2nd International Symposium on Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide -- May 29-30, 2009

Nitschke Launches 'Flawless' Euthanasia Device

700 Italian Doctors ask that Eluana’s Life be Spared

Health Care Providers in Washington State Refuse to Perform Assisted Suicide

"Take the Pledge" Campaign Calls for Loyalty to Patient Health rather than Assisted Suicide

NEW!  Abuse of Elderly With Dementia by Family Caregivers Common, Survey Suggests

NEW!  Former Swiss Suicide Clinic Worker: 'Dignitas is Profit-Seeking Killing Machine'...

SECOND INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON EUTHANASIA AND ASSISTED SUICIDE ON MAY 29-30, 2009. The theme for the Second International Symposium on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide is: Never Again.

The Symposium will focus on building an effective, unified and focused group of organizations and individuals to stop the forward movement of the death lobby in North America and throughout the world.
 
The Symposium will be May 29 - 30, 2009 at the National Conference Center in Landsdown in Landsdowne Virginia near the Washington DC - Dulles Airport. http://www.conferencecenter.com/gallery/index.cfm.

The Co-Sponsors of the Symposium are: Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, Physicians for Compassionate Care - USA, Care Not Killing Alliance - UK, Not Dead Yet - USA, No Less Human - UK, Vermont Alliance for Ethical Health Care - USA, Compassionate Health Care Network - Canada, Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation - USA, ALERT - UK, Institute for the Study of Disability and Bioethics - USA.

There is a limit of 400 total registrants. Early registration can be done by contacting the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition at: [23Dec08 (LifeSiteNews.com]


PHILIP NITSCHKE LAUNCHES 'FLAWLESS' EUTHANASIA DEVICE
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,27574,24816520-2682,00.html

700 Italian Doctors ask that Eluana’s Life be Spared: Killing helpless disabled persons violates Helsinki Agreement.  An open letter by doctors, circulated before Christmas, asking that Eluana Englaro be spared death by dehydration has grown from 44 to over 700 signatures. The letter says that physicians have a “professional and scientific duty” to provide hydration and nutrition to a patient who is not capable of feeding himself.

The case of Eluana Englaro, the young woman in a state of diminished consciousness whose father has campaigned in the courts to have her food and hydration removed, continues to make headlines in Italy. In November, the Court of Cassation, Italy’s highest appeals court in Rome ruled that Eluana could be dehydrated to death.

The open letter, however, states that if the decree of the Court of Cassation allowing the killing of Eluana is applied that will be an attack against the “basic rules of good medical practice as established in the declaration of Helsinki.”

Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, carried comments today from Luigi Tesio, a signatory of the letter and professor of physical therapy at the university of Milan, underlining that the duty of the medical doctor is to “take care of handicapped patients and not to let them die.”

This week, Dr. Paolo Gulisano, president of the Centre of Assistance to Life of Lecco, the northern town where Eluana Englaro is being cared for, together with Militia Christi and other local pro-life groups, is organising a demonstration this coming Saturday. At the same time, the Italian Radical party announced counter demonstrations in Lecco this weekend in favour of the killing of Eluana.

While the Court of Cassation decision stands, the legal situation surrounding Eluana remains complex.

Shortly after the decision was handed down, the Misericordine (Mercy) sisters, who have been caring for Eluana in their nursing home, announced in a public letter that they would refuse to participate in her killing. Last month, Beppino Englaro, Eluana’s father and legal guardian, announced that the family had located another clinic that was willing to cooperate in her death by dehydration, but at that time, the Italian Minister of Labour, Health and Social Policies said it is illegal to kill disabled people by withdrawing food and hydration. The director of the second clinic said in a statement that his facility would not receive her until all legal arguments had been settled.

This month, two activists have launched a legal challenge to the appeals court in Milan arguing that the decision to allow her killing had been made without sufficient medical examination to determine Eluana’s condition.

For the moment, Eluana remains in the care of the Misericordine sisters in her home town of Lecco.

Related coverage:
Eluana Englaro to Die by Dehydration after Italian High Court Ruling
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/nov/08111405.html
[13Jan09, Rome, Hilary White, www.LifeSiteNews.com]

Health Care Providers in Washington State Refuse to Perform Assisted Suicide. Eastern Washington’s largest hospital system, Providence Health Care, has said assisted suicide will not be permitted in its hospitals:
 “Providence will not support physician-assisted suicide within its ministries. This position is grounded in our basic values of respect for the sacredness of life, compassionate care of dying and vulnerable persons, and respect for the integrity of medical, nursing, and allied health professions. We do not believe health care providers should ever be put in a position of aiding a patient in taking his or her own life.”

The statement follows the deeply controversial passage of the ballot measure, I-1000, which on November 4th legalized assisted suicide in Washington State.

Author and bioethicist Wesley Smith commented on Providence’s resolve: “This is important. Medical professionals must resist turning killing … into a medical treatment.”

“None can be forced (yet) to participate,” he says, adding, “Of course, eventually the ideologues will try and force people to participate or be complicit in the killing.”

