An Edmonton woman says her terminally ill best friend, who had ALS and was effectively paralyzed, had to sign his assisted-dying request form in a bus shelter because Covenant Health would not allow him to do so in its facility.
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https://briefnews.eu/paralyzed-terminally-ill-man-had-to-sign-assisted-dying-papers-in-bus-shelter/feed/0Trump is pushing to give terminally ill patients the ‘right to try’ experimental treatments — but it could do more harm than good
https://briefnews.eu/trump-is-pushing-to-give-terminally-ill-patients-the-right-to-try-experimental-treatments-but-it-could-do-more-harm-than-good/
https://briefnews.eu/trump-is-pushing-to-give-terminally-ill-patients-the-right-to-try-experimental-treatments-but-it-could-do-more-harm-than-good/#respondMon, 19 Feb 2018 23:54:31 +0000http://briefnews.eu/trump-is-pushing-to-give-terminally-ill-patients-the-right-to-try-experimental-treatments-but-it-could-do-more-harm-than-good/Getty Images/Christopher Furlong
After a year in which President Donald Trump devoted much of his health policy attention to the repeal and replace of the Affordable Care Act, Trump used part of his recent State of the Union address to press Congress to focus attention in 2018 on a new health priority — the passage of “right to try” legislation.
Right to try legislation gives terminally ill patients the right to use experimental medications that have not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. In 2017, the US Senate unanimously passed HR 878, legislation that would do just that and the president’s address has pressured the US House to follow suit, where a bill is now being debated in committee.See the rest of the story at Business Insider
]]>https://briefnews.eu/trump-is-pushing-to-give-terminally-ill-patients-the-right-to-try-experimental-treatments-but-it-could-do-more-harm-than-good/feed/0Who is best placed to decide the fate of terminally ill British baby Charlie Gard?
https://briefnews.eu/who-is-best-placed-to-decide-the-fate-of-terminally-ill-british-baby-charlie-gard/
https://briefnews.eu/who-is-best-placed-to-decide-the-fate-of-terminally-ill-british-baby-charlie-gard/#respondWed, 12 Jul 2017 09:15:31 +0000http://briefnews.eu/who-is-best-placed-to-decide-the-fate-of-terminally-ill-british-baby-charlie-gard/Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images
The tragic case of Charlie Gard will be reconsidered by the High Court in London on July 13.
Since its first ruling in April, baby Charlie’s plight has attracted international attention, including comments from the Pope and Donald Trump.
The case is significant for its poignancy and its international profile, but its legal significance arises from the dispute between Charlie’s parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, and his medical team.
This dispute includes their opinions on Charlie’s condition and the likely benefits of an experimental medical treatment. Such disagreements are uncommon, but when they arise there are a number of reasons why they need an independent arbiter to resolve the competing issues.
Charlie suffers from a rare and debilitating illness called encephalomyopathic mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome. As a result of his condition, Charlie has already suffered irreversible brain damage. His parents wish to take him to the US for an experimental treatment, called nucleoside therapy. But both courts and the doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital have so far concluded that it would be “futile”.
Charlie’s parents have the legal capacity to consent to the treatment or to the withdrawal of treatment on behalf of their child and some would argue that the parents’ view should prevail. But as Lord Justice McFarlane stated in the Court of Appeal:
It is well-recognised that parents in the appalling position that these and other parents can find themselves may lose their objectivity and be willing to ‘try anything’, even if, when viewed objectively, their preferred option is not in a child’s best interests.
Equally parents and patients should not be left without the ability to review the expert decisions of medical professionals. In this sense all power requires checks and balances even that wielded by those with nothing but the best of motives. The question then becomes who is best placed to resolve these competing but equally well-intentioned viewpoints?
Carl Court/Getty Images
Who decides and why?
As justice secretary, David Lidington, recently said, the government has “no role to play” in the resolution of this case. Rather the UK’s constitutional arrangements, government policy and the law all require that the courts are used to resolve such disputes. No one is above the law and the rule of law itself means that medical decisions are reviewable in the courts.
Importantly, when doing so, the courts are not asked to find in favour of either the parents or the medical team. Nor are they asked to consider what they would do as a parent or doctor. While they will consider evidence from both parties, the sole issue for the court is to identify what is in the best interests of the patient.
