Nurses overheard saying "I'm just like Jack Kevorkian"

**Ani Ibi** · #1 Mar 30, '05, 12:33 pm

Ron Panzer, President of the pro-life Hospice Patients Alliance (HPA), contends that hospice workers all over the country are routinely killing patients.

"Those who report to HPA tell us they’ve overheard nurses saying things like, `I’m just like Jack Kevorkian, only I do it with morphine.’ And they get away with it week by week because it’s hospice." (LifeNews.com).

Here is the link for the rest of the article:

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/cover032905.htm

mtr01 · #2 Mar 30, '05, 12:49 pm

The world is sick. It desperately needs a physician - a Heavenly Physician.

WhiteDove · #3 Mar 30, '05, 12:52 pm

Catholic teaching states that it's ok to give pain medication to dying patients, even if it hastens death, in order to alleviate their suffering.

springbreeze · #4 Mar 30, '05, 12:54 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by WhiteDove

Catholic teaching states that it's ok to give pain medication to dying patients, even if it hastens death, in order to alleviate their suffering.

Dear Whitedove

This is correct.

My grandma was dying from emphysema/irreverisible lung damage. She had organ failure and effectively was dying, a doctor came in the room and gave her an injection, I asked him what it was, he said it was for the pain, not long afterwards she died.

It was for her pain, it did ease her suffering but it did hasten her death.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

**Ani Ibi** · #5 Mar 30, '05, 12:55 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by WhiteDove

Catholic teaching states that it's ok to give pain medication to dying patients, even if it hastens death, in order to alleviate their suffering.

If Terri were not being starved and dehydrated, would she be dying?

Catholic teaching: Only if death is imminent. Morphine depresses respiration.

WhiteDove · #6 Mar 30, '05, 12:56 pm

Here is an exerpt from a link to a Catholic source on the subject.An ethical question about pain management has concerned the use of pain medication in circumstances which may hasten the patient's death by depressing respiration. Some fear that they are engaging in an act of euthanasia when administering pain medication in such circumstances. However, the Catholic Church has taken the position that medicines capable of alleviating or suppressing pain may be given to a dying person, even if this therapy may indirectly shorten the person's life so long as the intent is not to hasten death. (Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, no. 61).

springbreeze · #7 Mar 30, '05, 12:57 pm

Dearest Ani

No she would not.

My grandma was dying anyway.

Terri would not be dying if they were not starving her to death.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

mtr01 · #8 Mar 30, '05, 12:57 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ani Ibi

If Terri were not being starved and dehydrated, would she be dying?

Catholic teaching: Only if death is imminent. Morphine depresses respiration.

That's what I got out of the article, not that the morphine was used to treat pain (and unfortunately hastened death), but that morphine was being used to actively euthanize the patients.

WhiteDove · #9 Mar 30, '05, 12:59 pm

I'm not talking about Terri, I'm talking about the use of pain medication in a Hospice setting. The initial postt was pointed at Hospice workers all over the country, if you reread it.

Hospice is a wonderful movement to help dying people. Hospice has taken a firm stance against Euthanasia.

**Ani Ibi** · #10 Mar 30, '05, 1:05 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by WhiteDove

I'm not talking about Terri, I'm talking about the use of pain medication in a Hospice setting. The initial postt was pointed at Hospice workers all over the country, if you reread it.

Hospice is a wonderful movement to help dying people. Hospice has taken a firm stance against Euthanasia.

Yes, White Dove. I understand the distinction. I believe the article was pointing to morphine as a cost cutter, as an assembly-line to death for the specific purpose of hastening death.

There is some background to the changes in hospice philosophy. I don't have time to give you the links right now because I have to go to work. My own Mum died in a hospice. The nursing staff was absolutely marvellous (and Catholic). Pain killers were definitely not used to hasten anyone's death there, least of all my Mum's.

If you read the background to the Felos Hemlock Hospice philosophy, however, you will see the moral quandary and frustration these nurses were expressing.