He says, however, that Providence’s example is vital because it “may save lives of people” who, because of the decisions “of non participating medical professionals, will never ask for assisted suicide.”

There is some concern among Washington physicians that they will be forced to participate in assisted suicides, but the Washington State Medical Association (WSMA) has so far said they will not. 

I-1000, which allows physicians to prescribe lethal doses of barbiturates to patients they think have less than six months to live, was also resisted by numerous physicians. The Washington State Medical Association was emphatically against the statute.

In a press release in July, the WSMA’s president Brian Wicks said, "We believe physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the role of physicians as healers…Patients put their trust in physicians and that bond of trust would be irrevocably harmed by the provisions of this dangerous initiative."

"Initiative-1000 gives doctors power which we do not want and which we believe is contrary to good medical practice," he continued.

"The initiative is a dangerous distraction from symptom-directed end-of-life care that provides comfort for dying patients and their families. Our focus should remain on caring for terminally ill patients and should never shift toward helping them kill themselves."
[7Nov08, By Jonquil Frankham, Washington State, LifeSiteNews.com]
WASHINGTON DOCTORS, HOSPITALS REFUSE TO TAKE PART IN NEW ASSISTED SUICIDE LAW
Olympia, WA (LifeNews.com) -- Voters in Washington may have made their state the second in the nation to legalize assisted suicide but that doesn't mean patients who want their physician's help in killing themselves will be able to get it.

Doctors and hospitals are already speaking up saying they will refuse assisted suicide requests. Though voters approved I-1000 on Tuesday, the Washington State Medical Association says doctors have no obligation to participate in killing patients.

Meanwhile, Providence Health and Services, the largest medical system in eastern Washington, states it will prohibit doctors from killing patients at its medical centers, nursing homes and other facilities. "Providence will not support physician-assisted suicide within its ministries," it said in a statement published in the Spokesman Review newspaper.

"This position is grounded in our basic values of respect for the sacredness of life, compassionate care of dying and vulnerable persons, and respect for the integrity of medical, nursing and allied health professions. We do not believe health care providers should ever be put in a position of aiding a patient in taking his or her own life," the statement continued. [8Nov08, www.LifeNews.com, #4466]

"Take the Pledge" Campaign Calls for Loyalty to Patient Health rather than Assisted Suicide. Anti-euthanasia groups in Canada and Oregon are calling physicians, caregivers, and concerned citizens across the world to "Take the Pledge" to pursue genuine care for even the most dependent patients, and never to consent to assisted suicide.

Take-the-pledge.com, created by The Physicians for Compassionate Care in Oregon and the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, provides links to several anti-assisted suicide groups and invites caregivers and other visitors to make a pledge that reaffirms the duty to “do no harm.”
Rather than providing assisted suicide, by signing the pledge the signer affirms, “Whenever I help provide care for a terminally-ill patient, I will provide optimal comfort care until natural death.”

“I will support my friend's or family member's wishes not to prolong the dying process with futile treatment,” the pledge continues. However, “I will never give a deadly drug to anyone even if asked, nor will I suggest suicide.”
The pledge concludes, “I will always affirm and guard these ethical principles with integrity, recognizing that every human life is inherently valuable.”
 
The campaign will be providing a professionally produced pledge that can be displayed and will send up-to-date information on a voluntary basis to medical care-givers to keep them informed.

Assisted suicide was legalized in Montana last week through a court ruling, joining Oregon and Washington. 
To take the pledge: http://www.take-the-pledge.com
[16Dec 08, Kathleen Gilbert, LifeSiteNews.com]

Abuse of Elderly With Dementia by Family Caregivers Common, Survey Suggests. About one-third of family caregivers admit to abusive behavior toward their family member with dementia, mainly verbal abuse, a new survey suggests.

Although levels of physical or frequent abuse were low, those with the most abusive behavior might have been afraid to report it in this voluntary survey, the researchers say.

"I think this sends a message to family carers who are having these problems that they're not alone and sends a message to professionals that this is something that really warrants asking about routinely," first author Claudia Cooper, MD, from the department of mental health sciences at University College London, in the United Kingdom, told Medscape Neurology & Neurosurgery.

"There is this feeling that elder abuse is something that is severe and rare, and outside of a few serious cases, it doesn't happen," she added. "We've shown that's not true, and so we hope that would encourage professionals to ask about this."


Their report is published online January 22 in BMJ.


Common Problem

Elder abuse has been put forward as a priority for both the British and American governments, but most of the action in the United Kingdom at least has focused on the reduction of abuse toward vulnerable elders by paid caregivers, the authors write. The inference is that caring family members would not act abusively when there is a family relationship with the person with dementia.

However, the current work by Dr. Cooper and colleagues on this problem stemmed from conversations they had with family caregivers in their own psychiatric practices, she said. "When you actually started to ask routinely, a lot of carers had had these experiences and wanted to talk about them. We began to feel that maybe this was something doctors needed to be asking routinely about, but we didn't have the evidence."

