Commentary By Ron Beasley
The United States spends more on health care per capita than any other country in the world yet over ten percent of the population don't have health insurance and as a result limited access to health care. Is it because we are doing too much for people with health insurance or Medicare? Although I think of myself as an atheist at a time of personal challenges a few years ago I attended a New Thought church. One of the beliefs of New Thought is the only Hell is the one man creates on earth. We have many examples of that hell but is the health care system in the US responsible for Hell on earth sometimes?
About eight years ago my 86 year old father passed away. It was my observation the last two years of his life qualified as that Hell on earth. He suffered from arteriosclerosis, emphysema, and diabetes. Over the last couple of years of his life he had multiple surgeries and medical procedures which may have kept him alive but left him a shadow of the man he was. In January of 2002 he had surgery where a an artery was replaced with an artificial one to restore blood flow to his leg. Following that surgery it was necessary form him to take powerful anti clotting drugs which resulted in internal bleeding so weekly blood transfusions were required. He was in constant pain and the quality of his life was near zero. Six months later the artificial artery failed and it was necessary to amputate the leg. His surgeon this time around knew when enough was enough and I agreed that no further attempts should be made to keep him alive. The last few weeks or months of his life would have been in a bed in a nursing home. He had spent enough time in Hell. This Hell on earth cost Medicare several hundred thousand dollars over the last two years of his life.
Last Friday my 82 year old uncle passed away. He too had that Hell on earth experience for the last year and a half of his life. He suffered from arteriosclerosis, emphysema, and cancer. This strong powerful man also became a shadow of himself as the result of surgeries for arteriosclerosis in addition to chemo therapy and radiation treatment for cancer. He was in constant pain and was unable to eat because of nausea. When he finally passed away he was a third of the man he had been. Hell on earth!
About a year ago my otherwise healthy 86 year old mother was short of breath. After a series of tests it was determined she had a bad heart valve.
The cardiologist was ready to crack her chest open and replace the valve. I asked a lot of questions and got the following answers:
1. There was at least a 25% chance she would not survive the surgery
2. She would suffer memory loss as a result of being on a heart-lung machine
3. She would never be as good after the surgery as she was before
4. The surgeon would not recommend the surgery for his own mother
Needless to say we chose not to have the surgery but they were ready to do it because Medicare would pay. That's right, they were ready to perform a six figure surgery that was not even in my mother's best interest and would probably have been the beginning of her personal Hell on earth.
Now Sarah Palin and the Republicans will think of it as pulling the plug on granny but I for one don't want Medicare to pay for me to spend a year or two in hell before I die. Dying is not always the worst thing that can happen to you but pulling the plug could hurt the bottom line of the Medical Industrial Complex.
Cross posted at The Moderate Voice
Good post. I think most families could report similar anecdotal examples of hell on earth prolonged by modern medicine. Denial and ignorance, unfortunately often prevails, oddly enough on the part of healthy younger friends and family members who will not have to bear the suffering themselves.
ReplyDeleteWorking in the senior community environment for the last seven years I have come to the conclusion that as we age most of us readily come to terms with death and dying but we are usually surrounded by others unwilling to accept what happens to all of us at the end: we're gonna die.
My mother was diagnosed with lung cancer at the age of 92 after a medically uneventful life with no significant problems. She took no prescriptions and only an aspirin and a vitamin daily. I could tell the moment the doctor told me her diagnosis that with the slightest signal from me the hospital was poised and ready, like an army in uniform, waiting to charge into battle to fight her disease. Of course I said she would be going on hospice, knowing that medical intervention would only prolong her suffering. It was hard to say if he was relieved or disappointed; he never said anything to indicate one way or the other, which to me showed more professional indifference than humanitarian support.
I might add that until then I thought "hospice" was simply a change of protocol for someone diagnosed terminal. How wrong I was. Hospice (and the fact the Medicare will pay up to $4000 per beneficiary for hospice, in addition to whatever medical "benefits" may also be covered) has spawned a for-profit and not-for-profit business enterprise (see medical-industrial complex above), replete with nurses, counselors, and the usual administrative overlay that goes with running a business. In most communities there are residential hospice facilities that rival expensive hotels with amenities for residents, friends and family members. Those with the right connections and enough assets can go out in relative comfort with that hell on earth reduced to a minimum.
My mother was in an excellent nursing home where she received loving care by a dedicated staff, so that is where she returned to die. The hospice company I picked at random from among five that frequented the facility sent representatives with clipboards and satchels by to check on her, but as far as I could tell contributed little to her already excellent care. But you can bet that Medicare probably got billed whatever the paperwork would allow.