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| Yours Truly (2011) |
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| My Mother and my Brother (1947) |
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| My Parents on their 50th Wedding Anniversary (1984) |
(link to YDN article)
My mother, 73, on vacation 3000 miles from her Hamden home, in 1985, wound up on life-support machinery in a Roman Catholic hospital, FULLY CONSCIOUS, for 118 (ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN) days (the longest surviving life-support patient in that hospital's ICU history). Although my mother was a Protestant, to the hospital's credit, the entire Roman Catholic staff of nuns and priests participated in a special Mass held in the hospital's chapel to mark that grim record when my mother's survival outstripped the previous record of X-number of days.
Although this process was sanctioned by my panic-stricken father (also stranded 3000 miles from home for four months) it was manifestly cruel to my mother.
Had it been a non-religious affiliated hospital, I suspect that the life-support machinery would have been quietly disconnected OR a morphine-drip would have been added to take its ineluctable toll.
This is the DANGEROUS MEDICAL WORLD WE LIVE IN. YALE-NEW HAVEN HOSPITAL (my physical birthplace) needs to be careful about the ethics its business decisions (merger with a Roman Catholic Hospital) engender, especially in a world where money is God.
Paul D. Keane
M. Div. '80
M.A., M.Ed
joey00 4 hours ago
That is a sad story Paul. I take it your Mom didn't make it..Passed away after the record was set,but she was fully conscience ? Sounds like a horrible ordeal ..Yale might have pulled the plug at 2am like they did to a relative and another friend of the family.Claim they tried to call and/or wake up doting relative in visitor room - A deceased loved one,dearly departed, can quickly become a "Cadaver" at the Med school if one is not monitoring poor suffering or unconscience loved one for 24/7...I saw this coming for a few years now,with St.Raes Pres. chasing the Mayor around and telling hecklers and non supporters to "shut up", they love John D
theantiyale 1 hour, 38 minutes ago
Thanks for your kind words. My mother did not survive. Finally her body and Nature had its way with the machines.
The whole end-of-life issue is a NIGHTMARE. I have filled out all the forms necessary ahead of time and STILL my wishes for no extraordinary measures could be IGNORED if I wound up in a hospital governed by a church's ethics.
My question is, will the St. Raphael's wing of the new, larger Yale-New Haven be governed by the Pope or by the CEO of Yale-New Haven?
Paul Keane
M. Div. '80
theantiyale 0 minutes ago
NB: If this hybrid hospital is to be run by the Pope's ethics, then its maternity ward will become a spawning ground for Karen Ann Quinlans, as the mother 's Right to Life is subordinated to that of the fetus; and its Intensive Care Unit will deny the aged and infirm the Right to Death once they have been hooked-up to the death-denial life-support machinery of our medical monstrosity millenium.
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