Showing posts with label steerage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label steerage. Show all posts

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Protect your health care; keep assisted suicide out of Montana

http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/mailbag/protect-your-health-care-keep-assisted-suicide-out-of-montana/article_80004bcc-ae06-11e3-99f7-001a4bcf887a.html

I am a doctor in Oregon, where physician assisted suicide is legal. I have been following the ongoing attempt to legalize assisted suicide in Montana.

I was first exposed to this issue in 1982 shortly before my first wife died of cancer. We had just visited her doctor. As we were leaving, he had suggested that she overdose herself on medication. I still remember the look of horror on her face. She said “Ken, he wants me to kill myself.“

In Oregon, 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). Helpful treatments are often not covered. The plan will cover the patient’s suicide. For more detail, please read my affidavit filed on behalf of the Canadian government at http://maasdocuments.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/signed-stevens-aff-9-18-12.pdf 

Our assisted suicide law was passed in 1997. In 2000, one of my patients was adamant she would use our law. I stalled her and ultimately convinced her to be treated instead. Nearly 14 years later she is thrilled to be alive.

Protect your health care, yourselves and your families. I urge you to tell your elected officials to keep assisted suicide out of Montana.

Kenneth Stevens,
Sherwood, Ore.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Legal Assisted Suicide Puts the Government in Your Life

With the legalization of physician-assisted suicide, the Oregon State Government received a new right, which it exercises:   The right to steer citizens to suicide with treatment and/or financial incentives.  Oregon doctor, Ken Stevens, describes this right in detail below.*

In Montana, where physician-assisted suicide is not legal, the government does not have that right.  The law in Montana is, however, in a confused state, which has opened the door to possible legalization.

To prevent that from happening, tell your legislators to vote "Yes" on HB 505! 
_____ 

*  Dr. Stevens states:

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

"Legalizing assisted suicide results in causing non-dying persons to be steered to suicide" - Support HB 505

Dear Members of the Montana State Senate Judiciary Committee,

I am writing in support of HB 505, which would clarify that physician-assisted suicide is not legal in Montana.

I am a doctor in Oregon, one of two states where assisted-suicide is legal. My personal experience in Oregon has shown me that legalizing assisted suicide results in causing non-dying persons to be steered to suicide.

Oregon’s assisted-suicide law applies to patients predicted to have less than six months to live. In 2000, I had a cancer patient named Jeanette Hall. Another doctor had given her a terminal diagnosis of six months to a year to live. This was based on her not being treated for cancer.

At our first meeting, Jeanette told me that she did not want to be treated, and that she wanted to opt for what our law allowed – to kill herself with a lethal dose of barbiturates.  She informed me that she had voted for assisted suicide, and that is what she wanted. 

I did not and do not believe in assisted suicide. I informed her that her cancer was treatable and that her prospects were good. But she told me she didn't want the treatment, she wanted “the pills.” She had made up her mind, but she continued to see me weekly.  On the third or fourth visit, I asked her about her family and learned that she had a son. I asked her how he would feel if she went through with her plan. Shortly after that, she agreed to be treated, and her cancer was cured.

Five years later she saw me in a restaurant and said, “Dr. Stevens, you saved my life!”  She realized that if I had believed in assisted suicide, that she would not have enjoyed her past 5 years.  She is now alive and enjoying life over 12 years since her cancer diagnosis and successful treatment.

For her, the mere presence of legal assisted suicide had steered her to suicide.

I understand that you will be considering HB 505 next week.  I encourage you to be aware of the dangers of assisted suicide, and that you will do your part to keep it out of Montana.  Please vote yes on HB 505.

Sincerely, 


Kenneth Stevens, MD,
Professor Emeritus, Radiation Oncology, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Oregon

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Reject Assisted Suicide

http://www.ravallirepublic.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_27714944-70cb-11e2-a2a3-001a4bcf887a.html?print=true&cid=print

As a physician in Oregon where doctor-assisted suicide is legal, I write to urge your readers to contact their legislators to reject assisted-suicide in Montana.

