EuthaNEWSia (www.euthanewsia.ca)

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Britain: Grandfather dies in agony because hospital ignored DNR [Daily Mail]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285363/Grandfather-dies-agony-hospital-ignored-signed-declaration-stating-didnt-want-revived.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Hospital chiefs have apologised to the family of a terminally-ill grandfather who died in agony after staff tried to keep him alive against his wishes. Arthur Johnson, 64, had signed 'do not resuscitate' forms instructing medics not to revive him if his heart stopped. But after he was rushed to hospital, his relatives were horrified to find a full crash team fighting to keep him alive.

Later in the story: 'When we saw the crash team round him, we were horrified,' said his daughter and carer Tammy Craggs, 27. 'We said he was a DNR patient and a doctor immediately pulled back from the bed.' Now the family are demanding answers from the hospital as to why his wishes were not respected.

Who will make your life-or-death decision? [CNN.com]
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/06/16/living.wills.coleman/
The idea of a "living will" may sound like you have control over what happens to you if you temporarily or permanently can't make medical decisions for yourself, but in practice it's not so clear cut.

Gary Coleman's living will said he wanted to be kept alive unless he was in an irreversible coma for at least 15 days, according to a court document.

But the actor's ex-wife, whom he had designated as his agent to make medical decisions for him, ordered the doctors to disconnect life support one day after he fell into a coma last month, according to the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center. He died of a brain hemorrhage.

advance directives

DNR: Do Not Resuscitate

Taiwan (Republic of China)

Poll: Czechs keep liberal approach to abortion, euthanasia [Prague Daily Monitor]
http://www.praguemonitor.com/2010/06/15/poll-czechs-keep-liberal-approach-abortion-euthanasia
Prague, June 14 (CTK) - A major part of Czechs keep a tolerant approach to abortion and euthanasia, and want capital punishment to be reintroduced, a CVVM agency's poll has shown. Religious faith plays an important role in people's stands on the above issues. Believers more often disapprove of abortion, of euthanasia and of death penalty, the poll showed.

About euthanasia: As far as euthanasia is concerned, people's opinions have not profoundly changed in the past four years. According to 61 percent of Czechs, the national law should make euthanasia possible, while 29 percent are opposed to this. One in ten respondents was unable to take a position on the issue.

USA: Neurologist Fred Plum, expert on comatose patients and advocate for right to die, dies at 86 [The Washington Post]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/17/AR2010061705798.html
Fred Plum, 86, a neurologist who was one of the world's foremost authorities on coma and consciousness and a fierce advocate for patients' right to die, died June 11 at a hospice in Manhattan. He had primary progressive aphasia, a form of dementia. Dr. Plum was the former head of neurology at Weill Cornell Medical College and New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and his research on comatose patients helped build a foundation for their diagnosis and treatment long before technologies emerged that allow doctors to measure brain activity.

In the early 1970s, he helped coin the term "persistent vegetative state" to describe comatose patients who appear to be awake and aware but are in fact unconscious. Such cases have become more common as medical technology has helped critically injured patients survive. They raise difficult moral and legal questions about whether and how long an unresponsive person should be kept alive.

Dr. Plum testified as an expert witness in several important court cases that helped establish precedents for allowing a patient's medical treatment to be discontinued. "He felt very strongly that people should die with dignity and control the end of their lives as much as possible and that lives should not be extended beyond the point where a person could feel his own humanity," said his wife, Susan Butler Plum.

Saskatchewan: Better palliative care can quell euthanasia debate [Western Catholic Reporter]
http://www.wcr.ab.ca/news/2010/0621/palliative062110.shtml
Jeff Christiansen, Executive Director of Regina Palliative Care (a secular health organization) spoke at Holy Trinity Church:

Better provision of palliative care to the dying would go a long way to reduce the calls for legalized euthanasia, says the head of Regina Palliative Care. "It's not so much what stance to take toward euthanasia, but what stance to take in providing people with palliative care," Jeff Christiansen said in a May 19 talk at Holy Trinity Church.

Good palliative care is life-affirming, healing-centred rather than disease-centred care, he said. Good palliative care changes the horizon of the death experience so that the person dying and their family and friends can look around.

Good spiritual care, he noted, enables people to see even beyond the horizon. "The presence of Christ changes the nature of our living and our dying," Christiansen said. "The life and death of Christ changes the horizon of how we see life and death.

Right to die billboard causes a stir in San Francisco [abc7news.com]
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=7502970
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — It's a simple billboard, raising complicated questions. People advocating what they call "the right to die" brought their message to the Bay Area on Wednesday. On Wednesday, a sign went up at the intersection of Howard and Van Ness. The six words on the sign costs $2,500 and it's getting a lot of attention. Some people are going out of their way to read the billboard and many are taking a double take.

It reads: "My life my death my choice."

"I don't like the message, it reminds me of the suicide doctor, why, I don't know. Do we need this? I don't think we need this," says Peter Varga from San Francisco.

The non-profit behind the sign disagrees. The Final Exit Network says the sign will be up for 30 days. Their message is to terminally ill individuals who choose to end their lives rather than die naturally.

San Francisco: Controversial 'Right-To-Die' Billboard Stirs Debate [KTVU.com]
http://www.ktvu.com/news/23927405/detail.html
SAN FRANCISCO — Billboards are designed to catch attention and get people talking, and a new advertisement sponsored by right-to-die advocates that recently popped up in San Francisco is doing just that. The group that posted the billboard said they deliberately chose San Francisco to kick off a national dialogue on the right to die. Workers put up the stark black and yellow billboard Tuesday at the intersection of South Van Ness and 12th streets.

