Hospital Procedures and the Rights of the Dying
The notion that there is a Department of Mayhem and Illogic headed by members of California’s legal and medical establishment, the purpose of which is to maximize the sufferings and sorrows of the afflicted, is at first glance patently absurd. And yet, the letter from Mary Van Gorder in which her husband’s suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and medical help are so painfully detailed, gives one pause for thought.
The natural laws that have conspired to bring Mrs. Van Gorder’s husband down in such a manner are malevolent enough: the incoherence, the gradual loss of speech, etc.
But the medical law adds to nature’s malevolence a degree of dirty-trickery beyond the creative powers of several thousand Charles Mansons. Medical law pumps life into the poor man’s “skin-covered skeleton” which has begun to rot and must be dressed three times a day and turned every two hours. Fed through a naso-gastric tube, the people who are helping boast, he “can go on a long time.”
I dunno. Like Mrs. Van Gorder, I live in California--nature’s largest outdoor insane asylum; and if I should happen to go with Alzheimer’s disease, I only hope that the laws of nature have a fighting chance against the ministrations of the legal and medical communities.
DOUGLAS A. KERMODE
Long Beach
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