New York City pays $2M to family of woman who died on floor of city psych ward
Kings County Hospital Center
It was a disgraceful incident that never should happen in a hospital--but it did. In June 2008, 49-year-old Esmin Elizabeth Green died on the floor of the psychiatric ward at Kings County Hospital Center, ignored by staff, after waiting more than 24 hours to be treated.
Now, the city of New York has agreed to pay $2 million to Green's family, with the city's Health and Hospitals Corporation accepting full responsibility for her death. The agreement follows a 2007 suit by the New York Civil Liberties Union, which alleged abuse and neglect of patients at the hospital.
HHC said that since Green's death, it has taken steps to reduce crowding at the unit and increased the size of its mental health staff. The hospital system has started construction of a new Behavioral Health Pavilion, added more than 200 doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers and other mental health workers, and restructured operations to rely less on police to manage patients in crisis.
To learn more about the case:
- read this article from The New York Times
Related Articles:
NY woman dies on floor of public hospital
Daughter of woman who died in NY waiting room sues for $25M
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/new-york-city-pays-2m-family-woman-who-died-floor-city-psych-ward/2009-05-28?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal
Monday, June 22, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
The New Sooners: Rush to Oregon to Die
I know I am a goin soon. I always did like Oregon. Perhaps I will stay there forever, after I am gone that is, you know, 6 feet under. Finally I will have my own piece of land!
The Right-to-Die Debate and the Tenth Anniversary of Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act
October 9, 2007
by David Masci, Senior Research Fellow, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
Ten years ago this month, Oregon enacted a law permitting physicians to prescribe a lethal dose of drugs to certain terminally ill patients, a practice often called physician-assisted suicide. The Death with Dignity Act, which took effect on Oct. 27, 1997, is the only law of its kind in the United States, making it an important and controversial milestone in the nation’s debate over end-of-life treatment.
A number of other countries, including the Netherlands and Belgium, allow physician-assisted suicide. In the U.S., several other states – including Vermont, Michigan and Washington – have considered measures to legalize physician-assisted suicide, but efforts to enact such laws have failed either in the state legislature or at the ballot box. The most recent attempt, in California, stalled in the state assembly earlier this year.
Oregon’s law applies only to patients who are terminally ill and likely to die within six months, a diagnosis that must be confirmed by two physicians. In addition, eligible patients must possess the mental capacity to give informed consent; cannot suffer from depression; and must sign a written declaration, in front of two witnesses, stating that they are mentally competent and acting voluntarily. Finally, while doctors may prescribe the lethal drugs, the dose must be administered by the patient. Between the time the statute was enacted in 1997 and the end of 2006, 292 terminally ill people had availed themselves of the right to end their lives, according to state records.
Related Materials
Question & Answer: A Progressive Argument Against the Legalization of Physician-Assisted Suicide
Event Transcript Oregon's 'Death with Dignity' Law: 10 Years Later
Legal Backgrounder: Supreme Court’s Decision in Gonzales v. Oregon
Forum resource page on end-of-life issues
Opponents of physician-assisted suicide – including some medical groups, such as the American Medical Association; some disability-rights advocates; and some more socially conservative religious groups, such as the Roman Catholic Church, Orthodox Jews and evangelical Protestant denominations – argue that suicide is a tragedy, not a personal choice. Furthermore, they say, the practice will inevitably lead to abuses, such as patients who might be pressured to take their own lives by family members and others who wish to save money or end the burden of caring for someone with a debilitating illness. In addition, opponents say, doctor-assisted suicide devalues human life by sending a message to the broader culture that some people’s lives are worth less than others. Finally, they contend, physician-assisted suicide is at the top of a very slippery slope that could eventually lead to involuntary euthanasia of people who are severely handicapped or infirm.