The ad was paid for by New Jersey's Final Exit Network, a nonprofit organization that argues mentally competent people suffering irreversible illness or unrelenting pain should have the right to end their lives. The ad reads My Life My Death My Choice with the web address for FinalExitNetwork.org below. "When we thought of California, we tend to think of San Francisco people as pretty clear thinkers," said Final Exit Network spokesman Frank Kavanaugh in a telephone interview when asked about the reasons behind placing the ad in the Bay Area.

Top 5 Myths about Elder Mistreatment [American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine blog]
http://www.awebsource.com/clients/aahpm/blog/?p=772
Dr. Solomon Liao, Associate Professor UCI School of Medicine, Geriatrics, writes about the Top 5 Myths about Elder Mistreatment. He begins:

I often encounter misconceptions about elder mistreatment. The following are the most frequent misconceptions and my responses to them. Please let me know by your replies if you agree with the following.

Elder Mistreatment cannot or should not occur with good hospice or palliative care. Elder mistreatment occurs even under the best of hospice or palliative care. Hospice and palliative care patients and families have many risk factors for elder mistreatment including caregiver stress, functional and cognitive decline, increased isolation, and increased dependency. The interaction of their decline and pre-existing psychosocial dynamics make these patients high risk for mistreatment. While an interdisciplinary team may reduce or mitigate the risk, the team cannot eliminate the risks in these complex cases.

The responsibility to investigate elder mistreatment belongs to the social worker. The social worker is not equipped on her own to determine elder mistreatment. She does not have sufficient medical background or training. Because elder mistreatment is as much a medical problem as it is a social one, clinicians need to be involved. The team physician should exert leadership in assessing the medical aspects of mistreatment, such as decision making capacity, suspicious physical findings, and medication over-dosing or under-dosing. Addressing elder mistreatment is the responsibility of the entire team.

New Rochelle pharmacist, 78, pleads guilty in shooting death of wife [lohud.com]
http://www.lohud.com/article/20100610/NEWS02/6100432/-1/newsfront/New-Rochelle-pharmacist—78—pleads-guilty-in-shooting-death-of-wife
WHITE PLAINS - A 78-year-old former pharmacist who shot his wife to death in their New Rochelle home last year will serve eight years in prison for his actions. Paul Weinstein pleaded guilty today to a reduced charge of first-degree manslaughter for the Sept. 23 slaying of his wife, Helena.

Weinstein used a World War II-era Walther handgun to shoot his wife as she lay in bed in their 12th-floor apartment at a senior citizen housing complex at 35 Maple Ave. He called 911 to report what had happened and, after a brief standoff with police, surrendered. Weinstein told police in court papers that the shooting was a mercy killing, but later said an argument with his wife - also in her 70s - "set him off" and that he shot her after failing to suffocate her with a pillow.

[Note: "NY Man Charged With Murder In Alleged 'Mercy' Kill" appeared in the Overflow section of the Dec. 12, 2009 EuthaNEWSia].

Age as a Deciding Factor in the Consideration of Futility for a Medical Intervention [Medical Futility Blog]
http://medicalfutility.blogspot.com/2010/06/age-as-deciding-factor-in-consideration.html
In the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, Dr. Cruz-Oliver and colleagues conclude through a survey that internal medicine physicians do not use age as a factor in deciding the futility of a medical intervention. "In patient scenarios with comparable clinical severity of illness, medical interventions were similarly rated as futile in elder and nonelder persons. Less-experienced physicians (residents) were more likely to rate elder cases as futile compared with experienced physicians (attending/fellows)."

Studholme of Not Dead Yet on Horan on Betancourt [Medical Futility Blog]
http://medicalfutility.blogspot.com/2010/06/studholme-on-horan-on-betancourt.html
Studholme observes that, contrary to New Jersey law, "Trinitas wants doctors to be able to pull the plug when, in their sole opinion, their patient has ‘had enough.’" This is not a role that has ever been entrusted to intramural ethics committees in New Jersey. Instead, "Figuring out who should have the power to make these decisions is work our democracy entrusts to our courts."

Connecticut: Court Passes On Assisted Suicide Issue [Connecticut Law Tribune]
http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?ID=37427
Judge Aurigemma disagreed with the plaintiff's argument that state law was vague and didn't apply directly to physicians who want to help their patients die. "The statute in question, Connecticut General Statutes AS: 53a-56, and the commentary to and legislative history of the statute make it quite clear that assisting a suicide, even for humanitarian reasons, is a crime," Aurigemma wrote.

The judge added that the legislature had physicians in mind when it crafted the law and that lawmakers ""intended the term "suicide" to include self-killing by those who are suffering from unbearable terminal illness." To support her ruling, Judge Aurigemma stated that unsuccessful attempts to amend the statute were proof of this. "If such assistance [in dying] were already permitted, there would be no need to amend the statute," she wrote.

Belgium: Nurses and Euthanasia [le blog de Jacqueline Jencquel]
http://www.wmaker.net/jencquel/NURSES-AND-EUTHANASIA-SOME-CONFUSION_a471.html
Dr. Marc Englert, Member of the Commission of Control and Evaluation of the Law on Euthanasia (Belgium), writes to correct the idea that the CMAJ studies suggested that euthanasia was practiced illegally by some nurses in Belgium.

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