This process ensures that medical opinion is rigorously tested and, where appropriate, it provides legitimacy to the difficult decisions that doctors are called on to make about life and death.
For a liberal democracy it is crucial that all evidence is heard in a public forum that is independent and impartial, subject to an appeals process, and which regards the best interests of the patient as the paramount consideration.
The next hearing
So far the courts have concluded that it would not be in Charlie’s best interests to undergo the experimental treatment and that it would be in Charlie’s best interests, and therefore lawful, for his life support to be withdrawn. Before the court could change this view, additional evidence would need to be produced that undermined its earlier conclusion that the proposed treatment would be futile. The purpose of the July 13 hearing is to explore whether such evidence exists.
While the case has been emotionally fraught, evidentially it has been relatively straightforward as all the UK medical experts, including an independent consultant paediatric neurologist instructed by the parents, have agreed that the experimental treatment would have no benefit. Even the US doctor offering to treat Charlie agreed that the treatment had not been tested on Charlie’s exact condition. Mr Justice Francis summarised his evidence as follows:
While there was reason to be hopeful that the treatment might make a modest difference to life expectancy, it almost certainly could not undo the structural brain damage that had taken place.
If fresh evidence is now produced that supports the treatment and that evidence is disputed by the hospital doctors, the judge will have a much harder judgment to make. However, in a society that recognises the fundamental importance of the individual citizen and their human rights, it is a task that properly falls to the courts and no other.
]]>https://briefnews.eu/who-is-best-placed-to-decide-the-fate-of-terminally-ill-british-baby-charlie-gard/feed/0111 terminally ill people ended their own lives during first 6 months of California’s right-to-die program
https://briefnews.eu/111-terminally-ill-people-ended-their-own-lives-during-first-6-months-of-californias-right-to-die-program/
https://briefnews.eu/111-terminally-ill-people-ended-their-own-lives-during-first-6-months-of-californias-right-to-die-program/#respondThu, 29 Jun 2017 03:57:01 +0000http://briefnews.eu/111-terminally-ill-people-ended-their-own-lives-during-first-6-months-of-californias-right-to-die-program/Gerald Herbert/AP Images
SAN DIEGO (AP) — California health officials reported Tuesday that 111 terminally ill people took drugs to end their lives in the first six months after a 2016 law made the option legal in the nation’s most populous state.
The data was part of the California Department of Public Health’s first report on the law since it went into effect June 9, 2016.
According to the data generated from forms doctors were required to submit between June 9 and Dec. 31, 2016, a total of 191 people received life-ending drugs after being diagnosed with having less than six months to live and 111 people took them and died.
Another 21 individuals died before taking the drugs. The outcomes of 59 others who received the prescriptions were not reported by their doctors within the six-month period, according to the report.
Of those who died, 87 percent were 60 years old or older, most were white, college educated, receiving hospice or palliative care and had health insurance, either provided by the state or private carriers. The median age was 73, and the majority had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, according to the report. A total of 173 doctors reported prescribing life-ending drugs for their patients.
How the new law is used in trend-setting California could provide a window to what would happen if the practice spreads across the U.S. Doctor-assisted deaths are also legal in Colorado, Montana, Vermont, Washington state and Washington D.C.
Christopher Furlong/Getty ImagesCalifornia officials said caution should be exercised in trying to draw conclusions from the report that is based on only six months of data.
The law passed in California after 29-year-old Brittany Maynard, who was dying from brain cancer, had to move to Oregon in 2014 so she could end her life.
Christian Burkin, spokesman for California Assemblymember Susan Talamantes Eggman, who helped write the law, said while the data is limited, the numbers showing who took the drugs and also how many requested the prescriptions but did not take the drugs indicate the End of Life Option Act is being implemented as Eggman and the other authors of the law intended.
“Basically it mirrors the experience in Oregon,” Burkin said.
Oregon, which has one-tenth the population of California, was the first state to adopt such a law in 1997. It reported 204 people received life-ending prescriptions last year, and of those, 133 people died from ingesting the drugs, including 19 recipients from prior years. Most were older than 65 and had cancer.
Of those who died, 87 percent were 60 years old or older, most were white, college educated, receiving hospice or palliative care and had health insurance, either provided by the state or private carriers. The median age was 73, and the majority had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, according to the report. A total of 173 doctors reported prescribing life-ending drugs for their patients.