Supporters of the practice include some more socially liberal Christian and Jewish religious denominations, some civil rights groups and some organizations that advocate on behalf of the rights of patients, particularly the terminally ill. These groups and others argue that “physician aid in dying” – calling the practice “suicide” unfairly imbues it with negative connotations, they contend – is not about forcing or pressuring anyone but rather is about giving people with no hope of recovery the option to end their lives before their physical pain becomes unbearable or before they fully lose control of their mental faculties. In addition, supporters argue, giving people the option to end their suffering does not devalue human life. On the contrary, they say, physician aid in dying promotes human dignity by allowing those in the last stages of potentially painful and debilitating illnesses to end their lives on their own terms.
Public Opinion
Polls show that the country is divided on the issue of physician-assisted suicide, although the numbers differ somewhat based on how the survey questions are worded. For instance, a July 2005 poll conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life asked half the participants about their views on the issue using one question and asked the other half a differently worded question. The survey found that 44 percent of respondents favored making it legal for doctors to “assist terminally ill patients in committing suicide” when the question was worded this way. But support for the practice rose slightly, to 51 percent, when people were asked if they favor making it legal for doctors to “give terminally ill patients the means to end their lives.”
The History of the Debate
The debate over the legal, ethical and political implications of death and dying is not new. But the modernization of health care in the 20th century dramatically changed the character of death and dying, and has cast this old debate in a different light. Beginning a little more than a century ago, people began to routinely die in hospitals rather than at home. More importantly, new technologies, such as the artificial respirator, allowed doctors to prolong life, often for substantial periods of time. At the same time, new drugs, such as morphine, allowed doctors to alleviate pain and to painlessly end patients’ lives.
By the 1950s, a small body of writers and thinkers in the United States and Europe began to argue in favor of allowing patients’ lives to be ended by the patients themselves, in the case of the terminally ill, or by their families and guardians, in the case of those on life support. These arguments gained wider acceptance in the 1960s as the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution and other social movements helped to expand notions of personal freedom.
In the 1970s the end-of-life debate vaulted onto the national stage thanks in large part to the highly publicized 1975 case of Karen Ann Quinlan, a 21-year-old New Jersey woman who had fallen into a coma and was judged to be in a “chronic persistent vegetative state,” unable to survive without the help of an artificial respirator. Efforts by Quinlan’s family to remove her life support were thwarted by her doctor, leading to a lawsuit and a ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court that patients (and by extension their families) have a right to terminate life support.
In 1990, the right-to-die debate reached the U.S. Supreme Court in a case involving Nancy Cruzan, who had been in a persistent vegetative state for five years when her parents asked that her feeding tube be removed. In Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Public Health, the court, in a 5-4 decision, implicitly recognized for the first time a constitutional right to refuse treatment in extraordinary circumstances.
In some ways, Cruzan presaged another high-profile case, that of Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman whose husband and legal guardian fought against her parents to remove the feeding tube that was keeping her alive. Schiavo became a national media story from 2003 to 2005, as those favoring the “right to die” and those favoring the “right to life” battled over her fate in the courts, in the court of public opinion and even in Congress. But throughout the struggle, courts consistently ruled that Schiavo’s husband had the ultimate right to decide what his wife would have wanted, and with all appeals exhausted, she died on March 31, 2005, after her feeding tube was removed.
In the years between the Cruzan and Schiavo cases, a number of states held referenda on legalizing physician-assisted suicide for certain terminally ill patients. Voters rejected such measures in Washington state in 1991 and in California the following year. Although voters in Oregon first approved the Death with Dignity Act in 1994, it did not take effect until 1997, owing to court challenges and a second state referendum that unsuccessfully sought to nullify the act.
In the last decade, many of the high-profile battles over physician-assisted suicide have taken place in the courts. In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled in Washington v. Glucksberg that while the Constitution guarantees the right to refuse medical treatment, it does not give patients the right to assisted suicide. In 2006, the high court, in Gonzales v. Oregon, rejected an effort by the U.S. attorney general to use a federal drug law to prohibit doctors in Oregon from prescribing lethal doses of drugs to terminally ill patients under the Death with Dignity Act.
