"He made the mistake of asking for information about assisted suicide"

http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/mailbag/legalizing-assisted-suicide-allows-physicians-to-pressure-patients/article_5726f258-84fb-11e2-9707-001a4bcf887a.html

Last year, my brother, Wes Olfert, died in Washington state, where assisted suicide is legal.

When he was first admitted to the hospital, he made the mistake of asking for information about assisted suicide. I say a mistake, because this set off a chain of events that interfered with his care and caused him unnecessary stress in what turned out to be the last months of his life.

By asking the question, he was given a “palliative care” consult by a doctor who heavily and continually pressured him to give up on treatment before he was ready to do so. It got so bad that Wes actually became fearful of this doctor and asked me and a friend to not leave him alone with her. Justified or not, Wes was afraid that the doctor would do something to him or have him sign something if she would find him alone.

In fact, even though he was on heavy doses of narcotic pain medications and not in a clear state of mind to sign documents without someone to advocate for him, this palliative care MD actually did try to get him to sign a DNR or “Do Not Resuscitate” form without his Durable POA or any family member present. Fortunately, his close friend/POA arrived at that moment to stop this from happening. Some of the other doctors and staff members seemed to also write Wes off once they learned that he had asked about assisted suicide.

I am writing to urge your readers to prevent assisted suicide in Montana. I do this on behalf of myself and my other brother, Ron Olfert, of Sanders County, who also died last year. He was strongly opposed to assisted suicide.

Please contact your legislators and ask them to vote “yes” on House Bill 505.

Marlene Deakins, RN
Tuscon, Arizona

The "Oregon Experience" Includes Murder-Suicide

Increased Suicide

Oregon’s overall suicide rate, which excludes suicide under Oregon’s physician-assisted suicide act, is 35% above the national average.  Moreover, this rate has been “increasing significantly since 2000.”  See  http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/news/2010news/2010-0909a.pdf  Just three years prior, in 1997, Oregon legalized physician-assisted suicide.  Other suicides have thus increased with legalization of physician-assisted suicide.  This is consistent with a copy cat or suicide contagion phenomenon (normalizing one type of suicide, i.e., physician assisted suicide, encouraged other suicides).

Violent Death

In Oregon, many suicide deaths are violent.  For 2007, “[f]irearms were the dominant mechanism of suicide among men.”  This is according to an Oregon Department of Human Services report issued in September 2010.  See excerpts here:  http://maasdocuments.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/oregon-suicide-info_0011.pdf 

Murder-Suicide

In Oregon, murder-suicides "follow the national pattern."  http://blog.oregonlive.com/health_impact/print.html?entry=/2009/11/recent_murder-suicides_follow.html


The Wife Would Still be a Victim

According to  Donna Cohen, the typical murder-suicide case involves a depressed controlling husband who shoots his ill wife:  “The wife does not want to die and is often shot in her sleep.  If she was awake at the time, there are usually signs that she tried to defend herself.”   See WebMD,  "Murder-Suicides in Elderly Rise: Husbands commit most murder suicides–without wives’ consent," January 30, 2005,  http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=50782

If physician assisted suicide were legal in Montana, the wife, not wanting to die, would still be a victim. 

"Because of my mother's experiences, I no longer believe in "physician-assisted suicide." Support House Bill 505."

Family member's 'accidental' death provides example for opposition to assisted suicide

http://www.ravallirepublic.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_2051b845-5a8d-5cdc-be0e-0b7bfbb5e2bf.html?comment_form=true 

This letter is being written for a right to live.  We taxpayers paid a phenomenal amount of money when others decided it was time for my mother to die.  She would not die!  Three times she defied attempts on her life, costing her bed sores, hospice and her daughter being arrested while helping her (the latter arrest record was dismissed).

Mom succumbed in the hospital on Sept. 6, 2010.  The coroner's report case No. 100906 lists congestive heart failure with oxygen deprivation and fentanyl therapy.  The manner of death: accident.

Fentanyl is reported "to be 80 to 200 times as potent as morphine."  A fentanyl patch of 100 mcg/hour has a range within 24 hours of 1.9-3.8ng/mL. Mom's death result was 2.7 ng/mL on or about 48 hours.

Complaint No. 2012-069-MED was filed with the Montana Department of Labor and Industry Board of Medical Examiners. The screening panel voted to dismiss the complaint with prejudice, which means the board may not consider the complaint in the future.

Because of my mother's experiences, I no longer believe in "physician-assisted suicide."  Support House Bill 505.

Gail Bell,
Bozeman

HB 505 Text

For a print copy, click here 

A BILL FOR AN ACT ENTITLED: "AN ACT CLARIFYING THE OFFENSE OF AIDING OR SOLICITING SUICIDE; CLARIFYING THAT PHYSICIAN-ASSISTED SUICIDE IS A FORM OF AIDING OR SOLICITING SUICIDE; CLARIFYING THAT THE CONSENT OF A VICTIM IS NOT A DEFENSE TO AIDING OR SOLICITING SUICIDE; PROVIDING DEFINITIONS; AMENDING SECTION 45-5-105, MCA; AND PROVIDING AN IMMEDIATE EFFECTIVE DATE AND AN APPLICABILITY DATE."

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MONTANA:

Section 1. Section 45-5-105, MCA, is amended to read:

"45-5-105. Aiding or soliciting suicide. (1) A person who purposely aids or solicits another person to commit suicide, but such suicide does not occur, including physician-assisted suicide, commits the offense of aiding or soliciting suicide.