Save Lives/ Contact Your Hospital
The fundamental goal of the doctor/patient relationship is to comfort and cure. To change the physician's role to one in which comfort includes the intentional taking of life undermines the trust between physician and patient.
Make your voice heard in your local community! Many physicians and healthcare facilities don't know that Section 19 of the so-called Death with Dignity Act allows them to exercise their right to refrain from involvement in physician-assisted suicide. Many hospital and nursing home boards need encouragement to maintain their 'opt-out' policies, change their 'opt-in' policies to 'opt out,'or implement patient-safe/anti-assisted suicide procedures, including improved end of life care. These institutions need to be reminded that there is nothing compassionate about ending vulnerable people's lives via lethal drug overdoses. Even if you've already written a letter or contacted them, now's the time to do so again. Your voice may be all they need to maintain or attain patient-safe policies.
We've provided a list of Washington hospitals and Washington hospital districts and their contact information for your use.
If you want to contact area nursing homes, the contact information is here.
Hearing from people who re-echo the position held by the Washington State Medical Association that physician-assisted suicide contradicts the very mission of healthcare and endangers vulnerable patients who deserve care and comfort throughout their illness will certainly impact the policies healthcare providers make. And reminding them how many members of their communities want to support healthcare providers that we can trust with our lives may encourage them to continue with patient-protective policies instead of lethal ones. Please, take the time to write a letter. The life you save could be your own, someone close to you, a neighbor, or someone who desperately needs your help.
Sample Outline of a letter to hospitals.
I am writing this letter as a concerned caregiver, family member, and friend. I feel troubled that physician-assisted suicide is now being practiced on vulnerable seniors in nursing homes and assisted living facilities in my own community. The thought that a facility like ___________ (insert name of facility or put 'yours') might not actually be a safe harbor for seniors, is deeply worrisome to me. After all, people like myself who have cared for, or are caring for, an elderly loved one, want to support a facility we can trust with our own lives and the lives of our loved ones. We want our elders to receive the excellent medical care they deserve, rather than be given a lethal overdose when they are ill or depressed.
I would like to know whether ________ has opted into involvement in assisting in the suicides of vulnerable elderly people in your care, or if you are a safe harbor community, which has opted out of assisted suicide and can be trusted to care for, rather than end the lives of those under your protection. The Death with Dignity Act makes clear that Washington healthcare providers like yourself may "opt out" of involvement in assisting suicide on their premises by following the law's simple procedures outlined under section 19 of the Death with Dignity Act. In fact, a majority of hospitals in Washington State have opted out of involvement with assisted suicide by adopting policies prohibiting physicians from writing lethal prescriptions, pharmacies from dispensing lethal prescriptions, and the administration of lethal prescriptions on institutional premises.
If _____________ continues its past life-affirming and comfort-enhancing mission of not participating in assisted suicide, I will surely continue to support and utilize your facility and encourage family and friends to do likewise. I know that my family, friends and many members of our community will join me in supporting healthcare providers we can trust with our lives.
I look forward to hearing from you about ____________'s policy with regard to the Death with Dignity Act and whether your facility refrains from involvement in assisted suicide as outlined above. You can contact me at: Thank you for your time and consideration in this important matter.
Sincerely, ______