Supporters of physician-assisted suicide had hoped that the Gonzales v. Oregon decision would give their movement the momentum it needed to encourage other states to adopt laws similar to Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act. But, as the recent defeat of a doctor-assisted suicide bill in California shows, opposition to the practice remains strong, even in a state with a reputation for being at the forefront of new social trends.
Going forward, it is hard to know if and when another state or states will join Oregon. The only thing certain is that the debate over what is and is not an appropriate course of action when it comes to end-of-life decisions will continue for a long time to come.
Go to the Pew Forum's Resource Page on End-of-Life Issues
Email Newsletter
Stay informed with weekly updates from the Pew Forum.
See Newsletter Archive
Top Religion Headlines
June 19, 2009
Southern Baptists to gather in Kentucky
The Associated Press
June 19, 2009
Raising kids in a same-sex union
Newsweek
June 18, 2009
Even at 500, Calvin isn't slowing down
Religion News Service
June 18, 2009
Adnan Yousif wants to build the first truly global Islamic bank
The Economist
June 18, 2009
Church attendance in recessions: No rush for pews
The Economist
Read more Religion News
The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life is one of seven projects that make up the Pew Research Center.
June 19, 2009
Public More Optimistic About the Economy, But Still Reluctant to Spend
June 18, 2009
Obama's High Ratings Hold Despite Some Policy Concerns
June 17, 2009
Cockeyed Optimists or Self-Fulfilling Prophets?
June 17, 2009
Home Broadband Adoption 2009
June 15, 2009
Recession Pounds States' Budgets
Copyright © 2009 The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life 1615 L Street, NW Suite 700 Washington, DC 20036-
http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=251
The Right-to-Die Debate and the Tenth Anniversary of Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act
October 9, 2007
by David Masci, Senior Research Fellow, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
Ten years ago this month, Oregon enacted a law permitting physicians to prescribe a lethal dose of drugs to certain terminally ill patients, a practice often called physician-assisted suicide. The Death with Dignity Act, which took effect on Oct. 27, 1997, is the only law of its kind in the United States, making it an important and controversial milestone in the nation’s debate over end-of-life treatment.
A number of other countries, including the Netherlands and Belgium, allow physician-assisted suicide. In the U.S., several other states – including Vermont, Michigan and Washington – have considered measures to legalize physician-assisted suicide, but efforts to enact such laws have failed either in the state legislature or at the ballot box. The most recent attempt, in California, stalled in the state assembly earlier this year.
Oregon’s law applies only to patients who are terminally ill and likely to die within six months, a diagnosis that must be confirmed by two physicians. In addition, eligible patients must possess the mental capacity to give informed consent; cannot suffer from depression; and must sign a written declaration, in front of two witnesses, stating that they are mentally competent and acting voluntarily. Finally, while doctors may prescribe the lethal drugs, the dose must be administered by the patient. Between the time the statute was enacted in 1997 and the end of 2006, 292 terminally ill people had availed themselves of the right to end their lives, according to state records.
Related Materials
Question & Answer: A Progressive Argument Against the Legalization of Physician-Assisted Suicide
Event Transcript Oregon's 'Death with Dignity' Law: 10 Years Later
Legal Backgrounder: Supreme Court’s Decision in Gonzales v. Oregon
Forum resource page on end-of-life issues
Opponents of physician-assisted suicide – including some medical groups, such as the American Medical Association; some disability-rights advocates; and some more socially conservative religious groups, such as the Roman Catholic Church, Orthodox Jews and evangelical Protestant denominations – argue that suicide is a tragedy, not a personal choice. Furthermore, they say, the practice will inevitably lead to abuses, such as patients who might be pressured to take their own lives by family members and others who wish to save money or end the burden of caring for someone with a debilitating illness. In addition, opponents say, doctor-assisted suicide devalues human life by sending a message to the broader culture that some people’s lives are worth less than others. Finally, they contend, physician-assisted suicide is at the top of a very slippery slope that could eventually lead to involuntary euthanasia of people who are severely handicapped or infirm.
