OMC won't take part in suicide law
March 5th, 2009 - 6:11am
(Port Angeles)-- By a four to two vote, Olympic Medical Center Commissioners opted out of participating in the state's new "Death with Dignity" law.
A huge crowd turned out for the meeting last night at Linkletter Auditorium at the hospital.
The initiative won voter approval last November. Clallam County voters voted 61 percent in favor. But the measure allows hospitals and physicians to choose whether or not they want to take part in assisting terminally-ill patients with drugs to end their lives.
OMC's Ethics Advisory Committee presented a short summary of the measure, and recommended approval by the hospital board.
In a public comment period, several people, including physicians, nurses, former patients and concerned citizens expressed their views, which were primarily against OMC adopting the law.
The general tone was that a hospital should focus on life, not death, and most hospital personnel would have a hard time going the other way. One speaker said Nazi Germany started out the same way, making it easy for doctors to terminate life, and from people
with terminal illness, it soon grew to people with
handicaps, mental illness, then gypsies and Jews.
One of the safeguards of the measure is that a person must have 6-months or less to live, to qualify for the service. The question arose: How do you know that 6-month figure is accurate? There were accounts of people living much longer than their 6-month prognosis. And a recurring theme was that most people afflicted with a terminal illness wanted good medical
service, and better end-of-life care.
In the end, the board of commissioners split evenly, Chairman Jim Leskinovich cast the deciding vote against the measure.
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