What Broke My Father’s Heart
James Wise
Class: HCA300
Introduction
This week’s course study took us down the path of reading a true story written by Katy Butler, regarding the end of life experience of her Father who was put on a pacemaker. The story was heart wrenching as may be expected considering the nature of our topic, death. Her family was upper middle class, her father a retired professor. They were known to be educated, even prepared for end of life experience with both having signed living wills. Katy suggests that the healthcare system is profit focused and towards that end keeps a person alive as long as possible, disregarding value of life. She explains that her father has dementia, and already he could not do all his ALD,s which was left up to her mother to perform on his behalf in changing diapers, giving baths and more. Her research lead her to lobbyist from drug and medical equipment companies who that pay over 500 million to get policies that reward doctor as she terms it as overtreatment.
She exclaimed that she is given more Government-mandated consumer information on a new car then medical procedure counseling, such is it a good idea to put a pacemaker in a man who barely has a mind. Ironically, her father was not for it but because of his dementia it was left up to mom. As well informed, as her mother was she was put in a life or death decision with the surgical team advising the pacemaker. Katy points out, that the new healthcare bill had a provision, called ”end of life counseling;” to determine value of life and if the procedure is worth the outcome of the patient. However, this was to become known as “Death Panels” and removed from the bill, the very thing that would have stopped the pacemaker from being put in her father. After years of grief, service in mom helping her estranged husband do to dementia, he passed away with the pacemaker still shooting electrical pulses to his now dead heart.
All About The Money
I am in complete agreement with Katy Butler concerning the money trail and underlining motivation. She also point out that 30% of elderly who are deathly ill wish for death or trade one good day then two more years of illness. Comparably, she showed statistics that 30% of Medicaid/Medicare cost is from overtreatment. Her rational is sound when she says, “if a patient says no to a procedure then there goes the money, no one is paid.” In my support of Katy, I have, in many other courses shown that the worse disparities in health care are formed when profit is the motivating factor. In her family’s case, it turned her joyful mother and their shared joy into a nightmare, resulting in thoughts that cause guilt because you want it all to end.
We are called the sandwich generation because science has created longevity of life. In today’s world many are raising their children and caring for their ageing mother or father as well. The young parents are now sandwiched into taking care of two generations and often times the ailing parent is harder to care for. This puts so much more stress in life and strains family systems to point of even breaking. Such was the case in my personal story when my mother in law moved in with our family. She was both mentally ill and physically incapable and she stayed with us for three years. Personally experiencing the downward spiral of my mother in law and the twenty so procedures to keep her going was the most depressing time of my life. In the end, it was one of the factors that broke up my marriage; an experience I still shutter over to this day. It was my first real glimpse in health care’s great machine, often playing on my ex-wife emotions they would get yet another procedure underway. In my mother in laws case it was overtreatment with each procedure as she worsened from each and everyone. Not only were the doctors paid but also my family paid the price as well with heated discussions that our predicament created. It was indeed a path into nightmarish madness watching a love one slowly and with no personal dignity left finely pass away.
Common Sense or Policy
I do not fault medical science, in fact I applaud each new breakthrough with much vigor. Medical science continues to enhance life in many ways. Policy drives market in the direction towards maximum profit and policy form from special interest groups or lobbyist. Anytime a policy is not based in common sense thent I almost guarantee a lobbyist was behind its creation. Who was behind the coinage of “Death Panels” when it was based in common sense not the automatic model that says maybe one more procedure will fix the problem. Simply there must be transparency in our health system that does not compromise value of life when achieving longevity.
Concerning life-supporting equipment such as pacemakers they have great use and help people live, long lives that they would have been deprived of. In contrast, I would highly question putting the device in a 81 year old man suffering from dementia in the story I summarized here. In such decisions in life, perhaps the hardest concerning death, needs good counsel with all considerations on the table. In my personal experience with my mother in law, it was always a hurried process when it came to a new procedure. We should have called death panels’ moral and ethical reasoning. In conclusion, I will order the Do Not Resuscitate bracelet and wear it from now on, because simply I do not want to trade quality of life for longevity.
Reference:
Butler, Katy (2010) What Broke My Father’s heart The New York Times
Retrieved on November 27, 2010, from
