Category: medical news

Celestial Discharge: Ms. Lorraine Bayless, Trailed by Media Mayhem.

~ Pharmer ~ 2 Comments

Prayers for the peaceful repose of Ms. Lorraine Bayless, and prayers for her family, which, by all appearances, is being victimized by a bumbling news media and generally uninformed public.

Prior to her natural death, following a collapse in the dining hall of the Glenwood Gardens Extended Care Facility, the 87 year old Ms. Bayless was residing  in the independent living section of the facility.  Her condition precipitated a call to 911, by an  unnamed nurse.  The 911 dispatcher, in a much publicized call, begged the nurse to administer CPR.  When the nurse refused,  the dispatcher begged her to find someone else who would.

The daughter of Ms. Bayless, also a nurse,  has stated that she is satisfied with the care given to her mother at Glenwood Gardens.

What has precipitated the media storm,  foaming at the mouth, and gnashing of teeth by so many uninformed people, is a statement by KGET television of Bakersfield, California, that the elderly lady had not signed a DNR form.

Interestingly, over in the UK, the Daily Mail says just the opposite, that the women had indeed signed the DNR form.  Most who are commenting  at that  source are wondering what  is causing the big fuss in the U.S..   In their minds, the Glenwood nurse was fulfilling the lady’s wishes.

The two opposing claims are juxtaposed below.

NO DNR:
DNR KGET Lorraine Bayless

YES DNR:
DNR Daily Mail Lorraine Bayless

 

Your friendly Pharmer would like to add that not all elderly people want to be bagged and thumped when they are in the process of leaving this world.   Many truly do opt out of it, as they have accumulated too many health ailments, or fear doing so.  Some realize that the success rate of CPR is not all that terrific, and the outcome for an elderly person very seldom involves springing back to the prior state of health. CPR is also generally painful after the fact, due to cracked ribs, and many other possible injuries.

None of us know the circumstances of Ms. Bayless, nor do we know her final wishes, since reports are conflicting regarding her paperwork.   She need not have used a form to convey how she wished to go, and might have made her intentions known by other means.

Please avoid the temptation to ascribe this event to Obamacare (which is much worse than being allowed to die a natural death in old age).   Please also withhold judgment on the nurse who stayed with Ms. Bayless as the emergency care was summoned.  It would also be good to avoid  assumptions about the daughter of this lady, about whom we know little, other than that she does not intend to rain down legal punishments upon Glenwood Gardens extended care facility.

Having attended a good number of code blue events,  Pharmer quite understands the choice of people to opt out of CPR, and expects to make this choice for herself long before the age of 80.  Many health care professionals actually  feel guilty when they have to perform it on an elderly person who has not expressed their wishes on the matter.

 Update from newsok.com: “City fire officials say Bayless did not have a “do not resuscitate” order on file at the home. Her family said, however, “it was our beloved mother and grandmother’s wish to die naturally and without any kind of life-prolonging intervention.””

Click here for a statement from the family of Lorraine Bayless, and please don’t hound them!  If the first link does not work, try THIS.

Celestial Discharge: C. Everett Koop, former Surgeon General

~ Pharmer ~ 1 Comment

The most memorable of our surgeon generals, C. Everett Koop was celestially discharged at the age of 96, on Feb 25th.Koop with patient

Koop was well known, and disliked by leftists for his adherence to Hippocratic standards of medical ethics. A devout Christian,  he was known for praying at the bedside of his patients.  Pro-lifers saw him as a man of conviction, driven by empathy for the sick and suffering.

It remains a mystery to most of the ‘journalosts’  that a man who opposed homosexual activity would be a staunch advocate for HIV research.  Most of the media, when recounting the accomplishments of Dr. Koop, have been remarking on this as though it is somehow contradictory.   The rest of us see no contradiction or anomaly.  Helping the sick is the natural thing to do, regardless of how they acquired the illness.

Dr. Koop began his medical career as a pediatric surgeon, and by 1959 had become professor of Pediatric Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania medical school, and professor of Pediatrics in 1971.  In his 90s, he remained a professor of Surgery at the Geisel School of Medicine. He was founder and Editor in Chief of the Journal of Pediatric surgery.    Koop’s 8 year tenure as U.S, Surgeon General was at the behest of President Ronald Reagan, and up until the time of his death, he remained famous throughout the country for his  service.

Author of hundreds of articles and books on medical practice and policy, Dr. Koop remained a prominent figure in medicine decades after most practitioners retire. He remains recognized for his pioneering work in the area of pediatric surgery.  His first wife, Elizabeth Flanagan passed away in 2007, and in 2010, Dr. Koop married Cora Hogue.  She and three of his children, Allen, Norman and Elizabeth Thompson, as well as seven grandchildren and six great grandchildren remain with us. Prayers for the good physician and his family to be covered with God’s grace.

Pharmer takes this opportunity to pay respect to all of the  surgeons who pray with their patients as Dr. Koop did.  A surgeon who knows he’s not God inspires confidence.  🙂

Killing as an Essential Part of Health Care – the New Utopian Standard

~ Pharmer ~ 1 Comment

From the Quebec “Dying with Dignity” Euthanasia Commission comes the following recommendation for providing physician assisted death.

