Thursday, March 3, 2016

Charles Bentz, MD: Oregon Hospice Not Safe After Assisted Suicide Legalization

Dear Editor:

I read William Clarke’s guest column with interest, as it addresses both assisted suicide and hospice care. (“Don’t deny ‘death with dignity while improving hospice care,” updated 03/02/16).  I am a doctor in Oregon where assisted suicide has been legal since 1997. Since then, I have observed a corruption of Oregon’s medical profession to devalue patients, especially regarding end-of-life care, such as hospice, which is no longer safe.

Patients, generally, are now starting to fear hospice and medical providers such as myself and my colleagues are now avoiding this particular hospice program.  In my opinion, this corruption of the role of hospice can be directly linked to the practice of physician-assisted suicide here in Oregon.  The American Medical Association, Ethics Opinion 2.211, states:
Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks.
Unfortunately, here in Oregon, this is prediction is coming true. Keep medicine safe. Tell your legislators to keep assisted-suicide out of Montana.

Charles J. Bentz MD, FACP
Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine,
Division of General Medicine and Geriatrics
Oregon Health & Sciences University
Fanno Creek Clinic
2400 SW Vermont Street
Portland, OR 97219

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Media Advisory: Disability Groups Respond to Compassion and Choices’ Advocacy for Assisted Suicide Legislation in Connection With Brittany Maynard’s Tragic Illness

http://www.notdeadyet.org/2014/10/media-advisory-disability-groups-respond-to-compassion-and-choices-advocacy-for-assisted-suicide-legislation-in-connection-with-brittany-maynards-tragic-illness.html



[Editor's Note: A PDF formatted version of this Media Advisory is available on PRWeb here, along with an attached flyer developed by a coalition of groups that oppose legalization of assisted suicide.]
Response from Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, Not Dead Yet and Second Thoughts:
“Once again, Compassion & Choices, formerly the Hemlock Society, is pushing legalization of assisted suicide by exploiting an individual terminal prognosis. Disability advocates are deeply sympathetic to Brittany Maynard, and all people suffering a terminal, serious or chronic illness. Legalization of assisted suicide often looks acceptable when the focus is solely on an individual.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Helium Hood Seller Pleads Guilty to Tax Fraud

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-suicide-lady-20111203,0,3503245.story

San Diego-area suicide kit seller agrees to stop sale of devices

El Cajon woman came under scrutiny when one of her products was found on a dead 29-year-old in Oregon.

Reporting from San Diego -- A former schoolteacher who sold suicide kits that she once touted as leaving people "eternally sleepy" pleaded guilty Friday to a tax evasion charge and agreed to stop encouraging people to commit suicide.

Sharlotte Hydorn mailed more than 1,300 of the so-called helium hood suicide kits to people around the world, concealing the true nature of the product by describing the boxes as "orchid humidifiers" or "beauty bonnets" or "plastic rain hoods" on U.S. customs forms, according to federal prosecutors.

The $60 kits actually contained a clear plastic bag, medical grade tubing and a how-to diagram. A customer would place the bag over his head, connect the tubing from the bag to a helium tank and turn the valve. Death would be caused by helium asphyxiation.

Hydorn, 91, who was once an elementary school science teacher, marketed the product to terminally ill people as a compassionate alternative. She admitted to federal agents, however, that she didn't verify the physical condition, age or identity of the people who ordered her product.

She drew scrutiny last year after one of her devices was found over the head of a dead 29-year-old man from Eugene, Ore. In May, federal agents raided her home in El Cajon, east of San Diego, where she assembled the kits with her son.

Investigators determined that the kits had been sold to at least 50 people in San Diego County since 2007. In 2010, four San Diego residents — none of them terminally ill — committed suicide using the kits, according to prosecutors.

Hydorn said she became interested in assisted suicide after watching her once-healthy husband die after a long battle with colon cancer
30 years ago. He died in a hospital bed, and she regrets not being able to respect his wishes to die in the comfort of his home.

Her product, Hydorn said, ends lives peacefully, leaving people "eternally sleepy."

In Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal under certain conditions, lawmakers have introduced a bill that would outlaw any device sold with the intent that another person use it to commit suicide.

Hydorn had failed to file federal income tax returns since 2007 and agreed to pay about $26,000 in outstanding taxes, prosecutors said. She faces a maximum penalty of one year in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 26.

richard.marosi@latimes.com

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Police Kick in Door in Confusion Over Suicide Kit

http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/26910049-46/kit-police-suicide-fbi-springfield.html.csp

This door to a Springfield condominium was broken down by Springfield police after one of the residents purchased a suicide kit to aid a story being written for The Register-Guard earlier this year.

SPRINGFIELD — The teletype message came Tuesday from the FBI, and it sounded urgent: A Springfield man had purchased a mail-order suicide kit and could be in danger.

Springfield police responded immediately to the man’s Harlow Road home. They spoke with the condominium complex’s manager, who told officers that he had seen the man carry a bag into his house earlier in the day, police Sgt. Richard Jones said.

Officers knocked on the man’s front door, but received no response. After conferring with a police captain who urged them to force their way into the home in case the man needed immediate help, officers kicked in the front door, Jones said.

They soon learned the man was not home.

He was at work — in The Register-Guard’s newsroom. And he said he’s not at all suicidal.