To determine the prevalence of abusive behavior among family caregivers, they carried out a cross-sectional survey of 220 family members of people with dementia living at home who had been newly referred to secondary psychiatric services.

They used an instrument that had been developed for family caregivers of frail elderly by Scott Beach, PhD, from the University of Georgia, in Athens, and colleagues. The survey was administered by 3 trained psychiatrists; caregivers were asked about abusive behaviors ranging from shouting and swearing or threatening the patients with institutionalization, to hitting, slapping, or withholding food. They could respond on a sliding scale ranging from "never" to "sometimes," "most of the time," or "all of the time." The threshold for abuse was defined as those behaviors reported "sometimes."

They found that 115 caregivers, over half, reported some abusive behavior (52%; 95% CI, 46% – 59%), and 74, one-third of caregivers, reported important levels of abuse (34%; 95% CI, 27% – 40%). Abuse was mostly verbal; only 3 caregivers (1.4%) admitted to occasional physical abuse.

Reluctant to Report?

However, some may have been reluctant to report abuse, they note; the consent sheet specified that the researchers would respect confidentiality, "but we cannot keep it a secret if anyone is being seriously harmed."

"It was predominantly verbal abuse that they were admitting to, but I think it's nonetheless important in that it's an important sign of people who need more help," Dr. Cooper pointed out.

"We suggest that any policy for safeguarding vulnerable adults must consider strategies directed toward families who provide the majority of care for older people, rather than exclusively formal caregivers," the authors conclude. "Considering elder abuse as a spectrum of behavior rather than an 'all-or-nothing' phenomenon could help professionals to feel more able to ask about it and therefore offer appropriate help."

Beyond just asking about this as part of good dementia care, Dr. Cooper added, "it's about what you do when you find it." A simple example may be the recommendation for more respite care, she said.

However, there are currently few evidence-based interventions to reduce abuse, she added. "The problem is we don't know enough about how to prevent abuse, and this is going to be our next area of study."


The study was funded by a research training grant to Dr. Cooper from the Medical Research Council. The researchers report no competing interests.

[BMJ. Published online January 22, Susan Jeffrey, Medscape Medical News 2009, January 27, 2009; http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/587445]

Former Swiss Suicide Clinic Worker: Dignitas is Profit-Seeking Killing Machine

A former worker for a Dignitas suicide clinic in Switzerland is speaking out and was so horrified by what she saw that she is now sharing her story with European media. Soraya Wernli was a "companion" worker, someone holding the hand of patients who would take their lives at the Swiss clinic.

When Wernli went to work for Dignitas founder Ludwig Minelli she though she would be handling paperwork and helping patients in a supposedly compassionate environment.

The experience was far different and much worse.

"But then, just a few days into the job, he asked me to sort through the stuff in these plastic bin liners clogging the stairs," she told the London Daily Mail.

The contents of the bag included the former possessions of the deceased -- everything from phones and purses to shoes, jewelry and glasses.

"I realized these were possessions which had been left behind by the dead. They had never been returned to family members. Minelli made his patients sign forms saying the possessions were now the property of Dignitas and then sold everything on to pawn and second-hand shops," she told the newspaper.

"I felt disgusted. You see these old photos of people in Nazi death camps sorting through the possessions of those who had been gassed. Well, right then and there, that is how I felt," Wernli added.

Wernli spent two and a half years working at the suicide clinic and she said nothing in her training as a nurse prepared her for the experience.

She told the newspaper she began to see the suicide clinic not as the compassionate place for ending lives but as a money-making killing machine taking advantage of the disabled and terminally ill.

She explained how Minelli would rush people through the death process by giving them the deadly drugs just hours after arriving from the airport.

"This is the biggest step anyone will ever take. They should at least be allowed to stay overnight, to think about what they are doing. But Minelli would have none of it," she told the Daily Mail. "He once said to me that if he had his way, he would have vending machines where people could buy barbiturates to end their lives as easily as if they were buying a soft drink or a bar of chocolate."

"The room where people were to die was often filthy, because Minelli skimped on the cleaning bills. Often there would be shoes or underwear or some other deeply personal item of an earlier victim lying beneath the bed or around the room. It was shameful," she added.

"And Minelli has the cheek to call his practice Dignitas, when dignity is the last thing afforded to these poor people," the former nurse said.

Since leaving the clinic in 2005 she has dedicated her time to trying to expose the abuses there and put it out of business.

Wernli is working on a book recounting her experience called The Business With The Deadly Cocktails and promises to expose Dignitas further.

She told the British newspaper that about 1,000 people have killed themselves with the help of Dignitas and that the abuses are so rampant that local officials need to investigate.

"Minelli is book-keeper, secretary general-chief accountant and gatekeeper of the organization. Nothing gets audited," she said. "It is time the Swiss authorities" get involved.

[27Jan09, Ertelt, http://www.lifenews.com/bio2714.html, Zurich, Switzerland]