How the new law is used in trend-setting California could provide a window to what would happen if the practice spreads across the U.S. Doctor-assisted deaths are also legal in Colorado, Montana, Vermont, Washington state and Washington D.C.
California officials said caution should be exercised in trying to draw conclusions from the report that is based on only six months of data.
The law passed in California after 29-year-old Brittany Maynard, who was dying from brain cancer, had to move to Oregon in 2014 so she could end her life.
Christian Burkin, spokesman for California Assemblymember Susan Talamantes Eggman, who helped write the law, said while the data is limited, the numbers showing who took the drugs and also how many requested the prescriptions but did not take the drugs indicate the End of Life Option Act is being implemented as Eggman and the other authors of the law intended.
“Basically it mirrors the experience in Oregon,” Burkin said.
Oregon, which has one-tenth the population of California, was the first state to adopt such a law in 1997. It reported 204 people received life-ending prescriptions last year, and of those, 133 people died from ingesting the drugs, including 19 recipients from prior years. Most were older than 65 and had cancer.
]]>https://briefnews.eu/111-terminally-ill-people-ended-their-own-lives-during-first-6-months-of-californias-right-to-die-program/feed/0Terminally ill man arrested over plan to kill 3 California doctors
https://briefnews.eu/terminally-ill-man-arrested-over-plan-to-kill-3-california-doctors/
https://briefnews.eu/terminally-ill-man-arrested-over-plan-to-kill-3-california-doctors/#respondWed, 07 Jun 2017 20:34:23 +0000http://briefnews.eu/terminally-ill-man-arrested-over-plan-to-kill-3-california-doctors/
A terminally ill cancer patient, angry that San Francisco Bay Area doctors allegedly treated him like a “laboratory monkey,” has been arrested for planning to kill three of them.
Police said Yue Chen, 58, was armed with two handguns with high capacity magazines, a white rubber mask, and Google maps of directions to the three doctors’ homes who treated him, reported the Mercury News.
Chen, who is suffering from stage 4 cancer, also planned to kill himself, according to a suicide note found by Palo Alto police. The note, “Why do I kill,” lists reasons, including revenge, and to serve as a reminder that “this is possible if you treat people like an animal.”
During the course of his revenge mission, Chen got lost and was alleged to have turned back home when he was arrested by police on Highway 101 in San Jose.
The police report said Yue told officers he had called his wife and told her he was scared. She cried and said, “Come back, come back, don’t kill yourself.”
The man’s family reported Chen missing on May 31 and responding officers found evidence of the plot at his Visalia home. They then alerted the doctors and Bay Area officials.
California Highway Patrol tracked Chen’s location by pinging his cell phone, according to the police report.
The names of the hospitals were redacted in the police report, but prosecutors said one of the doctors worked at the UCSF Medical Center. Another UCSF physician and at least one Stanford Health Care doctor were also targeted, the report said.
After his arrest, Chen told detectives he believes he was being used for research purposes. He shared with them several complaints regarding his medical treatment, beginning in 2008, including his belief that doctors were “damaging his spine so they can use him to train new students.”
“They only hurt me,” Chen reportedly told detectives, reported AP. “They hurt me both hospitals. They really screw my life, or the doctors lie to me. Hospitals, they all cover for each other.”
Chen was charged in Santa Clara County with three felony counts of premeditated attempted murder.
]]>https://briefnews.eu/terminally-ill-man-arrested-over-plan-to-kill-3-california-doctors/feed/0Bannon friend likens him to ‘terminally ill family member who had been moved into hospice care’
https://briefnews.eu/bannon-friend-likens-him-to-terminally-ill-family-member-who-had-been-moved-into-hospice-care/
https://briefnews.eu/bannon-friend-likens-him-to-terminally-ill-family-member-who-had-been-moved-into-hospice-care/#respondThu, 13 Apr 2017 15:40:55 +0000http://briefnews.eu/bannon-friend-likens-him-to-terminally-ill-family-member-who-had-been-moved-into-hospice-care/Thomson Reuters
In more evidence of White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s waning influence, an unnamed friend has compared him in a Washington Post report to “a terminally ill family member who had been moved into hospice care.”
