Islamic religious art na look agnostic … if you don’t know what you’re looking at.
Of course, without context Christian religious art is a lot of plus signs, moms with babies, winged babies, weird bonnets, and torture porn.
My grandmother went into a facility for palliative care in the last few weeks of her life. We saw all of these folks, and it was a struggle to reign them in.
There's a whole lot of really terrible behaviour that's done just because it makes someone more money or someone's job easier, and if it results in actual pain/discomfort to the patient, who cares.
In private practice, OB's also often have to pay for their own tail insurance, which also means if they quit the practice, they have to pay malpractice insurance (basically in perpetuity) to protect against late-arriving lawsuits. This also traps physicians in their job/specialty and makes early retirement challenging.
It's a great system. /s
If they have a limited volume of beds, I'm sure a focus on profit would drive a private patient getting care versus an elderly Medicare patient.
That aside, ability to pay is not going to be the top consideration of the baseline profitability of a procedure.
I don’t know any specifics though.
There was also huge public fervor when the suggestion of funding mere discussion of end of life options was proposed with the Affordable Care Act:
Well of course that's what they think. Everybody is against "overtreatment". If they aren't against a treatment, they don't consider it "overtreatment", they just consider it "treatment".
Different people have different boundaries for what they consider "overtreatment".
As an example:
https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2017/2017onsc6511/2017...
[2] Following Shalom’s brain death his family had discussions with the staff at Humber River Hospital. They explained that in accordance with Shalom’s and their religious beliefs, Shalom was not considered to be dead under Jewish law until he stopped breathing and his heart stopped beating. Neither had occurred because he was on ventilator life support.
The hospital board ruled he met the guidelines to be considered "dead" - the family went to court to overturn this.
Its almost always the family - they just can't let go or have some christian type of excuse. Thus their moral weakness causes tremendous amount of suffering of their closest ones. And doctors have to obey family wishes, even if they personally wouldn't chose to, which is true for most doctors in such situations.
I've been been recently an unfortunate witness to one of the cases when its not closest family - grandmother of my wife was nearing her end, suffering tremendously. Her daughter, my mother in law who is a nurse and teaches nursing too and knows all staff of their hospital very well was looking for some strong painkillers ie morphine to help her with final sufferings, which went on about for a week. As her mom didn't want to die in hospital, nobody was willing to sign receipt, not even close personal friends (mind you we don't have opioids crisis in the country, so its not controversial to give them to 92 year old dying). Some folks from closer family or friends even said its fine to suffer before the end, to shorten/skip purgatory, or some similar religious bullshit. One of those times when I hated christianity and its believers more than ever, you know those. As they say, you will know true friends when you need them the most.
Switzerland is, as usually quite ahead on this - assisted suicide. Folks from all over the world come here to die peacefully, in full control. Ie Alain Delon is going through the process of getting this done right now. It doesn't cover all possible situations, but it gives certain control and dignity in times where most people have none left. Me personally, if facing such a situation, would do grand farewell gathering with all, sign my will and go somewhere in the nature to die quietly, ie jump from some cliff or overdose on heroin (first and last dose, but they say its quite an experience).
I am not a religious person by anyone's description, but the choice here appears to be that of lesser evil. Final wish of a dying person ( along with their ability to govern their life ) here being that she did not want to die in a hospital. Wouldn't 'helping' her die break that wish? And more importantly, what if the dying person is ok with suffering?
<<Thus their moral weakness
It feels like the sentence is emotionally loaded. Is it a moral weakness to follow one's moral compass? I hear what you are saying, but you may want to consider that they do not want to make that decision, because their moral compass marks it as killing someone ( including some earthly jurisdictions ).
I agree that often times it is a matter of moral weakness. If the family knows what the wishes of the dying are, but are scared or unwilling to carry them out, that is a moral failing. I know many people who have gone through this, and the family often regrets their choices and weaknesses after the death. They wish that they could have been stronger and tell the doctors that they can stop treating the patient.
Her being in hospital vs being at home was just decision to not die surrounded by nurses and doctors but by family, which is completely understandable and I would opt for it too in same situation.
