Assisted Suicide
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/53280042-82/suicide-patients-assisted-oregon.html.csp
Updated Jan 19, 2012 01:01AM
Patty Henetz' "Do Utahns have the right to choose how they die?" (Tribune, Jan. 8) refers to the legalization of assisted suicide in Oregon. Utahns should understand that legalizing assisted suicide can result in decreased patient choice.
I have been a cancer doctor in Oregon for more than 40 years. The combination of assisted-suicide legalization and prioritized medical care based on prognosis has created a danger for my patients on the Oregon Health Plan (Medicaid).
The plan limits medical care and treatment for patients with a 5 percent or less likelihood of surviving five years. Patients in that category who have a good chance of living another three years and who want to live cannot receive surgery, chemotherapy or radiation therapy. However, the plan will cover the patient's suicide.
Oregon law says only patients with no more than six months to live are eligible for voluntary suicide, but the plan nonetheless offers suicide to patients in this category.
The mere presence of legal assisted suicide steers patients toward suicide. One patient was adamant to use the law. I convinced her to be treated. Eleven years later she is thrilled to be alive.
Kenneth Stevens, M.D.
Sherwood, Ore.
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I am a doctor practicing medicine in Oregon and Washington, where physician-assisted suicide is legal. I disagree with Scot Lehigh that these suicides are not like other suicides in which “a healthy person [takes] his life for reasons of despair, depression, or hopelessness’’ (“Death with dignity in Mass.,’’ Op-ed, Sept. 23).
First, doctors can be wrong. So, what looks like a few months to live can be years. For a good article on this subject, see Nina Shapiro’s January 2009 "Terminal Uncertainty" in the Seattle Weekly.
Second, despair, depression, and hopelessness are a part of assisted suicide. A few years ago, a patient of mine who was undergoing cancer treatment with a specialist became depressed, and expressed a wish for assisted suicide.
In most jurisdictions, suicidal ideation is interpreted as a cry for help. In Oregon, the only help my patient got was a lethal prescription intended to kill him. Don’t make our mistake. Keep assisted suicide out of Massachusetts.
Dr. Charles J. Bentz
First, doctors can be wrong. So, what looks like a few months to live can be years. For a good article on this subject, see Nina Shapiro’s January 2009 "Terminal Uncertainty" in the Seattle Weekly.
Second, despair, depression, and hopelessness are a part of assisted suicide. A few years ago, a patient of mine who was undergoing cancer treatment with a specialist became depressed, and expressed a wish for assisted suicide.
In most jurisdictions, suicidal ideation is interpreted as a cry for help. In Oregon, the only help my patient got was a lethal prescription intended to kill him. Don’t make our mistake. Keep assisted suicide out of Massachusetts.
Dr. Charles J. Bentz
Portland, Ore.
The writer is an associate professor of medicine in the division of general medicine and geriatrics at Oregon Health & Science University.