The Post reported that Bannon is struggling to hold onto his job, and President Donald Trump himself has been publicly distancing himself from Bannon this week.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Wednesday, Trump seemed to dismiss Bannon, an aide and campaign confidante he has known for at least five years, describing him simply as “a guy who works for me.” And he told told the New York Post on Tuesday that he is “his own strategist” and that Bannon was not involved in his campaign “until very late.”
The Washington Post talked to 21 Trump aides on Wednesday and came away with a picture of a chief strategist who’s struggling to build good will in the White House. The newspaper also noted that Trump has been moderating some of his views, moving away from Bannon’s populist views.
The new report is the latest in a string of stories suggesting that Bannon has fallen out of favor with President Donald Trump, who is apparently unhappy with the narrative that Bannon is a puppet master who’s calling the shots in the White House. The New York Times reported that Trump told one person that Bannon is “not a team player.”
Bannon has also reportedly drawn the ire of Jared Kushner, a senior adviser to Trump and husband of his daughter Ivanka. Several reports recently have detailed the brewing conflict, with The Daily Beast reporting that fighting between the two had been nonstop for weeks and that they often clash face-to-face.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer called reports of the feud “overblown,” but the Post reported that Trump scolded staffers over the weekend over the infighting.
Still, The Times cited an unnamed source familiar with the dynamics inside the White House as saying any immediate changes to Trump’s staff are unlikely. And Bannon has reportedly told people that he thinks things have cooled off with Kushner.
]]>https://briefnews.eu/bannon-friend-likens-him-to-terminally-ill-family-member-who-had-been-moved-into-hospice-care/feed/0Bond of devotion: Man, 31, moves terminally ill neighbour, 89, into home
https://briefnews.eu/bond-of-devotion-man-31-moves-terminally-ill-neighbour-89-into-home/
https://briefnews.eu/bond-of-devotion-man-31-moves-terminally-ill-neighbour-89-into-home/#respondFri, 17 Feb 2017 02:18:59 +0000http://briefnews.eu/bond-of-devotion-man-31-moves-terminally-ill-neighbour-89-into-home/
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Chris Salvatore and Norma Cook
It with smiles and a few simple words of greeting. They grew closer over intimate dinners and champagne. Before long they were inseparable, and moved in together. “I love her,” said Chris Salvatore of Norma Cook. “She’s my best friend. I would do anything for her.”
Yet this loving couple inevitably drew strange glances for Chris was 31 while Norma was 89 and dying of leukaemia, which on Wednesday claimed her life. A heartbroken Chris confessed: “Norma reminded me that we are all created to love and all desire to be loved.”
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Yet this unlikely May-December romance is not what you might think. Chris was no gold-digger cosying up to a wealthy older woman for her fortune. Norma had no money saved and no family to care for her yet she was rich in personality and found her soulmate in Chris, who is rich in heart.
Theirs was a platonic friendship and when cancer threatened to put her into a nursing home in her final days, Chris took her into his home to provide the 24-hour nursing care she needed. “I believe that human kindness is a magical thing and can heal what doctors can’t,” he says.
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The close friends enjoying a meal out
Their loving friendship, untroubled by their 58-year age difference, touched America. “This year Norma helped the world see the true meaning of Valentine’s Day,” says Chris.
I’d rather die than go to a facility
Norma Cook
“To love one another is not about living struggle-free or never experiencing hurt or loss but to fully and deeply open our hearts to one another without fear.
“Age is just a number. It’s not something to hold you back from connecting with someone. You never know who could become your dearest friend.”
Yet they made an unlikely couple. Chris is a strapping, lean and muscular blue-eyed 6ft hunk with a neatly trimmed dark brown beard and a tattooed right bicep, while Norma was a petite, frail, bespectacled divorcée with long white hair pulled back off her weathered face.
They met four years ago when Chris, an aspiring actor and singer, moved into the apartment opposite retired interior decorator Norma in a complex in West Hollywood, California.
He was captivated by the friendly senior citizen who always waved to him from her kitchen window when he left his apartment. “One day I said, ‘Can I come in and chat?’ because she just seemed so sweet,” says Chris. “She offered me a glass of champagne and it was like this immediate friendship.