Supporters of the practice include some more socially liberal Christian and Jewish religious denominations, some civil rights groups and some organizations that advocate on behalf of the rights of patients, particularly the terminally ill. These groups and others argue that “physician aid in dying” – calling the practice “suicide” unfairly imbues it with negative connotations, they contend – is not about forcing or pressuring anyone but rather is about giving people with no hope of recovery the option to end their lives before their physical pain becomes unbearable or before they fully lose control of their mental faculties. In addition, supporters argue, giving people the option to end their suffering does not devalue human life. On the contrary, they say, physician aid in dying promotes human dignity by allowing those in the last stages of potentially painful and debilitating illnesses to end their lives on their own terms.
Public Opinion
Polls show that the country is divided on the issue of physician-assisted suicide, although the numbers differ somewhat based on how the survey questions are worded. For instance, a July 2005 poll conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life asked half the participants about their views on the issue using one question and asked the other half a differently worded question. The survey found that 44 percent of respondents favored making it legal for doctors to “assist terminally ill patients in committing suicide” when the question was worded this way. But support for the practice rose slightly, to 51 percent, when people were asked if they favor making it legal for doctors to “give terminally ill patients the means to end their lives.”
The History of the Debate
The debate over the legal, ethical and political implications of death and dying is not new. But the modernization of health care in the 20th century dramatically changed the character of death and dying, and has cast this old debate in a different light. Beginning a little more than a century ago, people began to routinely die in hospitals rather than at home. More importantly, new technologies, such as the artificial respirator, allowed doctors to prolong life, often for substantial periods of time. At the same time, new drugs, such as morphine, allowed doctors to alleviate pain and to painlessly end patients’ lives.
By the 1950s, a small body of writers and thinkers in the United States and Europe began to argue in favor of allowing patients’ lives to be ended by the patients themselves, in the case of the terminally ill, or by their families and guardians, in the case of those on life support. These arguments gained wider acceptance in the 1960s as the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution and other social movements helped to expand notions of personal freedom.
In the 1970s the end-of-life debate vaulted onto the national stage thanks in large part to the highly publicized 1975 case of Karen Ann Quinlan, a 21-year-old New Jersey woman who had fallen into a coma and was judged to be in a “chronic persistent vegetative state,” unable to survive without the help of an artificial respirator. Efforts by Quinlan’s family to remove her life support were thwarted by her doctor, leading to a lawsuit and a ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court that patients (and by extension their families) have a right to terminate life support.
In 1990, the right-to-die debate reached the U.S. Supreme Court in a case involving Nancy Cruzan, who had been in a persistent vegetative state for five years when her parents asked that her feeding tube be removed. In Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Public Health, the court, in a 5-4 decision, implicitly recognized for the first time a constitutional right to refuse treatment in extraordinary circumstances.
In some ways, Cruzan presaged another high-profile case, that of Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman whose husband and legal guardian fought against her parents to remove the feeding tube that was keeping her alive. Schiavo became a national media story from 2003 to 2005, as those favoring the “right to die” and those favoring the “right to life” battled over her fate in the courts, in the court of public opinion and even in Congress. But throughout the struggle, courts consistently ruled that Schiavo’s husband had the ultimate right to decide what his wife would have wanted, and with all appeals exhausted, she died on March 31, 2005, after her feeding tube was removed.
In the years between the Cruzan and Schiavo cases, a number of states held referenda on legalizing physician-assisted suicide for certain terminally ill patients. Voters rejected such measures in Washington state in 1991 and in California the following year. Although voters in Oregon first approved the Death with Dignity Act in 1994, it did not take effect until 1997, owing to court challenges and a second state referendum that unsuccessfully sought to nullify the act.