By definition, medical aid in dying could only be provided by a physician. Under their codes of ethics, physicians and nurses are entitled to conscientious objection, meaning they can refuse to perform an act that goes against their values. Of course, physicians and nurses will retain this right where medical aid in dying is concerned. However, a doctor who refuses to provide medical aid in dying for reasons of conscience will have the duty to help his patient find another who is prepared to do so, as quickly as possible

via Quebec Doctors Forced Into Killing Patients in Assisted Suicide? | LifeNews.com.

Personal ethics notwithstanding, every  physician will have  to refer for killing, as a requisite function of medical practice in Quebec, if the above recommendation goes through.   Canada has little to no conscience protection for health care professionals who think that  killing is wrong.

There is 100% chance that the same will be expected of all U.S. physicians once Obamacare matures into its utopian form.

Most states already require pharmacists to refer patients to receive abortive drugs, if they choose not to dispense them.  Physicians are expected  to make the option of abortion known to a woman if her baby has an unfavorable prenatal diagnosis.   They fear legal liability if they do not.

These are the reasons that those who think that killing humans is wrong will need to avoid working in many of the  health care professions in the near future.

Why You Should Not Trust Statistics Coming From Abortionists

~ Pharmer ~ 1 Comment

It appears that abortions of babies diagnose with cleft lip/palate, are 10 times as common as the UK health department reports.

The British Department of Health gets its figures on the abortion of babies with congenital anomalies from forms that abortionists fill out at the time of the procedure.

Eurocat  (agency which monitors congenital abnormalies in 23 countries) tracks a foetus from the time that he or she has been identified with an abnormality, with the initial data coming from those who make the diagnosis.  The fate of the fetus is then connected with this data.

While the UK Dept of Health recorded 14 abortions due to cleft palate in that country from 2006-2010,  Eurocat logged 147 such events in the UK.

During the same period, Eurocat also caught 250 babies  aborted in the UK for club foot.  The UK dept of health stopped recording this figure as a separate category after 2002, when they only recorded 2 cases.

The Eurocat number of abortions for Down syndrome in 2010 was 886, compared to the Dept of Health number, 482.

Abortionists are said to avoid filling out the reason for abortions on the forms either to spare the mother’s feelings or to avoid backlash from controversy over eugenic killings.

The UK Telegraph has some PAST related articles:
Twenty-six babies aborted for cleft lips or palates
Government secrecy on cleft palate abortions
Baby that survived abortion rejected for ‘cleft lip’

Study Suggests India Was Right to Utilize Television for Birth Control

~ Pharmer

The power of TV: watching 20 hours a week halves sperm count, according to new study – Health News – Health & Families – The Independent.

Another sperm study is associating inactivity, obesity and particularly watching television more than 20 hours per week with markedly reduced sperm counts.

A Study of 189 healthy, young  men, appearing in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, tracked them for three months, observing diet, activities and sperm quality.   It found that men who watched the most television showed a 43%  reduction in sperm count, under those who watched the least.

Subjects who were the most active (more than 15 hrs of exercise per week) showed 73% increase in sperm count over those who were the least active.

Men who were active, but watched the most TV, also showed reduced counts.

The original rationale behind the Plan in India to give out televisions as birth control devices,  was that people would be too distracted and tired from staying up all night watching the tube.   The above study adds another mechanism by which television watching can lower the baby making.

 

Lawyer for Catholic Health Intitiatives Tosses out Church Directives in Lawsuit Defense.

~ Pharmer ~ 2 Comments

In malpractice case, Catholic hospital argues fetuses aren’t people | The Colorado Independent.

This legal maneuver doesn’t  enhance the public image of Catholic Health Initiatives, and you can bet that Obama’s vultures are circling.  It appears from reports that Lori Stodghill lost her life at Thomas More Hospital in Canon City due to a pulmonary embolism which led to a massive heart attack.  Her two unborn babies also died, and  the current lawsuit argues that this need not have happened.  Dr. Pelham Staples, the  hospital’s obstetrician on call did not answer his pager, for reasons unspecified in the reports.

The surprise inside this case is the lawyer, proffering a defense that the babies are not legal persons, and therefore are not protected by Colorado malpractice statutes.  Lawyer Jason Langley argued that the court “should not overturn the long-standing rule in Colorado that the term ‘person,’ as is used in the Wrongful Death Act, encompasses only individuals born alive. Colorado state courts define ‘person’ under the Act to include only those born alive. Therefore Plaintiffs cannot maintain wrongful death claims based on two unborn fetuses.”

This kind of defense is not a good idea for Catholic Health Initiatives for a number of ethical reasons.   It could also cost their member institutions  more in philanthropic contributions than the cost of losing the Stodghill lawsuit.

It also undermines any Catholic objections to the HHS mandate.  Obama’s team must be laughing themselves silly to see such a bad maneuver by this significant group of  ideological opponents.