One of my first requests for assisted-suicide came from a man with multiple sclerosis. He was wheelchair dependent with multiple sclerosis yet lived a very active life. While I was seeing him, I asked him about his disease. He acknowledged it was a major challenge and told me that if he got too much worse, he might want to “just end it.” “It sounds like you are telling me this because you might ultimately want assistance with your own suicide if things got worse,” I said. He nodded affirmatively, and seemed relieved that I seemed to really understand.

I told him that no matter how debilitated he might become, that, at least to me, his life was, and would always be, inherently valuable. As such, I would not recommend, nor could I participate in his assisted-suicide. He simply said, “Thank you.”

Unfortunately, in Oregon, people are often instead told that they are right to want to die – that their lives have no value. I urge you to not let this tragedy be repeated in Montana.

William L. Toffler MD
Portland, Ore.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

“Dr. Stevens, you saved my life!”

http://ravallirepublic.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_34acbde8-3686-11e2-b260-0019bb2963f4.html?cid=print

I am a doctor in Oregon, one of two states where assisted-suicide is legal. This letter responds to your article about the controversy over this practice in Montana. (AP article, Medical Examiners Board, Nov. 16, 2012). I write to clarify that legalizing assisted suicide would allow non-dying persons to be steered to suicide.
 
Oregon’s assisted-suicide law applies to patients predicted to have less than six months to live. In 2000, I had a cancer patient named Jeanette Hall. Another doctor had given her a terminal diagnosis of six months to a year to live. This was based on her not being treated for cancer.

At our first meeting, Jeanette told me that she did not want to be treated, and that she wanted to opt for what our law allowed – to kill herself with a lethal dose of barbiturates.

I did not and do not believe in assisted suicide. I informed her that her cancer was treatable and that her prospects were good. But she wanted “the pills.” She had made up her mind, but she continued to see me.
On the third or fourth visit, I asked her about her family and learned that she had a son. I asked her how he would feel if she went through with her plan. Shortly after that, she agreed to be treated, and her cancer was cured.

Five years later she saw me in a restaurant and said, “Dr. Stevens, you saved my life!”

For her, the mere presence of legal assisted suicide had steered her to suicide.

I understand that assisted suicide will be an issue in your upcoming legislative session. I urge you to encourage your legislators to clarify your law to keep assisted suicide out of Montana.

Kenneth Stevens, MD
Sherwood, Ore.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Oregon Doctor's Letter to Medical Society

I practice internal medicine in Oregon where assisted suicide is legal.  I write to urge you to maintain your policy against physician-assisted suicide and have attached a copy of this letter to this e-mail.  Contrary to marketing rhetoric by suicide advocates, the safeguards do not protect patients.  Please consider my patient’s story below.

I was caring for a 76 year-old man who presented to my office with a sore on his arm, eventually diagnosed as metastatic malignant melanoma.  I referred him to both medical and radiation oncology 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, and as his disease progressed, he was less able to do this, becoming depressed, which was documented in his chart.
My patient expressed a wish for doctor-assisted suicide to the medical oncologist, but rather than take the time to address depression or ask me, as his primary care physician, to talk with him, the specialist called me and asked me to be the "second opinion" for his suicide.  I told her that assisted suicide was not appropriate for this patient, but unfortunately, my concerns were ignored, and two weeks later my depressed patient was dead from an overdose prescribed by this doctor. His death certificate listed the cause of death as melanoma.

"I was afraid to leave my husband alone"

Letter from Oregon resident, Kathryn Judson, Published in the Hawaii Free Press, February 15, 2011.  To view the original letter, click here and scroll down towards the bottom of the page.   

When my husband was seriously ill several years ago, I collapsed in a half-exhausted heap in a chair once I got him into the doctor's office, relieved that we were going to get badly needed help (or so I thought).