In the last decade, many of the high-profile battles over physician-assisted suicide have taken place in the courts. In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled in Washington v. Glucksberg that while the Constitution guarantees the right to refuse medical treatment, it does not give patients the right to assisted suicide. In 2006, the high court, in Gonzales v. Oregon, rejected an effort by the U.S. attorney general to use a federal drug law to prohibit doctors in Oregon from prescribing lethal doses of drugs to terminally ill patients under the Death with Dignity Act.
Supporters of physician-assisted suicide had hoped that the Gonzales v. Oregon decision would give their movement the momentum it needed to encourage other states to adopt laws similar to Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act. But, as the recent defeat of a doctor-assisted suicide bill in California shows, opposition to the practice remains strong, even in a state with a reputation for being at the forefront of new social trends.
Going forward, it is hard to know if and when another state or states will join Oregon. The only thing certain is that the debate over what is and is not an appropriate course of action when it comes to end-of-life decisions will continue for a long time to come.
Go to the Pew Forum's Resource Page on End-of-Life Issues
Email Newsletter
Stay informed with weekly updates from the Pew Forum.
See Newsletter Archive
Top Religion Headlines
June 19, 2009
Southern Baptists to gather in Kentucky
The Associated Press
June 19, 2009
Raising kids in a same-sex union
Newsweek
June 18, 2009
Even at 500, Calvin isn't slowing down
Religion News Service
June 18, 2009
Adnan Yousif wants to build the first truly global Islamic bank
The Economist
June 18, 2009
Church attendance in recessions: No rush for pews
The Economist
Read more Religion News
The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life is one of seven projects that make up the Pew Research Center.
June 19, 2009
Public More Optimistic About the Economy, But Still Reluctant to Spend
June 18, 2009
Obama's High Ratings Hold Despite Some Policy Concerns
June 17, 2009
Cockeyed Optimists or Self-Fulfilling Prophets?
June 17, 2009
Home Broadband Adoption 2009
June 15, 2009
Recession Pounds States' Budgets
Copyright © 2009 The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life 1615 L Street, NW Suite 700 Washington, DC 20036-
http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=251
Thinking of You on This 3rd. Fathers Day Since Your Gone
June 20, 2010
Happy Fathers Day Daddy,...but of course silly, I still think of you everyday! And to be honest, I would rather be with you where ever you are, than anyplace here on earth. I AM NOT a happy camper here, and if Id the guts Id join you, Id be there with you today. But not for that and my animals, its the only things keeping me alive. Wouldnt ma be suprized to see me if I did decide to join you after all? She would probably think I had entered voluntairily into the afterlife for the sole purpose of haunting her through eternity, ..... like she is doing me! I miss you both so very much.
Happy Fathers Day Daddy,...but of course silly, I still think of you everyday! And to be honest, I would rather be with you where ever you are, than anyplace here on earth. I AM NOT a happy camper here, and if Id the guts Id join you, Id be there with you today. But not for that and my animals, its the only things keeping me alive. Wouldnt ma be suprized to see me if I did decide to join you after all? She would probably think I had entered voluntairily into the afterlife for the sole purpose of haunting her through eternity, ..... like she is doing me! I miss you both so very much.
Your Favorite Daughter,
Me
(Lol)
Monday, June 15, 2009
Shining a Spotlight on America's Silent Crisis: Elder Abuse
THE HUB: An estimated 5 million seniors in the U.S. are victims of elder abuse each year. To address this crisis, WITNESS and the National Council on Aging are using video to help pass the Elder Justice Act (EJA), holistic legislation that will help ensure citizens age with personal security and dignity. Join us today, World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, to break the silence and pass the EJA.
Click on title above for article w/ videos & to go to The Hub website; - once the link opens, you may have to page way down to see the text.
http://hub.witness.org/ElderJusticeNow
Click on title above for article w/ videos & to go to The Hub website; - once the link opens, you may have to page way down to see the text.
http://hub.witness.org/ElderJusticeNow
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
