Showing posts with label Barbara Wagner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barbara Wagner. Show all posts

Friday, August 3, 2012

"The mere presence of legal assisted-suicide steers patients to suicide"

November 27, 2011

To Massachusetts Medical Society 


Dear House of Delegates Officers and Other Interested Parties:

I understand that the Massachusetts Medical Association will be voting on changing its policy against physician-assisted suicide. I have been a cancer doctor in Oregon for more than 40 years.  The combination of assisted-suicide legalization and prioritized medical care based on prognosis has created a danger for my patients on the Oregon Health Plan (Medicaid).

The Plan limits medical care and treatment for patients with a likelihood of a 5% or less 5-year survival.  My patients in that category, who say, have a good chance of living another three years and who want to live, cannot receive surgery, chemotherapy or radiation therapy to obtain that goal.  The Plan guidelines state that the Plan will not cover “chemotherapy or surgical interventions with the primary intent to prolong life or alter disease progression.”  The Plan WILL cover the cost of the patient’s suicide.

Under our law, a patient is not supposed to be eligible for voluntary suicide until they are deemed to have six months or less to live.  In the well publicized cases of Barbara Wagner and Randy Stroup, neither of them had such diagnoses, nor had they asked for suicide.  The Plan, nonetheless, offered them suicide.

In Oregon, the mere presence of legal assisted-suicide  steers patients to suicide even when there is not an issue of coverage.  One of my patients was adamant she would use the law.  I convinced her to be treated.  Eleven years later she is thrilled to be alive.  Please, don’t let assisted suicide come to Massachusetts.

 [Support for this letter regarding Barbara Wagner and Randy Stroup can be found in these articles: http://www.katu.com/news/26119539.html &http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=5517492&page=1  My patient’s letter in the Boston Globe describing her being alive 11 years later can be read here:
http://articles.boston.com/2011-10-04/bostonglobe/30243525_1_suicide-doctor-ballot-initiative   ]

Kenneth R.Stevens, Jr., MD
Sherwood, OR  

Professor Emeritus and former Chair, Radiation Oncology Department, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Oregon

Don't Follow Oregon's Lead: Say No to Assisted Suicide

http://www.margaretdore.com/info/Bentz_Letter.pdf

I am an internal medicine doctor, practicing in Oregon where assisted suicide is legal.  I write in support of Margaret Dore's article, "Aid in Dying: Not Legal in Idaho; Not About Choice."  I would also like to share a story about one of my patients.

I was caring for a 76 year-old man who came in with a sore on his arm. The sore was ultimately diagnosed as a malignant melanoma, and I referred him to two cancer specialists for evaluation and therapy. I had known this patient and his wife for over a decade. He was an avid hiker, a popular hobby here in Oregon. As he went through his therapy, he became less able to do this activity, becoming depressed, which was documented in his chart.

During this time, my patient expressed a wish for doctor-assisted suicide to one of the cancer specialists. Rather than taking the time and effort to address the question of depression, or ask me to talk with him as his primary care physician and as someone who knew him, the specialist called me and asked me to be the "second opinion" for his suicide. She told me that barbiturate overdoses "work very well" for patients like this, and that she had done this many times before.


I told her that assisted-suicide was not appropriate for this patient and that I did NOT concur. I was very concerned about my patient's mental state, and I told her that addressing his underlying issues would be better than simply giving him a lethal prescription. Unfortunately, my concerns were ignored, and approximately two weeks later my patient was dead from an overdose prescribed by this doctor. His death certificate, filled out by this doctor, listed the cause of death as melanoma.

The public record is not accurate. My patient did not die from his cancer, but at the hands of a once-trusted colleague. This experience has affected me, my practice, and my understanding of what it means to be a physician. What happened to this patient, who was weak and vulnerable, raises several important questions that I have had to answer, and that the citizens of Idaho should also consider:

        * If assisted suicide is made legal in Idaho, will you be able to trust your doctors, insurers and HMOs to give you and your family members the best care? I referred my patient to specialty care, to a doctor I trusted, and the outcome turned out to be fatal.
        
        * How will financial issues affect your choices? In Oregon, patients under the Oregon Health Plan have been denied coverage for treatment and offered coverage for suicide instead. See e.g. KATU TV story and video at
http://www.katu.com/home/video/26119539.html  (about Barbara Wagner). Do you want this to be your choice?

        * If your doctor and/or HMO favors assisted suicide, will they let you know about all possible options or will they simply encourage you to kill yourself?  The latter option will often involve often less actual work for the doctor and save the HMO money.

In most states, suicidal ideation is interpreted as a cry for help. In Oregon, the only help my patient received was a lethal prescription, intended to kill him.

Is this where you want to go? Please learn the real lesson from Oregon. Despite all of the so-called safeguards in our assisted suicide law, numerous instances of coercion, inappropriate selection, botched attempts, and active euthanasia have been documented in the public record.

Protect yourselves and your families. Don't let legalized assisted suicide come to Idaho.

Charles J. Bentz MD, FACP
Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of General Medicine and Geriatrics Oregon Health & Sciences University
Portland Oregon