To my surprise and horror, during the exam I overheard the doctor giving my husband a sales pitch for assisted suicide. 'Think of what it will spare your wife, we need to think of her' he said, as a clincher.

Now, if the doctor had wanted to say 'I don't see any way I can help you, knowing what I know, and having the skills I have' that would have been one thing. If he'd wanted to opine that certain treatments weren't worth it as far as he could see, that would be one thing. But he was tempting my husband to commit suicide. And that is something different.

I was indignant that the doctor was not only trying to decide what was best for David, but also what was supposedly best for me (without even consulting me, no less).

We got a different doctor, and David lived another five years or so. But after that nightmare in the first doctor's office, and encounters with a 'death with dignity' inclined nurse, I was afraid to leave my husband alone again with doctors and nurses, for fear they'd morph from care providers to enemies, with no one around to stop them.

It's not a good thing, wondering who you can trust in a hospital or clinic. I hope you are spared this in Hawaii.

Kathryn Judson, Oregon

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Quick Facts About Assisted Suicide

By Margaret Dore, Esq.*
For a print version, click here.

1.  Assisted Suicide

Assisted suicide means that someone provides the means and/or information for another person to commit suicide.  When a physician is involved, the practice is physician-assisted suicide.[1]

2. The Oregon and Washington Laws

In Oregon, physician-assisted suicide was legalized in 1997 via a ballot measure.[2]  In Washington State, a similar law was passed via another ballot measure in 2008 and went into effect in 2009.[3]  No such law has made it through the scrutiny of a legislature despite more than 100 attempts.[4]

3.  Patients are Not Necessarily Dying

The Oregon and Washington laws are restricted to patients predicted to have less than six months to live.[5]  Such persons are not necessarily dying.  Doctors can be wrong.[6]  Moreover, treatment can lead to recovery.  Consider Jeanette Hall, who was diagnosed with cancer and given six months to a year to live.[7]  She was adamant that she would "do" Oregon’s law, but her doctor, Ken Stevens, convinced her to be treated instead.[8] She is still alive 12 years later.[9]

4.  A Recipe for Elder Abuse

The Washington and Oregon laws are a recipe for elder abuse. The most obvious reason is due to a lack of oversight when the lethal dose is administered.[10] For example, there are no witnesses required at the death; the death is allowed occur in private.[11] With this situation, the opportunity is created for an heir, or some other person who will benefit from the patient’s death, to administer the lethal dose to the patient without his consent.  Even if he struggled, who would know?

5. Empowering the Healthcare System

In Oregon, patients desiring treatment under the Oregon Health Plan have been offered assisted suicide instead. 

The most well known cases involve Barbara Wagner and Randy Stroup.[12] Each wanted treatment.[13] The Plan denied their requests and steered them to suicide by offering to pay for their suicides.[14] Neither Wagner nor Stroup saw this scenario as a celebration of their "choice." Wagner said: "I'm not ready to die."[15] Stroup said: "This is my life they’re playing with."[16]

Wagner and Stroup were steered to suicide. Moreover, it was the Oregon Health Plan, a government entity, doing the steering.[17]

6. Suicide Contagion

Oregon's suicide rate, which excludes suicides under its physician-assisted suicide law, has been "increasing significantly" since 2000.[18] 

Just three years prior, Oregon legalized physician-assisted suicide. This increased suicide rate is consistent with a suicide contagion. In other words, legalizing one type of suicide encouraged other suicides.  Montana already has one of the highest suicide rates in the nation.[19]

7.  A "Wedge" Issue

In Washington State, where assisted suicide was legalized four years ago, there is already a discussion to expand its law to direct euthanasia for non-terminal people.[20]  Indeed, last March, there was a column describing reader suggestions for euthanasia for people unable to afford care, which would be on an involuntary basis for people who want to live.[21]

