Marie winced with each step as she used a walker to move around her tiny San Diego apartment on a recent overcast morning.
The 52-year-old former intel analyst, who did not want her full name used to protect her medical privacy, is afflicted with three rare diseases: a connective tissue disorder called Ehlers Danlos syndrome, mastocytosis which causes immune cells to collect, and a heart condition known as postural tachycardia syndrome. Her 15 medications barely give her comfort.
“I have intractable migraines, and it affects my eyes,” Marie said. “All my joints are unstable at this point, and so it’s very painful with my body trying to grab on, and it creates knots. I am just never comfortable. Even laying down can be painful.”
Last year, Marie was approved by doctors for a lethal drug cocktail that would allow her to die peacefully instead of having to endure what she called a “Dante’s Inferno” of suffering toward the end.
She has that right in California under the state’s End of Life Option Act. The law gives terminally ill people with six months or less to live the choice to “self-ingest” a fatal dose of medication under the supervision of a doctor. This most often happens in a hospice.
But it wasn’t easy for Marie to find a hospice in San Diego County that participates in medical aid in dying. A KPBS review of 94 hospices in the county showed only a handful of local hospices partake in the practice.
All California healthcare entities, including hospices, must post their policies on medical aid in dying on their websites. Nearly 16 months later, KPBS found that fewer than 10 are following the law.
The End of Life Option Act allows hospices to decline to participate. But since January 2022, it has required all California healthcare entities, including hospices, to post their policies on medical aid in dying on their websites. Nearly 16 months later, KPBS found that fewer than 10 are following the law….
Original story on KPBS.
Lord Jesus, please ease the sufferings of this lady.
If part of the problem is the medications or the timing of the medications, please enlighten her and her doctors.
Heal her if it be your Holy Will.
Through Jesus and in His Holy Name, I pray.
Not clear why this article is being posted here. Nothing about assisted suicide (they avoid calling it what it is) is in line with our Catholic faith. I hope Catholics don’t read this and believe in what they have to say. Pain control is possible at end of life; I have worked in palliative care and I know it is true. Even more troubling is that there is no mention of the redemptive grace and power in suffering. What a lost opportunity to support our Catholic faith. Stop posting this kind of drivel.
My father had excellent hospice care before his death earlier this year. Hospice nurses are some of the most compassionate people I’ve met. It’s a blessing to have compassionate and competent hospice care, done in accord with Christian teaching. It is absolutely wrong if some try to force hospice care providers to kill some of their patients.
My condolences to you and your family.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.
May he rest in peace. Amen.
Thank you for your condolences and prayers for my father, Dennis. He died peacefully and was more spiritually ready than he had ever been. My wife, one of our adult children and I were able to pray at his bedside the evening before the night he passed away. And, all of our children were here for Christmas and got to see him and say their goodbyes. As we pray, for ourselves and others, in our Greek Catholic Liturgy: “For a Christian, painless, unashamed, peaceful end of our life, and for a good account before the fearsome judgment-seat of Christ, let us beseech the Lord. Grant this, O Lord.”
I’m so happy ” only a handful of local hospices partake in the practice”