Quoted Text

VA ignored patient’s end-of-life orders

    Even with New York state’s new end-of-life directives law, patients at Veterans Administration hospitals, like Stratton, have no such protections.
    My late father submitted a health care proxy and DNR [do not resuscitate] order to hospital personnel, and I gave copies to all. Yet my father suffered a heart attack at Stratton, which was not properly diagnosed by his doctor. That same night, my father went “code blue” and was placed on life support — totally against his written wishes because no one bothered to look in his file! My father suffered needlessly for many hours while the same doctor debated whether his wishes should be obeyed! I must live, for the rest of my life, with my father’s terrible suffering, [and the knowledge] that his last thoughts might have been that he had been denied his right to die in peace and with dignity.
    No lawyer was willing to sue the government, and the Veterans Administration even hounded me for his last pension check. I was denied access to his files until after the legal statute of limitations had expired. There was never an apology or change of methods after this disaster.
    But in all cases, patients’ rights must be respected and their written directives obeyed. And there must be protection for those who act as proxies. They can be hounded, threatened and harassed by greedy and cruel relatives, and so-called friends who feel they have rights they do not have. I know — I was my late husband’s proxy and obeyed his written directives to the letter, even when doctors had given up all hope. Despite my grief, I was tormented by people who threatened me and caused me extreme emotional torment at the worst time of my life.
    All patients and their legal representatives must be protected at the most difficult and painful time of life.

    KATHERINE DELAIN
    Schenectady

http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r03204&AppName=1

medicine....no matter how much we all worship it.....is practicing ALL THE TIME.......