Is this battle worth losing the war?

 

 

Glaucoma is Cause for Euthanasia in Belgium

~ Pharmer

Euthanasia twins ‘had nothing to live for’ – Telegraph.

Marc and Eddy Verbessem, two identical twins, opted for euthanasia at age 45.  The pair had been born deaf  and lived together throughout their lives, working as cobblers.  They communicated with each other and with their other family members via a unique sign language.  After being told that they had  glaucoma, and would go blind,  the two were driven to despair, thinking that they would not be able to see each other anymore, and would need to be institutionalized.

The Verbessem twins, of Putte, a village outside of Brussels were refused euthanasia by their local hospital.  They did not fit the criterion of unbearable pain, which is the usual standard applied to allow this form of killing.   Their request was accepted by Professor Wim Distelmans, and was carried out at Brussels University Hospital in Jette.

Remy Verbessem, the twins’ older brother said that the two had suffered other medical conditions,  and that Eddy had a deformed spine, and had undergone heart surgery.  The twins feared that they would become blind from the  glaucoma.  Apparently the socialized medicine system of Belgium offers no adequate  treatments for glaucoma. 

Belgium is considering a new law which will allow euthanasia of children and Alzheimer’s patients.   The organs of those who are euthanized in Belgium are harvested for use in transplants.

Mass Murderers in the Wings: The Mental Health Problem

~ Pharmer

Lisa Long writes in the Blue Review, predicting that her own son, a kid with serious behavioral problems, could become the next mass murderer.  She sequesters all the sharp objects, and has a rapid escape routine for the rest of her kids to keep them safe from her increasingly violent 13 year old son.  Take the time to read her description of life with a violent and  mentally ill child, for whom adequate treatment and resources do not exist.

 

St. Petersburg man who had kittens in his freezer roommates with suspects in double shooting, authorities say – Tampa Bay Times

~ Pharmer ~ 1 Comment

St. Petersburg man who had kittens in his freezer roommates with suspects in double shooting, authorities say – Tampa Bay Times.

Pinellas Co Deputies answered a call to to the Vagabond Mobile Home Park, where they found kittens in the freezer of one  Rodney Blanchard.  Eva Mulder was visiting Blanchard, and when he asked her to get a brew from the freezer, she found the kittens instead.  He would not let her remove them, and instead kicked her out.   She then called the police, who found four flea ridden kittens, each wrapped in a sandwich bag.   The males were still alive, but the female had stopped breathing.  The SPCA took custody of the kittens and an adult cat from Blanchard’s trailer.  He is jailed for animal cruelty and misdemeanor battery.

Chilled Babies at Christ Hospital, Oaklawn Illinois.

From the testimony of Jill Stanek RN to the U.S. Congress

“Last year alone, of the 16 babies that Christ Hospital states were aborted, I am aware of four who were born alive. Each of these babies – two boys and two girls – lived between 1-1/2 and 3 hours. At Christ Hospital one of these babies once lived for almost an entire eight-hour shift. At least two of the second-trimester babies who were aborted last year at Christ Hospital were completely healthy.”

“When I testified before you last July, another nurse who worked at Christ Hospital, Allison Baker, also testified. Allison was not asked back today due to the new limit on the number of witnesses allowed. But last year Allison described walking into the Soiled Utility Room on two separate occasions to find live aborted babies left naked on a scale and the metal counter. She told about the patient that she herself had who didn’t know that her baby might be aborted alive and who did not then want to hold him. After he was taken to the Soiled Utility Room she kept asking, “Is he dead yet? Is he dead yet?” (This testimony is being entered today into the Congressional Record.)”

“Lest you think that Christ Hospital’s live birth abortion practice is uncommon, I am entering into Congressional Record today literature from a March 30, 2001, symposium sponsored by Waukesha Memorial Hospital in Wisconsin that was “reviewed and is acceptable” by the American Academy of Family Physicians, wherein Dr. Washington Hill writes that a “complication” of a mid-trimester labor induction is a “live birth.” The American College of Obstetricians and gynecologists also gave credit hours to physicians for taking this course.”

“After I testified last year, Christ Hospital stopped putting aborted babies to die in the Soiled Utility Room. This past December it unveiled its “Comfort Room.” This is a small, nicely decorated room complete with a First Foto machine in case parents want pictures of their aborted babies, baptismal supplies if parents would like their aborted babies baptized, and a foot printer and baby bracelets if parents would like keepsakes of their aborted babies. There is also a wooden rocker to rock these babies to death. (Pictures entered into Congressional Record.)” -7-12-2001

The practice of allowing premature babies to die of exposure, cold, and neglect was vigorously defended by then State Senator Barack Hussein Obama.  Illinois could not make the following practice illegal (2005) until Obama left the state to serve in the U.S. Senate.  Prior to this, (8/5/2002), President Bush signed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, which had no opposition, even among the abortion supporting Senators and Representatives.

See also  Jill Stanek’s testimony to the Illinois Senate in March of 2001. 

See  Obama’s Record on the Born Alive Infants Protection Act.