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Oh! Look! Anecdotes from a country where you can get broke if you go the hospital! Surely it applies to people all over the world! You imagine and you assume.

by Iv 7y ago

Oh! Look! Anecdotes from a country where you can get broke if you go the hospital! Surely it applies to people all over the world! You imagine and you assume. Please don't argue about ending other people life based on assumptions and imagination.

FireBeyond 7y ago
Okay, as a paramedic, who has lived in Australia and the UK as well as the US. End of life quality of life is its own issue, regardless of who is or isn't paying. Let me paint you a couple of examples and have you tell me about your desire to face any one of them rather than finding peace: 1) the lady with metastasized bone cancer who (thankfully) we were taking home so she could die there, as her family had set up a bed in a family owned home so she could watch the sunrise. She was a morphine drip for her pain. To be clear, most patients with cancer can be controlled by oral morphine at 200mg/day. She was receiving 120mg per HOUR. And still we had to drive the ambulance painfully (hah) slowly because every little bump in the road (not pothole, but bump) caused screams of pain from the back. Despite her being 45kg or so, we used six people to move her into the home (normally two would have done it) to make it as smooth a process as possible, and she was still incontinent from pain as a result). I do take some mild comfort in knowing she got to see two more sunrises out of hospital. But even as someone who has had multiple kidney stones (and large ones at that), I could not imagine enduring what she was. You call it "living", it's not, I chose "enduring" for a reason. 2) A man who had Alzheimers with some lucidity. Maybe 10 minutes an hour. The other times he spent in terror, because he had a constant playback loop of about four separate WW2 scenarios where he was an infantryman in Europe. During those times he was entirely reliving the most terrifying experiences of his life, his eyes would be wide, his pulse would be 160+, he'd be shaking and unapproachable (because he _would_ attack you), pinned down by German troops in a French village. Or breaking his leg as he cut his parachute when he was stuck in a tree. Or when he was temporarily deafened by mortar and artillery fire landing near him, spraying him with mud and bricks and glass. You're entitled to your own opinion as we all are. But it's certainly not a coincidence that _many_ people who have spent a good amount of time around end of life events want nothing less than to see it happen to them (or for their own loved ones to have to see it happen). And all of the above, again, has nearly zero to do with "who is paying the bill". And a seemingly subtle but very important distinction: it is not _ending_ someone's life to _not prolong_ it beyond nature. And trying to twist the parents remarks about "do not resuscitate" into "ending peoples lives" is a blatant reductionism that is neither merited nor fair. Apropos of anything else, a DNR is the written expression of the _patients_ wishes. Just as you want your own freedom. We spend more in the last year (be it NHS, Medicare in Australia, or health insurance) of people's lives than we do in the last decade of their lives, and more in the last decade than we do on the rest of their life.
- Iv 7y ago
  > You call it "living", it's not Well she did not kill herself despite being able to, now did she? > A man who had Alzheimers with some lucidity. Maybe 10 minutes an hour. Who again did not take those 10 minutes to take his life. Nietzsche wrote many of his pieces of literature in similar conditions. > But it's certainly not a coincidence that _many_ people who have spent a good amount of time around end of life events want nothing less than to see it happen to them Or that could be a bias towards spending most time with the most extreme examples. A bit like how policemen tend to become more racist during the course of their career. A professional's opinion on a moral issue can be more informed but also often more biased.
  - FireBeyond 7y ago
    > Well she did not kill herself despite being able to, now did she? She asked not to be resuscitated. She wasn't. On a couple of occasions, now, you have conflated DNR (or POLST, more accurately, these days, Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatments) with the act of suicide. > Who again did not take those 10 minutes to take his life. Again. > Or that could be a bias towards spending most time with the most extreme examples. A bit like how policemen tend to become more racist during the course of their career. A professional's opinion on a moral issue can be more informed but also often more biased. Oof. Comparing a medical professionals experience with the negative side of end of life palliative care with an increasing racism is a pretty ugly and unjustified comparison, one that says that you believe that those physicians, paramedics, nurses have intensified flaws or failings by virtue of recognizing/ believing that not everyone needs to or should stay alive to the very last by means of medical care, regardless of their wishes or quality of life, that that is somehow akin to "racism" in terms of character traits. Wow.
    - Iv 7y ago
      > On a couple of occasions, now, you have conflated DNR (or POLST, more accurately, these days, Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatments) with the act of suicide. I certainly did not and having a few idiots who cannot make the difference does not mean we can't still be opposed to other people choosing for you what it means to "die with dignity", which was the starter of this discussion. And I am happy that you find racism abhorrent but I doubt you misunderstood me to the point of missing that I am just criticizing the idea that professionals the most exposed to a situation necessarily have unbiased and superior moral opinion on this situation.

