Bishops change feeding tube guidelines

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If ever Carol Gaetjens becomes unconscious with no hope of awakening, even if she could live for years in that state, she says she wants her loved ones to discontinue all forms of artificial life support.
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But now there’s a catch for this churchgoing Catholic woman. U.S. bishops have decided that it is not permissible to remove a feeding tube from someone who is unconscious but not dying, except in a few circumstances.
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People in a persistent vegetative state, the bishops say, must be given food and water indefinitely by natural or artificial means as long as they are otherwise healthy. The new directive, which is more definitive than previous church teachings, also appears to apply broadly to any patient with a chronic illness who has lost the ability to eat or drink, including victims of strokes and people with advanced dementia.
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Catholic medical institutions — including 46 hospitals and 49 nursing homes in Illinois — are bound to honor the bishops’ directive, issued late last year, as they do church teachings on abortion and birth control. Officials are weighing how to interpret the guideline in various circumstances.
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What happens, for example, if a patient’s advance directive, which expresses that individual’s end-of-life wishes, conflicts with a Catholic medical center’s religious obligations?
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Gaetjens, 65, said she did not know of the bishops’ position until recently and finds it difficult to accept.
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“It seems very authoritarian,” said the Evanston resident. “I believe people’s autonomy to make decisions about their own health care should be respected.”
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The guideline addresses the cases of people like Terri Schiavo, a Catholic woman who lived in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, without consciousness of her surroundings. In a case that inspired a national uproar, Schiavo died five years ago, after her husband won a court battle to have her feeding tube removed, over the objections of her parents.
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The directive’s goal is to respect human life, but some bioethicists are skeptical.
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“I think many (people) will have difficulty understanding how prolonging the life of someone in a persistent or permanent vegetative state respects the patient’s dignity,” said Dr. Joel Frader, head of academic pediatrics at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago and professor of medical humanities at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
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Gaetjens, a hospice volunteer and instructor at Northwestern University, has thought long and hard about illness and the meaning of life after struggling with multiple sclerosis for 40 years.
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Read more at: chicagotribune.com/health/ct-met-catholic-hospitals-20100208,0,2859597,full.story
 
This is no change from the statement that dates at least back to the Schiavo case: Food and drink are not extraordinary care.
 
“It seems very authoritarian,” said the Evanston resident. “I believe people’s autonomy to make decisions about their own health care should be respected.”

Just another sad, pitiful plea to be God!

**Recent scientific discoveries prove many patient believed to be “brain dead” actually could see & perceive everything going on around them.

How horrible would it be if you were trapped in a body, but could see, feel & enjoy the love of your family, but some pinhead doctor or family member convinced them to starve & deprive you of water, dying a most gruesome death, in the name of “compassion?” (read; 'easy way out & often financial gain or allowing evil men like Terry Schiavo’s husband to collect insurance & to remarry…!)**

What ever happened to the Marriage vows? …"For better or worse, through sickness & in health…?"

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, Ora Pro Nobis Peccatoribus!

mark
 
Art321 said:
“I think many (people) will have difficulty understanding how prolonging the life of someone in a persistent or permanent vegetative state respects the patient’s dignity,” said Dr. Joel Frader, head of academic pediatrics at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago and professor of medical humanities at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
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Superstitious people, perhaps.

.
 
Art321 said:
The guideline addresses the cases of people like Terri Schiavo, a Catholic woman who lived in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, without consciousness of her surroundings. In a case that inspired a national uproar, Schiavo died five years ago, after her husband won a court battle to have her feeding tube removed, over the objections of her parents.
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“without consciousness of her surroundings” it reads?

I beg to differ with this statement.
So would many others, including her family and Father Frank Pavone I am sure.
 
There’s a big difference between removing the feeding tube (PEG) of someone who is brain dead and removing it from someone who is just comatosed.

IF someone is plodding along in a coma, removing the PEG is just cruel, they starve or die of thirst, and given the recent stories of people being aware of what’s going on, well, that’s just nasty.

Plus, its a sin against hope to starve someone to death because their body isn’t shutting down as people would hope. Its quite dispicable really, to murder someone in this matter.

There’s a difference between brain death and coma. One is completely gone and will go regardless of medical intervention, the other has hope.
 
The article says change, but I thought that’s always been the policy. Did the words get simplier for people to read?
 
vera_dicere said:
There’s a big difference between removing the feeding tube (PEG) of someone who is brain dead and removing it from someone who is just comatosed.

