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O Canada, Where Doctors Can Kill Thee
I really have nothing to add to the statement this priest in Canada has made has made:
Those who persist in denying that the Church is engaged in a culture war, the combatants in which are aptly called the “culture of life” and the “culture of death,” might ponder this June blog post by my summer pastor in rural Québec, Father Tim Moyle:
Tonight I am preparing to celebrate a funeral for someone (let’s call him “H” to protect his privacy) who, while suffering from cancer, was admitted to hospital with an unrelated problem, a bladder infection. H’s family had him admitted to the hospital earlier in the week under the assumption that the doctors there would treat the infection and then he would be able to return home. To their shock and horror, they discovered that the attending physician had indeed made the decision NOT to treat the infection. When they demanded that he change his course of (in)action, he refused, stating that it would be better if H died of this infection now rather than let cancer take its course and kill him later. Despite their demands and pleadings, the doctor would not budge from his decision. In fact he deliberately hastened H’s end by ordering large amounts of morphine “to control pain” which resulted in him losing consciousness as his lungs filled up with fluid. In less than 24 hours, H was dead.
Let me tell you a bit about H. He was 63 years old. He leaves behind a wife and two daughters who are both currently working in universities toward their undergraduate degrees. We are not talking here about someone who was advanced in years and rapidly failing due to the exigencies of old age. We are talking about a man who was undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments. We are talking about a man who still held on to hope that perhaps he might defy the odds long enough to see his daughters graduate. Evidently and tragically, in the eyes of the physician tasked with providing the care needed to beat back the infection, that hope was not worth pursuing.
Again, let me make this point abundantly clear: It was the express desire of both the patient and his spouse that the doctor treat the infection. This wish was ignored….
You can click on the link to read the column written by George Weigel and published by Catholic World Report.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
Oh my dear God.
Weigel’s piece is also on First Things.
The culture of death seems to be frantically racing to our Brave New World.
This subject should be on the front page instead of Trump didn’t denounce racism enough times! This is appalling and predictable – and once again being ignored. Obama did a fine job pushing all the socialist buttons, making government the be all and end all and here we are. We have got to wake up.
Annals of Socialized Medicine.
Then I get a link in my newsfeed to this story:
Dementia patient denied her last wish, says spouse http://a.msn.com/01/en-us/AAqnrtV?ocid=se
complaining about keeping alive a woman who wanted to die.
The world seems insane.
Terribly sad. I’ll just say I’m not surprised.
Unacceptable! The doctor should be tried for murder! I know of one G-d and it’s not him. Tragic, horrible.
And horrifying. I hope his family seeks justice.
Good Lord, what is going on in Canada? Have they lost their minds? What person who answered the call to heal the sick would not only allow a fellow human to die needlessly, but apparently speed things up a bit? This is simply outrageous! Let justice be done here, I’m praying for this mans family.
This story makes me sick, it’s so very sad.
If I were Canadian, they probably have let me starve to death instead of doing an esophagogastroduodenoscopy, which dilated the lower third of the esophagus to allow food to travel into my stomach. For 5 days I have been eating up a storm with no problems, no pain, no choking, no upchucking, no problems at all. I will soon be 80 years old an expect to live at least another 20. Or more!
This is why our parking lots around our medical facilities in Kalispell and Whitefish MT are filled with cars with Canadian license plates.
Indeed, on to the next 20, Kay!
Father Moyle’s letter should be read at every Sunday Mass here in the United States, and in Canada. What happened in that hospital is why the Church is still the Church Militant, not the Church Triumphant. The Church Militant has to confront evil, no matter where it comes from, or in which manner it is disguised. Once you surrender the right to life, for yourself and for others, none of the other rights matter.
According to a Canadian I once debated in a Chili’s in San Diego, this is a myth! No one ever travels from Canada to the US for medical treatment!!1!1!! In fact, people travel from America to India for treatment! (Never mind that they’re Indian and it’s dirt cheap, and they were going back for Diwali anyway…)
smh
Indeed – don’t spend any of them in Canada. Depending on your doctor, an infection could be fatal.
I’m a little surprised they diagnosed the cancer. My wife’s uncle and one of her dear friends, who both lived in Ottawa, died from cancer. The doctors found the cancer in her uncle 2 weeks before he died. Her friend, 5 weeks. In both cases, the cancer had metastasized throughout the body, and it was far too late for any sort of treatment.
-Dan
It’s hard to imagine that this would be allowed even in a single payer system. That doctors have no duty to consult the wishes of their patients. If this really happened as described, it seems criminal even under progressive utopia standards.
From what I hear from Buffalo, NY (near Niagara Falls, and about 75 miles west of me) is that there is a fair amount of Canadian traffic to Buffalo medical facilities, but more of it is for diagnosis than for treatment. My sources tell me that the more common failure of the Canadian medical system is the failure to diagnose in a timely manner because the long wait times to obtain an appointment and the lack of diagnostic equipment. See @danok1 comment #16 above.
When your life is simply a line item in the State’s budget, it is forfeit any time you are deemed “too costly”. He who pays the piper calls the tune.
He who pays gets to control the outcome, except when The State just wishes to flex its muscle (see, Gardner, Charlie, b. 2016, d. 2017).
In Canada, indeed.
Someday when I have the time and inclination will take photos of a line of Canadian cars parked in front of our medical facilities. The vast majority of them are in front of the Heart & Lung, Eye Clinic and the Imagine Center.
I understand that, but even so, that decision wouldn’t be up to one doctor. I mean, isn’t there at least a death panel?
What if they had tried to take him out, drive him to another hospital or fly him to US? Would the doctor and hospital have tried to declare the man incompetent and get custody a la Charlie Gard?
I agre with all the comments–this should be THE biggest story of the week, the month.
This is example # 13,564,769,321 about how you should never trust the government with your health.
It doesn’t sound like they had time for that. 24 hours seems awful fast; that must have been one heck of a lot of morphine. Even if it wasn’t enough to kill him outright, if the hospital was deliberately not checking on him after administering the dose then they clearly intended the outcome they got.
Whoever pays has control. Once you have the government pay all the bills, you’ve entirely ceded control.
This story is disheartening, but perhaps what might be more so is I suspect I could share this and find several friends nodding at the the doctor’s decision. It wouldn’t be the first time.
As a resident of the People’s Republic of Canuckistan I can assure you that next to no one is paying attention. As for the Bishops, well, they have committee meetings to attend and committee letters to write where they harumph about Racism and Refugees.
“I’m from the government and I’m here to
help hurtkill you.”Luke 10:29
He asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.
“Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
“But a Samaritan while traveling came near him, and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.
“He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
“The next day he took out two denaril, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him, and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’
“Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”