End-of-life care

I read with great alarm Michael Shannon's attack on Compassion & Choices. I am a 73-year-old man in good health, and have become increasingly concerned with the direction that care for the infirm and aged has been heading. The life expectancy of the aging population has increased, resulting from medical advances, both in prescription drugs and medical procedures.

What this means is that more of the elderly population are suddenly discovering one day that they are trapped in a hospital bed, with serious and disabling conditions, and with no way out. They are doomed to live in an existence of insolvable desperation with no quality or joy of life. Their existence is a product of a medical system that is only interested in extending life without considering what the life of the "saved" patient will be like. Alzheimer's and dementia add further ugliness to the picture.

Compassion & Choices is trying to address some of these issues by educating the public with respect to advanced medical directives, giving a trusted person medical power of attorney, and clearly stating in a notarized document what living conditions are acceptable or unacceptable for you to live with. They are also trying to address laws and practices that currently prevent a person from having a say about their last days. Most people do not want their last days, or years, to be spent in pain, despair and hopeless desperation.

It's called Compassion & Choices for a very good reason. It has nothing to do with Planned Parenthood or abortion.

Bill Hinckley, Cape Girardeau