Consistently, one of the top reasons patients request assisted suicide is fear of becoming a burden on their family, friends and caregivers (Oregon Health Data). A new study by a pair of Harvard Business School researchers finds that employers underestimate, to their detriment, the struggle their...
Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) are increasingly being legalized and primarily involve patients with cancer. Oncologists who care for persons with advanced, terminal cancer and who practice in jurisdictions where PAS/physician aid in dying (PAS/PAD) is legal now face individual decisions whether to endorse...
An intensive care doctor ordered "significantly excessive and potentially fatal" doses of pain medicine for at least 27 near-death patients in the past few years after families asked that lifesaving measures be stopped, an Ohio hospital system announced after being sued by a family alleging an improper dose of...
Lars Larson speaks with Kristen Hanson, Community Relations Advocate for Patients Rights Action Fund, to share her and her husband’s story to advocate for better end-of-life care for terminal patients. His illness gave them firsthand insights into how assisted suicide endangers those who are most vulnerable. Click here...
The World Medical Association (WMA) was founded in 1947, in part to work for the highest possible standards of ethical behaviour and care among phy- sicians. This was considered particularly important after the gross ethical violations observed, by physicians themselves during the Second World War...
In our broken, profit-driven healthcare system, vulnerable people are at risk of deadly harm when insurers and providers put the bottom line above true patient care. According to Axios, 'Health care executives gave no indication to bankers and investors at this year's J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference...
A Nova Scotia Catholic congregation, thrust into a controversy about the right to die, is confident its policy will endure. The Sisters of St. Martha has an agreement with the Nova Scotia government, forbidding medical assistance in dying, at Saint Martha’s Hospital in Antigonish, N.S. “It is named in...
Palliative care is a type of care provided to patients with serious illness, such as cancer. This care can reduce symptoms, improve quality of life and may make it possible to continue with cancer treatment. The goal is to prevent or treat the symptoms of...
Two Quebecers suffering from incurable degenerative diseases are in court today challenging provincial and federal laws that have left them ineligible for medically assisted death. Jean Truchon and Nicole Gladu don’t qualify to have a physician end their lives because, despite their suffering, they are not at the end...
A year ago, I lost my 36-year-old husband to cancer. In the first few months after his death, I often felt lost without the heroic man I fell in love with 14 years earlier. But in our last few weeks together, I promised J.J. that...
They received the same diagnosis—and chose two very different paths J.J. Hanson—a loving husband, father, and Marine—was diagnosed in spring 2014 with grade 4 Glioblastoma Multiforme, the deadliest form of brain cancer. He was right in the prime of his life. This aggressive cancer was the same...
Hawaii's new medically assisted suicide law has gone into effect, but few doctors and pharmacies are willing to prescribe and dispense the life-ending medications. Hawaii Pacific Health and The Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu said their pharmacies will not fill the prescriptions and hospitalized patients will...
A central question raised by Yager et al1 is whether it is ethical for psychiatrists to be involved in competency assessments in the context of so-called “physician assisted death.” (We endorse, and herein employ, the terminology advocated by the American College of Physicians and the American...
Nova Scotia's only Catholic hospital is at risk of being found in violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and human rights legislation by refusing to provide medical assistance in dying, a Halifax law professor says. St. Martha's Regional Hospital in Antigonish, N.S., is a...
In a recent Wicked Local Lexington commentary (“Medical aid in dying important for some with disabilities,” Sept. 28), Michael Martignetti argues for the legalization of assisted suicide from the perspective of someone with the progressive neurological disability, Friedrichs ataxia. I can relate to the author’s...
by Shane E. Macaulay, MD The American Medical Association, and the entire profession of medicine in the U.S., stand at a crucial ethical crossroads. For two years the AMA has been considering the question of physician-assisted suicide (PAS): shall physician assistance with patient suicide now be considered...
In his 29 years as chief executive officer of Hospice Maui, LaGoy said he has often heard incoming patients talk about wanting to end their lives early because they imagine all the suffering that lies ahead. But he said that two big things usually happen...
New Jersey's attorney general is asking the state's top court to quickly overturn a judge's ruling that barred doctors from prescribing life-ending medication to terminally ill patients. The law, effective Aug. 1, was put on hold last week by a judge in Mercer County. On Friday, the...
At the end of May, disability rights activists went to Albany to voice their opposition to the proposed assisted suicide legislation in New York. Kristen Hanson, Community Relations Advocate at the Patient’s Rights Action Fund, and Stephanie Woodward, Director of Advocacy at the Center for...
“On February 24th, 2019, Carrie Ann Lucas, a beloved and renowned disability rights attorney and trailblazer who innovated representation for parents with disabilities, died after being denied a $2,000 medication for a lung infection by her health insurer, UnitedHealthcare. Lucas was forced into taking a...
A New Jersey judge has put a hold on the state law allowing doctors to prescribe life-ending medications, which went into effect Aug. 1. The temporary restraining order issued Wednesday prevents doctors from writing fatal prescriptions until at least Oct. 23, said Richard W. Grohmann, a...
A state judge in New Jersey issued a temporary restraining order Wednesday blocking the state's right-to-die law from being implemented two weeks after it took effect. The move came after Dr. Yosef Glassman, a Bergen County physician, filed a lawsuit, saying he refused to participate in assisted suicides, including referring...
Sean Tagert may not have chosen assisted suicide if he'd been able to obtain the 24-hour home care he needed in order to be home with his son, which is where he desperately longed to be. This tragic story is another example of how assisted...
As the voluntary assisted dying Bill hit State Parliament last week, a palliative care nurse was ramping up her fight against it. Lou Angus has worked in palliative care for 30 years and believes if people with “life-limiting illness” had adequate access to it then voluntary...
A pro-euthanasia forum in Perth has turned ugly after a young woman tried to direct questions to controversial former doctor Philip Nitschke. Backers of the man dubbed Dr Death, converged on the woman and demanded she leave. "There are young people who have died, people with...
Just like the thoughts that lead people to assisted suicide - this couple faced a daunting healthcare system that marginalized them. This is what happens when we normalize assisted suicide. "A Washington state man allegedly killed himself after killing his wife, and left a note for...
British Columbia’s physician regulator has cleared a doctor of any wrongdoing for sneaking into an Orthodox Jewish nursing home that forbids assisted death and ending the life of a resident who wanted to die in his own bed...