IF someone is plodding along in a coma, removing the PEG is just cruel, they starve or die of thirst, and given the recent stories of people being aware of what’s going on, well, that’s just nasty.

Plus, its a sin against hope to starve someone to death because their body isn’t shutting down as people would hope. Its quite dispicable really, to murder someone in this matter.

There’s a difference between brain death and coma. One is completely gone and will go regardless of medical intervention, the other has hope.
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Fine, pardon my mistake. If my brain stem managed to continue my bodily functions 20 years past the end of my other brain function, I would hope somebody would let me die.

Eamon
 
turboEDvo said:
Fine, pardon my mistake. If my brain stem managed to continue my bodily functions 20 years past the end of my other brain function, I would hope somebody would let me die.

Eamon
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They might not perform life-saving medical procedures on you if you became ill or suffered a heart attack, but they would not be morally free to stop giving you food and water as long as you were benefiting from them.

If for no other reason, take into consideration those accounts of people thought to be in PVS who pulled out of them, or even worse, were conscious all along. Our diagnostic capabilities are not that good in tis area.
 
St_Francis said:
If for no other reason, take into consideration those accounts of people thought to be in PVS who pulled out of them, or even worse, were conscious all along. Our diagnostic capabilities are not that good in tis area.
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Already been considered. I stand by my statement. If I’m conscious, I sure don’t want to be confined in a hospital for 50 years because my body refuses to give up the ghost, but my brain refuses to let me connect my intentions with my body.

Eamon
 
Why are we so afraid to let people die naturally? If my elderly mother had a stroke, was unconscious, and could not swallow why must she be given nutrition (I’m not talking about withholding hydration)? To keep her alive long enough to die of pneumonia?
 
momor said:
Why are we so afraid to let people die naturally? If my elderly mother had a stroke, was unconscious, and could not swallow why must she be given nutrition (I’m not talking about withholding hydration)? To keep her alive long enough to die of pneumonia?
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Hydration and nutrition are basic for life. Some people work out their Purgatory on earth at the end of their life.

God decides when life begins and ends.

Pope John Paul II died with a feeding tube in his stomach. He taught us all how to die with dignity.

And finally, none of us want to go to hell. I don’t anyway.

Withholding Hydration and Nutrition isn’t a natural way to die. It is a horrible tortuous death!

God’s Will, not ours. Keep your eyes on Him.

God Bless.
+Peace In Christ.
Love, Dawn
 
momor said:
Why are we so afraid to let people die naturally? If my elderly mother had a stroke, was unconscious, and could not swallow why must she be given nutrition (I’m not talking about withholding hydration)? To keep her alive long enough to die of pneumonia?
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Starvation is not a natural death, beit hydration or nutrients. Food and water are not extraordinary or heroic efforts.

.
 
“It seems very authoritarian,” said the Evanston resident. “I believe people’s autonomy to make decisions about their own health care should be respected.”
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What the resident doesn’t get is that it’s not the USCCB declaring they can’t do this, it’s the USCCB saying they believe God declares you can’t do this.
 
Already been considered. I stand by my statement. If I’m conscious, I sure don’t want to be confined in a hospital for 50 years because my body refuses to give up the ghost, but my brain refuses to let me connect my intentions with my body.
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What if you would eventually recover? I’d hate to be starved to death the day before I recovered.

There’s also the issue that if you’re conscious, being dehydrated would be an agonizing death.

And even if you got past all those, you definantly don’t want eternal death.
 
Stylites said:
Starvation is not a natural death, beit hydration or nutrients. Food and water are not extraordinary or heroic efforts.

.
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I don’t agree that starvation cannot be considered to be a natural consequence of an illness. What do you think happened to people before the advent of tube feedings and intravenous drips? I don’t consider food and fluids to be extraordinary measures but I do think that the use of tubes and/or needles to deliver them can be considered so in good conscience when hope in God is the only hope left.

When people routinely died at home with little or no medical care families would give whatever the person’s body could handle. Sometimes that meant just sips of water or broth or using an eye dropper to place liquids in the mouth of an unresponsive person so it could be absorbed in the mouth and not swallowed. These efforts were not sufficient to preserve life long-term but they were consistent with the body’s natural capabilities. There was no interference with God’s will to take or prolong life as He chooses. The person is still free to work out their Purgatory on earth as someone else stated.

I understand that many people today would not have someone to give them this kind of care and a tube feeding is the only way they would get anything.
 
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