Most notably she describes a federal lawsuit filed by Oregon doctor Nicholas Gideonse to strike down the residency requirement of Oregon’s aid in dying law.

“Last month Dr. Gideonse, backed by pro bono lawyers and Compassion & Choices, an advocacy group for expanding end-of-life options, filed a federal lawsuit claiming that the residency requirement for Oregon’s aid-in-dying law is unconstitutional. ‘I realized how important this could be for patients seeking access,’ he said.

“The lawsuit is one of several legal and legislative efforts around the country to reduce the requirements that patients must contend with in order to receive aid in dying. In some states, lawmakers have already broadened the types of health care providers that can participate, or have shortened waiting periods or allowed waivers.

“‘I think of it as MAID 2.0,’ said Thaddeus Pope, an end-of-life bioethicist at Mitchell Hamline School of Law who tracks such actions, referring to the acronym for medical aid in dying. ‘We found out there’s an access problem…We set all these safeguards and eligibility requirements and they locked a lot of people out.

“Oregon led the shift in easing access, amending its law in 2019. The state previously required patients to make two verbal requests for life-ending medication, at least 15 days apart, to ensure that they had not changed their minds. Now, if the patient is unlikely to survive that long, their doctor can waive the 15-day waiting period.

“‘Fifteen days is everything when you are suffering,’ said Kim Callinan, the president and chief executive of Compassion & Choices, which supported the change. ‘People who are eligible for the law are hitting roadblocks and barriers.’”

The post Expanding Access to Medical Aid in Dying appeared first on FOI Action.

Ms. Faliks describes the courageous journeys of her parents, who traveled from Rome to Chicago 32 years ago as Soviet refugees, and then, in the present time, from Chicago to Switzerland so that her mother, suffering from the horrors of terminal, metastatic glioblastoma (a brain tumor) could have a peaceful, medically-assisted death at the Dignitas clinic in Zurich — Switzerland being the only country in the world where medical aid in dying is available to anybody, citizen and non-citizen alike.

“My parents and I fled the Soviet Union to escape a regime that, among many things, prevented one from making decisions as an individual. Yet the highly individual decision to choose medically assisted suicide is not widely available in the United States. It is almost as if we regard the very idea of death as shameful. We say “she passed” because we are afraid to say “she died,” as if uttering the word “death” will make it come for us. We want to soften the impact of the inevitable, and at the same time, we live with laws that prolong suffering leading to it.  While this procedure is legal in 10 states and D.C., strict residency requirements make it impossible for patients residing in other states such as Illinois, where my parents lived for the past 32 years. Legalizing it nationwide and making it financially accessible would allow all terminally ill patients — not just those who can afford the financial burden of doing it abroad — to have control over the suffering at the end of their lives.”

This is profound stuff, folks, it showcases the true cruelty of laws that prohibit aid in dying.  Note:  we call it medically-assisted dying, medical aid in dying, assisted dying or just plain aid in dying — NOT suicide — to draw attention to the vast difference between suicide as it is commonly understood — an impulsive tragedy of a mentally ill person — and the rational act of a terminally ill and suffering person.

The post My mother came to America for freedom, and left for the freedom to die with dignity appeared first on FOI Action.

Telehealth, the use of computers, tablets, smart phones or telephones to receive healthcare services at home, as opposed to a doctor’s office, has been in use for a while, but it has recently gained acceptance due to the coronavirus pandemic.  The need for telehealth has never been greater.

Telehealth helps alleviate the shortage of doctors and nurses because it enables medical professionals to still provide hospice, palliative and other services online to patients who are also at home. Telehealth is especially important for patients who do not have COVID-19 and have a serious or terminal diagnosis because it keeps them away from emergency rooms and urgent care facilities where they could contract the virus.  We are seeing that this pandemic will likely not end anytime soon.

As governors lift stay-at-home orders and hospitals and health systems throughout the country resume elective, non-emergency care, changing policies is critical to determine the best way to keep these virtual services moving forward.

Patients, their loved ones and clinicians increasingly are adopting and supporting the use of telehealth and other virtual services to deliver end-of-life care. Policymakers must extend their financial and policy support for telehealth throughout the public health emergency and after it ends to ensure suitable access to healthcare for everyone — especially our sickest and most vulnerable people. by Sylvia Trujillo via Compassion & Choices newsletter

The post The Need for Telehealth Has Never Been Greater appeared first on FOI Action.

Dr. Karen J. Warren
Source: Cortney S. Warren C/O Meghan Poort

“Our ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death but a good life to the very end.”

-Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

Death is a reality of life. It is a part of life. It is an inevitable reality of being human. One day, we will all die. And yet, it is a reality that many of us don’t want to think about.

This blog post is a biographical tribute to the life and death of my mother, Dr. Karen Joyce Warren. An ecological feminist philosopher, Karen was diagnosed with a terminal, neurodegenerative illness in 2016. Since that time, she used philosophical arguments to promote conversation about end-of-life options for those diagnosed with terminal illnesses. She co-authored two posts with me for Psychology Today: one practical commentary on her personal experiences confronting death and a second advocating for end-of-life options.

My mother’s death leaves me feeling profound sadness mixed with relief. Although her illness made the last few years of her life physically and emotionally challenging, the last couple of months were particularly painful to witness because I knew that she did not want to live in such a pained and impaired physical state.

A Celebration of the Life of Dr. Karen J. Warren

The post A Celebration of the Life of Dr. Karen J. Warren appeared first on FOI Action.