[Magdalen] immigration / migrant situation --->Re: Professionalpanhandlers; was Loaned out.

[Arthur Laurent]

Jim said: "...36 of the 50 United States now recognize the POLST Initiative..."

I copied over my mom's "Advance Medical Directive" (that's what they're called in VA, when you have a separate DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) document).

Four pages of very explicit directions to doctors and clinicians, which boiled down to:  "If I'm near death, and the medical decision doesn't involve Morphine, don't do it."

The harder task is finding someone (or better, someones) whose world view lines up with yours, and a backup or two... I have a third advocate, on the left coast, just in case.

In each case, my potential advocate and I had a long, enjoyable chat before I asked them to take on the advocate role... I wanted to make sure they would really be ready to pull the plug when it was obvious I was being kept alive solely for the enrichment of doctors.

That's what happened to my brother. After a life of hard knocks (mostly caused by him), he wound up in one of the big DC area hospitals, in a private room. He was being billed as John Doe, because they hadn't bothered to go looking for an ID...even though he was transferred (they knew his name at that point) from one of their hospitals to another to another. He wasn't monitored, was generally unable to respond to any stimuli... and Medicaid and Medicare were being billed hundreds of dollars per day for tests and labs that were useless. Useless, that is, unless you are a hospital wanting some cash for minimal work expended.

We pulled him out of that hospital, put him in Hospice, and about eighteen hours later, he died, not having been conscious for at least a week. I like the peace of death. I wish I could be that calm in life.

Arthur