Booth Gardner's "Angel Of Death" Initiative
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Genene Jones, Maria Gruber, Irene Leidolf, Stephanija Meyer, and Waltraud Wagner, Kristen Gilbert, Vickie Dawn Jackson, Harold Shipman, Orville Lynn Majors, Donald Harvey, Beverley Allitt, Charles Cullen, Christine Malevre, Elfren Saldivar - What do all these people have in common? They are all convicted serial murderers, most of whom are thought to have taken the lives of more human beings than Ted Bundy. All were suspected well before their crimes were even investigated and all their murder sprees went on for multiple years without anything being done to stop them. Most were not even investigated even after being linked to one or more suspicious deaths they were known to have had the means and opportunity to have caused. Many were not even fired although they were widely reputed by their own co-workers to have done these murders in their own workplaces. Some recruited their co-workers to aid and abet their murder and some even recruited co-workers to murder along with them. They are not just serial murderers, but the most murderous of all kinds of serial murderers. The other thing that ties them together? They were all healthcare workers treating the most vulnerable and helpless among us.
But it's not as if Initiative 100 encourages such maniacs to become healthcare workers - at least not deliberately. So let me rename it:
"The Invisible Patient Initiative"
Because for all of these murderers, the fact of incapacitation, a grim or termimal prognosis, "DNR" orders, helplessness or a complaining patient were "green lights" for them to do murder. And a patient who's actually is in the process of choosing "medical" suicide? How much more vulnerable is she? How much more invisible?
And consider that all - ALL - of the serial killers I listed cited "mercy" as one of their many, many attempted excuses for murder. Some of these convicted villains even tried to become exponents for "death with dignity" as their trials came near - with little effect on their sentences, of course.
Journal of Forensic Sciences "Serial Murder by Healthcare Professionals"
ABSTRACT: The prosecution of Charles Cullen, a nurse who killed at least 40 patients over a 16-year period, highlights the need to better understand the phenomenon of serial murder by healthcare professionals. The authors conducted a LexisNexis® search which yielded 90 criminal prosecutions of healthcare providers that met inclusion criteria for serial murder of patients. In addition we reviewed epidemiologic studies, toxicology evidence, and court transcripts, to provide data on healthcare professionals who have been prosecuted between 1970 and 2006. Fifty-four of the 90 have been convicted; 45 for serial murder, four for attempted murder, and five pled guilty to lesser charges. Twenty-four more have been indicted and are either awaiting trial or the outcome has not been published. The other 12 prosecutions had a variety of legal outcomes. Injection was the main method used by healthcare killers followed by suffocation, poisoning, and tampering with equipment. Prosecutions were reported from 20 countries with 40% taking place in the United States. Nursing personnel comprised 86% of the healthcare providers prosecuted; physicians 12%, and 2% were allied health professionals. The number of patient deaths that resulted in a murder conviction is 317 and the number of suspicious patient deaths attributed to the 54 convicted caregivers is 2113. These numbers are disturbing and demand that systemic changes in tracking adverse patient incidents associated with presence of a specific healthcare provider be implemented. Hiring practices must shift away from preventing wrongful discharge or denial of employment lawsuits to protecting patients from employees who kill. And this
In an article for Forensic Nurse, Kelly Pyrek indicates that since the mid-1970s, there have been 36 cases of serial murder among nurses and other healthcare workers in the�U.S. � A survey shows that the incidences appear to be increasing, with 14 during the 1990s and already five since 2000. (The article was written before Cullen's atrocities came to light, so that makes at least six.) Consider that these were outright, mass murderers and yet the evidence of their hideous crimes was invisible through the tangled weeds of hospital red-tape. We're not even talking about poor care or negligent care or medical mistakes. We're talking about deliberate murder. Hospitals didn't catch it for years, in part because of the power relationships within hospitals that attract some of these power-mad lunatics in the first place. It was covered up, shoved under the bureaucratic rug and institutions of healing became places where innocent people died at the hands of psychopaths. Again, all of these murderers chose victims about whom the system cared least and who were the most helpless. And Washington state's latest "healthcare" priority is not cutting bureaucracy, not making information available so we can know what kind of treatment our sick and elderly are getting, not finding a way to finance life-sustaining and health-promoting measures more evenly and more effectively. No, we are now concerned with "death with dignity". The sanctimonious signature-gatherer I met today outside a Seattle QFC was doing very well. One after another self-satisfied person was signing away and everyone was all smiles. In the ten or so years since it has been in effect, Oregon's physician-prescribed suicide law has allowed about 300 people to end their own lives by prescribed fatal overdoses of barbiturates. If you think that's a good thing, I bid you temper your enthusiasm. In that same period about 10,000 people who very probably did not want to die were killed in Oregon by medical mistakes. An unknown number died from lack of medical care. In every year since Oregon's "death with dignity" act has been in place between three and five times as many people have died of heroin overdose each year as have taken their own lives "with dignity" with prescribed barbiturates. And in that time how many have drunk themselves to death? Or overdosed on methamphetamine? Or died of hypothermia sleeping on the streets? Three times as many elderly people in Oregon take their lives by suicide than "with dignity" - making Oregon's elder suicide rate about 50% above the national