The fact that even closest folks refused to ease suffering while shielding themselves with at-best dubious christianity-based moral stance of easing/skipping purgatory is just beyond my comprehension.
And yes I truly consider it their moral weakness and failure. Its not about killing in any way, but sedating enough to have their last moments filled with sanity and focus on family, and not screams of huge pain.
> And more importantly, what if the dying person is ok with suffering?
Now this part is complete bullshit, of course she didn't want to suffer, she had brighter moments when she was begging for painkillers. I presume you were never in situation where you suffered huge amount of pain continuously for at least many hours. I experienced it once, and it completely utterly breaks you down mentally. You are willing to do basically anything to make it stop - there is a reason why it is/was used so much to get any intel, at one point everybody breaks, its so overwhelming that people make up anything to make it stop.
I hope its a bit more clear, it was a complex situation to describe fully in few sentences.
It is strange how they often cite religious beliefs, but if they firmly believe in "god" why are they always willing to go to such great lengths to prevent dying?
This is VERY unfortunate in Canada because these people cost the country a small fortune for no real reason. There was a story a while ago about an individual, 70+ and braindead, family fought and fought to keep him alive. I cant help but wonder if they had to pay, would they have continued to fight?
Can you explain what you mean by this?
> Patients who rely heavily on their religious beliefs to cope with cancer have been shown to receive more aggressive interventions (e.g., cardiopulmonary resuscitation and ventilation) in the last week of life compared to those who rely less heavily on [Religion and spirituality] beliefs.
> The most commonly highly endorsed items (i.e., at least ‘somewhat’) were “my faith helps me to endure the suffering that comes with difficult medical treatments” (71%); “I will accept every possible medical treatment because my faith tells me to do everything I can to stay alive longer” (67%); and “I believe God could perform a miracle in curing me of cancer” (69%). Most patients (87%) reported some (‘somewhat’, ‘quite a bit’ or ‘a great deal’) endorsement of at least one of the RBEC items and a majority (62%) endorsed three or more RBEC items.
> Item-total correlations revealed high item-total correlations (>0.7) for five items and moderate correlations for the items “do not resuscitate orders are immoral due to religious beliefs” (0.48) and “I would be giving up on my faith if I stopped pursuing cancer treatment” (0.63).
I do agree that a final 'big picture' decision needs to be made but its hard to get that mental clarity when you are in the eye of the storm.
Also, I've personally decided to go by euthanasia after I lose my independence but I am also not clear at what point I should make that decision. I am worried that I will delay that decision and end up in a situation where I lose my faculties to make that decision.
I'm concerned about that too. Broadly, the circumstances in which I'd want to get it over with painlessly are circumstances where it's hard to see what I could do about it, like if I'm immobile in a hospital bed. I want a stash of Nembutal in my medicine cabinet, that's the drug recommended by Exit International; but I can't get it. You sometimes see sellers offering it on dark markets at $600 for 10g, but typically they have zero trades and zero reputation.
He aspirated his own vomit and died of asphyxia while intoxicated with barbiturates. Specifically, large doses of the sleeping pill Vesparax.
Opioids kill by slowing breathing, full stop. The medical term is "Opioid-induced Respiratory Depression." Narcan very rapidly reverses this, which is how it saves lives.
Same. I have cognitive issues from m.s. and intend to move somewhere where my desire is respected. My quality of life already sucks, so I may make the decsision sooner than would normally be expected.
She stabilized and survived, and is still here 12 years later. I appreciate what the doctors did for her, but I am very cynical about blindly trusting what overworked/numb medical workers tell us now though.
A life full of pain and suffering is still a life. The alternative you're offering is not something without paid and suffering, it's worse. Notexisting is worse than pain and suffering.
That’s a stretch.
Far more important to come to terms with mortality than extend life indefinitely.
Is it even still living to have a heartbeat but with motor control, limited or no ability to speak, and no memory? Is “living” in this way best for the next of kin?
I found a recent episode of the Making Sense podcast in this topic to be thought provoking. You might give it a listen.
https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/297...
Heck, I've had something as simple as bad food poisoning where, if it was a terminal symptom, I would have ended it.
I would never want anything other than comfort care for me or my family in that situation but the families religion dictated that we continue.