“I was going through a break-up at the time, I was depressed and I would sit and talk to her for hours. Just knowing she was there and listening to me made me feel better. She was able to help me through some dark times.”
Norma had lost many friends during the Aids epidemic and Chris admits: “Being gay, that bonded us right away.” Said Norma: “He’s the grandson I never had. He’s a really wonderful guy. He cooks for me. If he can’t make it as an actor, he can make it as a chef.”
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Chris took her into his home to provide the 24-hour nursing care she needed
They talked about food and fashion over dinner and drinks and were soon spending hours hanging out in each other’s homes each day. Chris learned that she was battling leukaemia, struggling to make ends meet and had sold her car.
Norma’s monthly social security payment barely covered her medical costs so Chris helped her cook meals, drove her to the bank and to doctor appointments, did her shopping and took her to vote in November’s elections when she wore a Hillary Clinton-supporting T-shirt to the polls. They went to Mexican restaurants and sipped margaritas. Norma, who divorced at the age of 43 and never had any children, was diagnosed with leukaemia 10 years ago. She was still working until her health began to deteriorate last year but she was struggling to survive on her own. “She was in and out of hospital six times last year,” says Chris. After her last hospital stay over the new year, doctors told her she could not go home without 24-hour care. “I couldn’t let her go to a facility or nursing home. She was like, ‘I’d rather die than go to a facility.’”
Wed, January 11, 2017
It might be a dog eat dog world but – as these pictures prove – best friends come in all shapes and sizes.These fluffy, feathered and furry friends are making no secret of the fact that theyre perfect pals even though their choice of chum might seem questionable at first glance.
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Pitbull loves guinea pigs
When doctors gave her only months to live Norma gave Chris the power of attorney and he became her primary care-giver, moving Norma and her cat Hermes into his home.
He fed, cleaned and dressed her, pushed her wheelchair and kept her spirits buoyant. When Norma decided against further treatments for her cancer, Chris said: “Now it’s my job to make her feel comfortable and at peace and not lonely.”
Faced with crippling medical costs, Chris turned to social media, inviting complete strangers to donate toward Norma’s care. Within days he had raised more than £60,000.
Yet as Norma’s health deteriorated she could barely stand and required a breathing machine. Doctors and nurses visited Chris’s home frequently to check on Norma. “It’s really challenging,” said Chris. “It becomes hard to disassociate the emotional bond you have with someone as you’re seeing them die in front of your eyes.”
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He was captivated by the friendly senior citizen who always waved to him from her kitchen window
wise-cracking “firecracker” who stayed happy despite her illness, said Chris in her final days. “She’s aware of death, she talks about it, she’s OK with it,” he said. “We’re trying to spend as much time together as we can.” Though heartbroken by Norma’s death Chris is thankful for their time together. “I’m so lucky to have had her as a friend,” he says.
“She’s changed my life, she’s made me a kinder, more compassionate person. I feel honoured to spend her last moments with her.
“Norma told me, ‘I don’t want you to be the one to find me dead.’ It broke my heart because I knew I would be the one to find her. I was trying to stay strong for her and I told her it’ll be OK but it’s tough.”
Chris sat for hours at Norma’s bedside chatting, watching movies and cruising the internet on his laptop. “We mostly talk, drink champagne and eat peanuts,” she said. They hosted a Christmas party together, sent friends a joint Christmas card and greeted the new year together. Two weeks ago he took her to see the ocean for the first time in months and they lunched at The Ivy.
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‘I’m so lucky to have had her as a friend’ said Chris
Chris recognised the was helping more than just Norma. “I want others to be inspired to be more kind to strangers and neighbours you may see who may seem different than you,” he said. “Norma taught me that kindness heals.
“I’m so lucky to have had her as a friend. While she may no longer physically be with us her spirit will continue to fill the hearts of so many people. Norma’s lasting legacy is that her story helped the world see the true meaning of love. I thought I’d been in love before, but she opened my heart to a deeper love. Some people thought our relationship was odd or unconventional, but she brought so much joy into my life.” Holding back tears he said: “I think she wanted to see Valentine’s Day with me. The next day she was gone.”
In a final love letter to Norma, Chris wrote on Instagram: “Each of us is lovable even with all of our differences. Love has no boundaries. May you rest in peace, my sweet, sweet lady Norma.”