.- An Oregon bill on advanced medical directive rules could allow patients who suffer from dementia or mental illness to be starved or dehydrated, opponents warned.
“These are patients who are awake, can chew and swallow and want to eat, even though in some cases they may need help in delivering food to their mouths,” Gayle Atteberry of Oregon Right to Life said Jan. 31. “Current safeguards in Oregon’s law protect these patients from this type of cruelty. This bill take away these safeguards.”
The legislation, S.B. 494, would create an appointed committee empowered to make changes to the advance medical directive governing end-of-life decisions.
According to Oregon Right to Life, the bill was drafted in response to the case of Ashland, Ore. resident Nora Harris, who suffered from early onset Alzheimer’s disease. She lost the ability to communicate and the fine motor skills needed to feed herself. She would eat and drink only with assisted spoon feeding.
Harris’ husband had filed a suit to stop the spoon feeding but lost his case in July 2016. Harris herself was represented by a court-appointed attorney, who said that that refusing to help Harris eat would be against state law. The law and Harris’ advance directive authorized only the withdrawal of artificial means of hydration and nutrition. Jackson County Circuit Judge Patricia Crain agreed, the Medford Mail-Tribune reports.
Oregon Right to Life objected to efforts to change the advance directive system.
“If the bill passes, it could allow a court to interpret a request on an advance directive to refuse tube feeding to also mean you don’t want to receive spoon feeding,” the group said. “This is not tube feeding or an IV – this is basic, non-medical care for conscious patients.”
It charged that the process “could easily result in further erosion of patient rights.”
“End of life decisions are very difficult,” Atteberry added. “Families suffer emotionally as they make decisions such as to use or withdraw feeding tubes, possibly place do-not-resuscitate orders, or use heroic treatments. Most of these decisions, however, involve patients in comatose situations, and most of them are free of moral implications. Most of them, also, are end-of-life decisions.”
Those affected by this bill would not be at an end-of-life stage.
“The problem is, for some, especially insurance companies, they are not dying fast enough,” Atteberry said.
She said that current requirements that patients be spoon-fed help reassure families of Alzheimer’s patients that their loved ones are receiving good care.
“Some comfort can be derived from the knowledge that their loved one will be receiving attentive and kind care while in these facilities. Should this bill pass, that peace would vanish.”
UMmmm, folks this already is happening in almost every nursing home in the U.S. This article is an attempt to bury what is really happening in nursing homes everyday. If you don’t already know this it is because you have no relationship with a dying person or one with advanced dementia under state care or one ensconced with “insurance”. I have watched more than one be starved because “he does not WANT to eat”! No mention that the drugs “he” is on to make his behavior acceptable to the staff destroys appetite and the ability to taste and that makes food unpalatable! It is not that we do not deserve this. We do, in spades, and worse. Keep being “safe” and do the responsible thing by carrying insurance, paying taxes and complaining without making huge changes in your own lives. Oh and make sure you keep watching t.v. and obeying “law”. She was Spoon Fed?! There are no nursing homes i know about that will do this unless the family is there watching or when the staff can’t predict when a family member will show up as long as family does show up everyday. I have seen relatives in four states die this way in very expensive homes. One in New York which was a top of the line, long waiting list, with more staff advertised than all others had my 100 year old Uncle in his underwear under a sheet both soaked in urine with the temp at 68 when we walked in surprising the staff because we were scheduled to be there the next day. We are from out of state. He was washed, dressed and the heat somehow went up with no adjustable thermostat in the room within a couple of minutes. This is just one example i have seen. If you Love anyone and they are destined to be slowly starved and their stimulation taken away as is the s.o.p. of all of these death centers just kill them in their own homes and save them from a slow torturous death linked to incredible profits. The owners of these places make in the high six figures and all of them deserve to live under their own installations care. Without staff knowing who they are.