average. And remember, "death with dignity" by prescribed barbituates is not counted in suicide statistics because it's not really suicide, right? Clearly, these numbers show that ten years ago the LAST public health priority on ANY Oregonian's mind should have been giving physicians the right to prescribe life-ending overdoses of barbiturates - unless, of course, you happened to be an insurance company executive. I'm not a person who believes in preserving a patient's life at any cost. I'm not religious. As a person who has cared for a relative who died mentally and physically incapacitated by Alzheimer's, I know the very difficult decisions that have to be made - balancing an understanding of the patient's wishes, different values among different family members, the limits and necessities of palliative care. As the Oregon case shows, very few dying people choose a formal, medical suicide process. Rather, the onus is on caregivers to gradually choose palliative over life-sustaining measures. This is never an easy process, but it must be one done with respect and responsibility - preserving life but taking responsibility to make that life bearable even if it means making it shorter. But that is very different from simply giving a person a relatively peaceful-looking means of taking her own life. Instead, one has more often than not to look down at an incapacitated person who may have held you in her arms when you were a baby and ask yourself "What is right?" and "If something more needs to be done, can I do it?" But that's life and to pretend that there are simple answers is facetious and disrespectful. What the real health numbers show us, of course, is that we have a mental and physical health system that is failing Americans at a tragic and preventable level. End-of-life issues are hard enough for people who have means and families to support them. I shudder to think what will happen when a "death with dignity", prescribed-suicide law gives the green light to those who would conveniently dispose of the anonymous and indigent - possibly for their own unsavory motives. Because our healthcare system does not wait and help and care and ask questions about suffering and the value of life. Our healthcare system ignores, sedates (at best) and lets die with quite callous disregard for medical care let alone medical ethics. Once a patient even talks about getting a fatal prescription from a doctor, do you think the hospital or nursing home is really going to bother with all that paperwork and all those witnesses and forms? Think again. She'll be sedated "to make her more comfortable", she'll drop to the bottom of the list of people to look in on and care for (she's chosen to die anyway) and she'll just die a relatively short while later. How long? Who cares? As long as she doesn't make too much noise or cost too much money. But now, in this moment, we are on the verge of making a change. We are recognizing our values, ending our self-deception and making the choice to care for each other. We are on the verge of electing a Democrat for President. And now our candidates running for that office are fighting to claim whose healthcare program will care for people best and most universally. And in this moment, after it looks like we just might turn around decades of Democrats' failing to give healthcare to our nation, Christian Sinderman, Blair Butterworth and Booth Gardner are gathering petitions to give Washington state residents the privilege of putting themselves to sleep like dogs.
Booth Gardner's "Angel Of Death" Initiative | 4 comments (4 topical)
Booth Gardner's "Angel Of Death" Initiative | 4 comments (4 topical)
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By Pen (0 comments) Related Links+ Genene Jones+ Maria Gruber, Irene Leidolf, Stephanija Meyer, and Waltraud Wagner + Kristen Gilbert + Vickie Dawn Jackson + Harold Shipman + Orville Lynn Majors + Donald Harvey + Beverley Allitt + Charles Cullen + Christine Malevre + Elfren Saldivar + dlaw's Diary Washblog RSS FeedsPolitical ContactsLocal MediaCoastal/Grays HarborAberdeen Daily World Chinook Observer Montesano Vidette Pacific County Press Willapa Harbor Herald KXRO 1320 AM Olympic Peninsula Peninsula Daily News Bremerton Sun Bremerton Chronicle Gig Harbor Gateway Port Orchard Independent Port Townsend Leader North Kitsap Herald Squim Gazette Central Kitsap Reporter Business Examiner KONP 1450 AM Sound and Islands Anacortes American Bainbridge Review Voice Of Bainbridge San Juan Journal The Islands' Sounder Whidbey NewsTimes South Whidbey Record Stanwood/Camano News Vashon Beachcomber Voice Of Vashon KLKI 1340 AM North Puget Sound Bellingham Herald The Northern Light Everett Herald Skagit Valley Herald Lynden Tribune The Enterprise Snohomish County Tribune Snohomish County Business Journal The Monroe Monitor The Edmonds Beacon KGMI 790 AM KELA 1470 AM KRKO 1380 AM Central Puget Sound King County Journal Issaquah Press Mukilteo Beacon Voice of the Valley Federal Way Mirror Bothell/Kenmore Reporter Kirkland courier Mercer Island Reporter Woodinville Weekly Greater Seattle Seattle PI Seattle Times KOMO TV 4 KIRO TV 7 KING 5 TV KTBW TV 22 KCTS 9 UW Daily The Stranger Seattle Weekly Capitol Hill Times Madison Park Times Seattle Journal of Commerce NW Asian Weekly West Seattle Herald North Seattle Herald-Outlook South Seattle Star Magnolia News Beacon Hill News KIRO 710 AM KOMO AM 1000 KEXP 90.3 FM KUOW 94.9 FM KVI 570 AM South Puget Sound The Columbian Longview Daily News Nisqually Valley News Lewis County News The Reflector Eatonville Dispatch Tacoma News Tribune Tacoma Weekly Puyallup Herald Enumclaw Courier-Herald The Olympian KAOS 89.3 FM KCPQ 13 KOWA FM 106.5 UPN 11 Cascade/Okanogan Ellensburg Daily Record Levenworth Echo Cle Elum Tribune Snoqualmie Valley Record Methow Valley News Lake Chelan Mirror Omak chronicle The Newport Miner Spokane/Palouse The Spokesman-Review KREM 2 TV Spokane KXLY News 4 Spokane KHQ 6 Spokane KSPS Spokane Statesman-Examiner Othello Outlook Cheney Free Press Camas PostRecord The South County sun White Salmon Enterprise Palouse Boomerang Columbia Basin Herald Grand Coulee Star Walla Walla Union-Bulletin Yakima Herald-Republic KIMA 29 Yakima KAPP TV 35 Yakima KYVE Yakima Wenatchee World Tri-City Herald TVEW TV 42 Tri-cities KTNW Richland KEPR 19 Pasco Daily Sun News Prosser Record-Bulletin KTCR 1340 AM KWSU Pullman Moscow-Pullman Daily News |