Monday, April 11, 2005

The Power of Light

You have probably heard by now (unless you get your news from TV), that Mae Magouirk has been removed from the hospice and is now in a hospital.

An 81-year-old Georgia woman who went without nourishment and water more than a week was airlifted from a LaGrange hospice to UAB Hospital Saturday to begin treatment, relatives said. . . .

A LaGrange probate judge on Monday ordered three doctors, including one UAB cardiologist, to decide her future. They decided late Friday that the heart condition was treatable and had her airlifted Saturday morning, Mullinax said. . . .

"Hospice is only for the dying, and my aunt has many more years to live," [nephew Kenneth Mullinax] said. "A crime was being committed by having a person in a hospice who was not terminally ill. I hope that this never ever happens again."

Was she being starved and dehydrated?

Mae's nephew Ken Mullinax reports her cardiologist Raed Aqel, M.D. told them:

Mae is SO DEHYDRATED after her stay at Hospice LaGrange, that it will take at least two days of intense hydration therapy to get her back to a level that is acceptable to him.

Blogs for Terri has much more from Mae's nephew (as does Wizbang!).

Random rhetorical observations:

• Setting aside, for the moment, why Mae was even in a hospice in the first place, why wasn't her living will honored?

• Would Mae be in the hospital now without the Internet?

• Will we have to rely on the blogosphere to save us from an unwillingly forced death by starvation and dehydration since our justice system cannot and will not?

• How many are dying as you read this because their family members do not understand lawful options, and are being lied to by doctors, lawyers and hospices around this country?

• Why are we even fighting about this?

Because some consider the defenseless Useless Eaters whom we should help to hurry up and just die already?

After all, the Nazis asked:

Would you, if you were a cripple, want to vegetate forever?
--Dr. Tergesten, in the propaganda film Ich Klage an! (I Accuse!, 1941)

Cross-Posted at Sierra Faith.