I have been anxiously watching the healthcare debate in hopes that both sides will give a little and we can get a compromise between all private and government run health care. This week this issue of "Death Panels" came out of nowhere and seems to be occupying the debate. While I don't believe that anything in this debate where there is SO much money on the line happens by chance, it is at least worth talking about.
Doctors do not like to talk about end of life care. We spend so much time trying to keep people alive with one more procedure or one more test in hopes of finding the magic bullet. It feels like the enemy lurking at the end every hallway.
I saw this week a sad example of waiting too long to have an honest discussion about end of life care. I "met" an elderly man who had long since shed any remaining parts of humanity and had become mostly machine. He was completely unresponsive and was drowning in his own saliva. He had not had a frank discussion with his doctors prior to getting sick about what kind of heroic measures he wanted. I am quite sure that if he had been conscious enough to make a decision he would have begged for the welcome relief from his worn out body.
It is no secret that we spend a ton of money on medical care in the last month of life. The number approaches 40% of every healthcare dollar spent. There are ethical issue here and no one is denying that. I believe, however, if the doctor and the patient would just sit down and have a frank discussion about end of life care, that a lot of wasted pain, suffering and money could be saved.
The patient, not the doctor, will be the one to decide when enough is enough. But the doctor and the patient need to talk more about it.
I can't understand why this is such an explosive issue. If you know anything about healthcare, you know that no one is going to pull the plug on grandma until the pt or the family member are darn well ready.
I hope that this coming week can be filled with a real debate about something actually found in one of the proposed bills. We don't need to make things up to debate about, there is plenty already there.
1 comment:
I had this discussion with Bonnie's oncologist about 10 days before she died. The decision to convert to hospice care was a great relief for him, me, and Bonnie, an acceptance of the reality of the situation and a discontinuance of difficult and ineffective medical procedures. There is a time you begin to want to die, painful as that is for all concerned.
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