WhiteDove · #11 Mar 30, '05, 1:27 pm

I'm not a Hospice nurse, but I have worked with the dying. We do use morphine liberally and often times cancer patients have built up a high resistance to it (requiring huge doses). I can sympathise with those nurses, because working with the dying is incredibly emotionally taxing, and perhaps they are suffering burn out, and do feel sometimes like they are killing people.

I've been deeply affected by my work with the suffering and dying. I think that the overheard comment is being grossly misinterpreted.

Mom of one · #12 Mar 30, '05, 1:27 pm

I took care of some hospice patients in a nursing home. One of them died shortly after my shift(and I had given her some pain medication shortly before I left) When I found out the next morning that she had died, I burst into tears, asking the hospice nurse if it was my fault. Of course, she said no. Logically, I knew that she needed that pain medicine, but it was horrible anyway. I cannot imagine having the "I'm just like Jack Kevorkian" attitude. It's sick.

Mom of one · #13 Mar 30, '05, 1:31 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by WhiteDove

I'm not a Hospice nurse, but I have worked with the dying. We do use morphine liberally and often times cancer patients have built up a high resistance to it (requiring huge doses). I can sympathise with those nurses, because working with the dying is incredibly emotionally taxing, and perhaps they are suffering burn out, and do feel sometimes like they are killing people.

I've been deeply affected by my work with the suffering and dying. I think that the overheard comment is being grossly misinterpreted.

It is entirely possible, WhiteDove, that the comment was misinterpreted. Sometimes people in the health profession use "black humor"(I think it's called that) to deflect from the emotions that they are feeling. After dealing with death all the time, they must burn out.

WhiteDove · #14 Mar 30, '05, 1:55 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Momofone

It is entirely possible, WhiteDove, that the comment was misinterpreted. Sometimes people in the health profession use "black humor"(I think it's called that) to deflect from the emotions that they are feeling. After dealing with death all the time, they must burn out.

Exactly. Humor is one way we deal with the stresses of our job. It would probably appear irreverant to outsiders if they heard it.

**Ani Ibi** · #15 Mar 30, '05, 3:12 pm

White Dove. I think the comment was not directed toward those nurses (like yourself_ who work with the dying in hospitals and hospices as we are used to knowing hospitals and hospices.

Yes. Morphine does get used liberally in terminal cancer (and other) conditions. I don't have a problem with that and I don't think the journalist has a problem with that.

The comment was made in the larger context of the hospice movement being hijacked for profit to warehouse the vulnerable and disabled so that their organs may be harvested. Before everyone jumps on me. We have already discussed this. Here is the quote:

Some of the same bioethicists who have been telling us how right and moral it is to dehydrate Terri Schiavo have also urged that people like Terri — that is, human non-persons — be harvested or otherwise used as mere instrumentalities. Bioethicist big-wig Tom Beauchamp of Georgetown University has suggested that "because many humans lack properties of personhood or are less than full persons, they…might be aggressively used as human research subjects or sources of organs."

Links:

http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp?ref=/smithw/smith200503290755.asp

http://www.wesleyjsmith.com/

The article is talking about the hijacking of the hospice movement, not the hospice movement as it was originally intended to be. The comment imho reflects the awareness of nurses and their concern that something is not right about certain hospices.

I do not think the article strives to undermine legitimate hospices. Nor do I think the article strives to undermine the legitimate use of morphine. Nor do I think the article strives to undermine nurses who work with the dying.

I think the comment draws our attention to what good, compassionate, professional nurses are now being pressured to do by some hospices which have deviated from the norm of hospice practice. Witness the nurse who blew the whistle on Terri's hospice.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/3/28/05810.shtml

The end result of the slippery slope being eluded to is not the right-to-die but the duty-to-die.

No nurse that I know wants her name to be associated with the likes of Dr Kevorkian. Those unfortunate nurses who have been exposed to questionable hospice practices likely feel that they are expected to collude with those practices. They likely feel besmirched and sullied by those expectations and by association with those practices. I think that is the original of the comment "I'm just like Jack Kevorkian."