* Margaret Dore is an attorney in Washington State where assisted suicide is legal.  She is also President of Choice is an Illusion, a nonprofit corporation opposed to assisted suicide.  For more information, see www.margaretdore.com and www.choiceillusion.org 

[1]  Compare: American Medical Association, Code of Medical Ethics, Opinion 2.211, available at http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-resources/medical-ethics/code-medical-ethics/opinion2211.page
[2]  The Oregon and Washington laws are similar.  For a short article about Washington’s law, see Margaret K. Dore, "'Death with Dignity': What Do We Advise Our Clients?," King County Bar Association, Bar Bulletin, May 2009, available at https://www.kcba.org/newsevents/barbulletin/BView.aspx?Month=05&Year=2009&AID=article5.htm
[3]  Id.
[4]  http://epcdocuments.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/attempts_to_legalize_001.pdf
[5]  See ORS 127.800 s.1.01(12) and RCW 70.245.010(13).
[6]  See e.g., Nina Shapiro, "Terminal Uncertainty: Washington’s new "Death With Dignity" law allows doctors to help people commit suicide—once they’ve determined that the patient has only six months to live. But what if they’re wrong?," 01/14/09, available at http://www.seattleweekly.com/2009-01-14/news/terminal-uncertainty 
[7]  See Jeanette Hall, Letter to the editor, "She pushed for legal right to die, and - thankfully - was rebuffed, Boston Globe, October 4, 2011 ("I am so happy to be alive!), available at http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2011/10/04/she_pushed_for_legal_right_to_die_and___thankfully___was_rebuffed/ Kenneth Stevens MD, Letter to the Editor, "Oregon mistake costs lives," The Advocate, the official publication of the Idaho State Bar, Sept. 2010, (scroll down to last letter at www.margaretdore.com/info/Stevens.pdf ).
[8]  Id.
[9]  Per her telephone call today.
[10]  The Oregon and Washington Acts can be viewed in their entirety here and here.
[11]  Id.
[12]  See Susan Donaldson James, "Death Drugs Cause Uproar in Oregon," ABC News, August 6, 2008, at http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=5517492&page=1; "Letter noting assisted suicide raises questions," KATU TV, July 30, 2008, at http://www.katu.com/news/specialreports/26119539.html ; and Ken Stevens, MD, Letter to Editor, "Oregon mistake costs lives," The Advocate, the official publication of the Idaho State Bar, September 2011, to view, scroll down to bottom of second page here: http://www.margaretdore.com/info/September_Letters.pdf
[13] Id.
[14] Id.
[15] KATU TV at note 12
[16] ABC News at note 12
[17]  See also Affidavit of Ken Stevens MD (Leblanc v. Canada), with attachments, available at http://maasdocuments.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/signed-stevens-aff-9-18-12.pdf 
[18]  See "Suicides in Oregon: Trends and Risk Factors," Oregon Department of Human Services, Public Health Division, September 2010, page 6, ("Deaths relating to the death with Dignity Act (physician-assisted suicides) are not classified as suicides by Oregon law and therefore excluded from this report"), available at http://epcdocuments.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/or_suicide_report_001.pdf
See also Oregon Health Authority, News Release, "Rising suicide rate in Oregon reaches higher than national average," September 9, 2010, ("suicide rates have been increasing significantly since 2000") available at http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/news/2010news/2010-0909a.pdf[19]  Cindy Uken, "State of Dispair: High-Country Crisis, Montana’s suicide rate leads the nation," Billings Gazetter, November 25, 2012, http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/montana-s-suicide-rate-leads-the-nation/article_b7b6f110-3e5c-5425-b7f6-792cc666008d.html?print=true&cid=print
[20]  See Brian Faller, "Perhaps it's time to expand Washington's Death with Dignity Act, The Olympian, November 16, 2011, available at http://www.theolympian.com/2011/11/16/1878667/perhaps-its-time-to-expand-washingtons.html
[21]  See Jerry Large, "Planning for old age at a premium," The Seattle Times, March 8, 2012 at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/text/2017693023.html ("After Monday's column, some readers were unsympathetic, a few suggested that if you couldn't save enough money to see you through your old age, you shouldn't expect society to bail you out. At least a couple mentioned euthanasia as a solution.")

