How 'right to die' law is working locally

Now the nursing homes and other “medical providers” of California are trying to get the right to simply declare a patient incompetent so that they can get guardianship and kill a patient at will now that assisted suicide is legal. (SB 481 Pan) The bill intentionally avoids the input of existing state programs that are supposed to protect patients like the Long Term Care Ombudsman or Adult Protective Services. Effectively, the vulnerable like the disabled and elderly will be euthanized as costly objects based on Darwinian mathematics rather than respected as members of our human family. (Remember Hitler went after the disabled first using Darwin’s natural selection as justification for getting rid of the “defective” people in his day.)
No, that won’t happen you say? Think again. This is just one example of many in CA today. In October, 2016, a 93-year-old woman was being deprived of nutrition and hydration in a Northern California hospital. She did not have a terminal illness. She was able to breathe on her own. Neither she nor her family wanted her to be dehydrated to death. Yet the hospital believed it was within its rights to end her life without her consent or the consent of her family simply because she was elderly. Luckily, the daughter contacted a lawyer and got a restraining order to stop the hospital from dehydrating the woman to death. Oh… What would have happened if the hospital got guardianship? Let’s turn to VA now to see how that works.
Presently, a nursing home in VA is trying to starve a disabled woman of 49 to death despite her communicating she wants to live (she was conscious) and despite serious injuries she has suffered at the nursing home. The family disputed with a hospital that refused care to the woman for a blood clot, and the family would not take the woman home insisting that proper care be provided. The hospital went to court, got guardianship and blocked the family from seeing the patient. The hospital then put her in the nursing home under “hospice” and is now trying to dehydrate and starve her to death. (Hospice lowers medical malpractice liability because no matter what injuries occur, the patient was slated to die, but Medicare still pays a ton. It’s a gooooood business.) Also, good way to cover up your patient abuse and malpractice issues as well as opening up more beds for higher paying patients who don’t qualify for Medi-Cal.

If you remember anything from this post, never leave a patient in a facility that is denying him or her proper care. Get him or her out of there as soon as you can while you look for healthcare professionals that actually want to heal people. Research, research and keep researching medical options. Try to get the best insurance you can for you and your family, preferably at least a nationwide plan and international coverage is not a bad idea.

John, seriously: When GOP leaders like Chaffetz and others are running away because of Trump, is this a good time to step in?

As Trump said yesterday:

"I don't stand by anything"