by Iv 7y ago

FireBeyond 7y ago

Okay, as a paramedic, who has lived in Australia and the UK as well as the US. End of life quality of life is its own issue, regardless of who is or isn't paying. Let me paint you a couple of examples and have you tell me about your desire to face any one of them rather than finding peace: 1) the lady with metastasized bone cancer who (thankfully) we were taking home so she could die there, as her family had set up a bed in a family owned home so she could watch the sunrise. She was a morphine drip for her pain. To be clear, most patients with cancer can be controlled by oral morphine at 200mg/day. She was receiving 120mg per HOUR. And still we had to drive the ambulance painfully (hah) slowly because every little bump in the road (not pothole, but bump) caused screams of pain from the back. Despite her being 45kg or so, we used six people to move her into the home (normally two would have done it) to make it as smooth a process as possible, and she was still incontinent from pain as a result). I do take some mild comfort in knowing she got to see two more sunrises out of hospital. But even as someone who has had multiple kidney stones (and large ones at that), I could not imagine enduring what she was. You call it "living", it's not, I chose "enduring" for a reason. 2) A man who had Alzheimers with some lucidity. Maybe 10 minutes an hour. The other times he spent in terror, because he had a constant playback loop of about four separate WW2 scenarios where he was an infantryman in Europe. During those times he was entirely reliving the most terrifying experiences of his life, his eyes would be wide, his pulse would be 160+, he'd be shaking and unapproachable (because he _would_ attack you), pinned down by German troops in a French village. Or breaking his leg as he cut his parachute when he was stuck in a tree. Or when he was temporarily deafened by mortar and artillery fire landing near him, spraying him with mud and bricks and glass. You're entitled to your own opinion as we all are. But it's certainly not a coincidence that _many_ people who have spent a good amount of time around end of life events want nothing less than to see it happen to them (or for their own loved ones to have to see it happen). And all of the above, again, has nearly zero to do with "who is paying the bill". And a seemingly subtle but very important distinction: it is not _ending_ someone's life to _not prolong_ it beyond nature. And trying to twist the parents remarks about "do not resuscitate" into "ending peoples lives" is a blatant reductionism that is neither merited nor fair. Apropos of anything else, a DNR is the written expression of the _patients_ wishes. Just as you want your own freedom. We spend more in the last year (be it NHS, Medicare in Australia, or health insurance) of people's lives than we do in the last decade of their lives, and more in the last decade than we do on the rest of their life.

Iv 7y ago
> You call it "living", it's not Well she did not kill herself despite being able to, now did she? > A man who had Alzheimers with some lucidity. Maybe 10 minutes an hour. Who again did not take those 10 minutes to take his life. Nietzsche wrote many of his pieces of literature in similar conditions. > But it's certainly not a coincidence that _many_ people who have spent a good amount of time around end of life events want nothing less than to see it happen to them Or that could be a bias towards spending most time with the most extreme examples. A bit like how policemen tend to become more racist during the course of their career. A professional's opinion on a moral issue can be more informed but also often more biased.
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  > Well she did not kill herself despite being able to, now did she? She asked not to be resuscitated. She wasn't. On a couple of occasions, now, you have conflated DNR (or POLST, more accurately, these days, Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatments) with the act of suicide. > Who again did not take those 10 minutes to take his life. Again. > Or that could be a bias towards spending most time with the most extreme examples. A bit like how policemen tend to become more racist during the course of their career. A professional's opinion on a moral issue can be more informed but also often more biased. Oof. Comparing a medical professionals experience with the negative side of end of life palliative care with an increasing racism is a pretty ugly and unjustified comparison, one that says that you believe that those physicians, paramedics, nurses have intensified flaws or failings by virtue of recognizing/ believing that not everyone needs to or should stay alive to the very last by means of medical care, regardless of their wishes or quality of life, that that is somehow akin to "racism" in terms of character traits. Wow.
  - Iv 7y ago
    > On a couple of occasions, now, you have conflated DNR (or POLST, more accurately, these days, Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatments) with the act of suicide. I certainly did not and having a few idiots who cannot make the difference does not mean we can't still be opposed to other people choosing for you what it means to "die with dignity", which was the starter of this discussion. And I am happy that you find racism abhorrent but I doubt you misunderstood me to the point of missing that I am just criticizing the idea that professionals the most exposed to a situation necessarily have unbiased and superior moral opinion on this situation.