Saturday, December 8, 2012

“Dr. Stevens, you saved my life!”

 
Doctor helped patient with cancer choose life over assisted suicide
 
November 27, 2012 6:15
 
I am a doctor in Oregon, one of two states where assisted suicide is legal. This letter responds to your article about the controversy over this practice in Montana. (AP article re: Medical Examiners Board, Nov. 16). I write to clarify that legalizing assisted suicide would allow non-dying persons to be steered to suicide.

Oregon’s assisted-suicide law applies to patients predicted to have less than six months to live. In 2000, I had a cancer patient named Jeanette Hall. Another doctor had given her a terminal diagnosis of six months to a year to live. This was based on her not being treated for cancer.

At our first meeting, Jeanette told me that she did not want to be treated, and that she wanted to opt for what our law allowed – to kill herself with a lethal dose of barbiturates.

I did not and do not believe in assisted suicide. I informed her that her cancer was treatable and that her prospects were good. But she wanted “the pills.” She had made up her mind, but she continued to see me.

On the third or fourth visit, I asked her about her family and learned that she had a son. I asked her how he would feel if she went through with her plan. Shortly after that, she agreed to be treated, and her cancer was cured.

Five years later she saw me in a restaurant and said, “Dr. Stevens, you saved my life!”

For her, the mere presence of legal assisted suicide had steered her to suicide.

I understand that assisted suicide will be an issue in your upcoming legislative session. I urge you to encourage your legislators to clarify your law to keep assisted suicide out of Montana.

Kenneth Stevens,
Sherwood, Oregon

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Legal assisted suicide Orwellian and discriminatory

http://www.ravallirepublic.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_10cd3eb4-39cb-11e2-b954-0019bb2963f4.html?print=true&cid=print

November 28, 2012
Dear Editor:

I am confused by the ongoing dispute about whether we should legalize assisted suicide in Montana. I am a medical doctor whose patients include incarcerated persons. Law enforcement, jails and prisons are mandated to monitor for signs of depression and suicidal ideation, and to identify, intervene and/or initiate treatment. We are told that our failure to do so would be a significant breach of an inmate's civil rights. Yet according to proponents of assisted suicide, patients also have a right to receive a doctor's assistance with the suicide. This makes no sense.

On the one hand, you have a group of people (prisoners) who suffer from situational depression due to their circumstances. Suicide attempts in this population are not rare. On the other hand, you have a group of people (persons diagnosed with a terminal diagnosis) who suffer from situational depression due to their circumstances. Why is one group entitled to protection and the other is not? Is it because with the second group, you call it "aid in dying" because people are dying anyway? They may not be dying anyway. Doctors diagnoses can be wrong. I have seen patients in my own practice live longer than expected. What about an older inmate? Would he be entitled to protection or a lethal dose? This all strikes me as very Orwellian and also discriminatory to people labeled terminal. I thought freedom from discrimination was a constitutional right.

I have seen suicidal people get better and rebuild lives that looked pretty grim. I do not agree that doctors or anyone else should be steering people to suicide in Montana. I hope that our legislature will clarify once and for all that assisted suicide is not legal in Montana.


Carley C. Robertson, Havre

Friday, September 21, 2012

The Oregon Health Plan Steers Patients to Suicide

On September 21, 2012, the Attorney General of Canada filed an affidavit by Dr. Ken Stevens in the Quebec assisted suicide case, Leblanc v Canada.  Therein, Dr. Stevens describes how the Oregon Health Plan steers patients to suicide.

Please view the text of his affidavit below.  To view a hard copy of his affidavit, click here