehydrate to death in four days. And it looked like they began withdrawing food before they withdrew water, so she may only have been three days or less without hydration. If I had to guess, I'd guess the sedation report is correct, but I do not know, so this is officially marked as "alleged." The allegation came in a Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation e-mail.
It was only four days that she had no nutrition? I didn't know that. We still don't know that, because we were not there. Things go on in hospitals that are unbelieveable to the public. All sorts of things may have gone on. What doctors and hospitals say, to courts, to the public, is not necessarily to be believed. "Coma" and "pvs" are claimed when the person is in neither state, and in any event the person can often hear. If Eluana heard what was going on, that would have been enough to make a difference. Because it was going on, words spoken, behavior, routine, including changes to it, changes of assigned staff members, etc., energy in the atmosphere and projected by those around her and caring for her (patients in her state are very sensitive even to the latter) -- all of that -- may very well have affected her. And Lord knows what else was on. Things go on in these situations that people could not imagine.
God Bless Eluana!
It is fortunate that Eluana did not have suffer a 2 week starvation and dehydration process.
In reading some of the reports, It's seems that Eluana wasn't completely devoid of nutrition and hydration for the full 4 days.
On Friday, the clinic grudually began reducing her nutrition and hydration intake.
I don't how long Eluana was actually without Nutrition and Hydration.
Apparently they had given Eluana some sedatives.
When combinded with the gradual reduction of her nutrition and hydration, this caused Eluana to die prematurely.
this seems a bit suspicious. I hope this wasn't semi-direct euthanasia disguised as pain management.
SAFEpres and James: Seems suspicious to me, too. I don't like the term euthanasia. It's murder, plain and simple. As is what the last sentence of James' post describes.
I wonder how often, in situations where a spouse or family member wants the person removed from life support, the hospital managed to persuade them to take that position in the first place. Even Michael Schiavo and Eluana's father. Some people are more easy to persuade than others, of course, especially when it's something they want to do in the first place. I don't understand how anyone can take that position, but perhaps some who do on some level feel guilt and become adamant as a result. But it's not the hospital's right to have anything to do with the decision-making, it's not the "love one's" decision, "living wills" are fundamentally invalid to start with for reasons I've stated elsewhere on SHS and am too exhausted, plus now upset by what has happened to Eluana, to remember, reconstruct, and restate, as are the "preferences" of the person before the situation arises, and whatever God is exists, as far as we are concerned, not only as our creator, but as the only entity entitled to make these "decisions." Life -- let it be.
This could happen to any of us.
Well, sure. I don't think people who don't need sedatives should be given them in doses that hasten death. And the only reason she would have "needed" sedatives was because she was having her nutrition and hydration reduced to a point that would cause discomfort and pain. So it isn't just suspicious. If that's what they did, it's of course completely wrong and not a death of natural causes. It's one thing to give large doses of pain medication to people with horrible cancer pain and another to give them to someone who wouldn't be in pain at all if it weren't for something totally unnecessary that the medical personnel are doing, with the intent of causing death.
>Well it's a good point, nevertheless. But I don't think that drawing distinctions between different types of life support is a good idea.<
Ianthe, I now see where you’re heading and you’re probably right. My only defense is that I’m from the old farm but I’m starting to grasp the risk of precedent setting here.
>As for loved ones making the decision, I don't think anyone should be able to make the decision.<
I know this one might sound like a contradiction but that one is not going to be easy for me to adjust, probably because I place more trust in the decisions of my loved ones when it comes to life support machines. I really would not want it but having said that we’ve always listen closely to what the medical staff had to say before pulling any pluck. Maybe I’m afraid of being used as a guinea pig and who knows what my thoughts might be in the future. Lot’s to think about! :)
Ianthe -
My desire is to have everyone recognize the importance of all people and to have her father repent, so they can be together in the next life, because I don't think he was trying to be evil, though I do believe he was seduced by evil and gave in to it. Unfortunately, sometimes people can't recognize evil, and what the father did was evil. I'm sad for him. He lost out on his daughter and the things he could have learned from her. I'm sad for his daughter, for being mistreated and thrown away. I'm sad for Italy, which was so divided.
But repentence doesn't mean just saying, "I'm sorry." It means taking responsibility, doing some kind of penance, and working hard to prevent this kind of thing from ever happening again. It means accepting punishment as being justice. And I am very much afraid he will not repent, not really. As in I genuinely fear for him.
Punishment is necessary to purify and to protect in equal measure. It's better to accept it than to brush it off and lose out.
And I don't blame you at all for not praying for him. I understand fully. You're trying to do what you think is right, too, and I respect that.
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