Writing Letters/Saving Lives
Physicians and health care providers need your encouragement to maintain life-affirming policies: they need to hear from you or pressures from the suicide lobby will weaken resolve and enable life-threatening polices.
Scroll down to see our newly updated sample/template letters to doctors, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, hospices, and hospitals. In minutes, you can email or mail a life-saving letter-or a few letters. Please, take the time. You have a responsibility to protect seniors, people with disabilities, and those who are suicidal from being victimized by abuse or assisted suicide.
Our sample letters are designed for you to send as is (just insert the appropriate information), or personalize. We've also put together contact information for Washington State nursing homes, hospitals, hospital districts to expedite your letter-sending. Washington State hospice contact information can be found here. These letters can be slightly modified by concerned citizens of Oregon or Montana or revised as appropriate for other locales, either in the US, or internationally. The need for Safe Harbor Communities is universal.
Outline of letter from patients to doctors
Dear Dr.__________:
1st paragraph: Thank your doctor for the great care they have provided you and your family over the years:
Thank you for all the excellent care you have provided for me (and my family).
2nd paragraph: Bring up your concerns regarding the Death With Dignity Act in Washington State.
My understanding of the role of a physician has always been one of healing, comforting, and trust.
It is within this context that I'd like to share with you my deep concerns about physician assisted suicide practiced via the Death with Dignity Act in Washington State. As you know, anyone living with a serious illness can feel vulnerable, struggle with depression, and experience decreased feelings of self worth. Add the financial pressures evident today on both families and health care providers, along with the limited support available for caregivers, and many patients become anxious, and worry they are, or will be, a burden to their families or to society. The pressure on ill, anxious, and depressed patients to consider assisted suicide is real. In fact, studies in Oregon shows that many assisted suicide victims experience undiagnosed and untreated depression and anxiety. (See the Prevalence of depression and anxiety in patients requesting physicans' aid in dying: cross sectional survey by Linda Ganzini, Elizabeth R. Goy and Steven K. Dobascha in the British Medical Journal, October 7th, 2008.)
3rd paragraph: Briefly state your position:
I concur with the American Medical Associations opposition to physician assisted suicide and with the Washington State Medical Association statement that physician assisted suicide is "fundamentally incompatible with the role of physicians as healers." I believe that prescribing intentionally lethal drug overdoses to vulnerable suicidal patients is not compatible with the practice of compassionate medicine. Fortunately, the Death with Dignity Act preserves the right of physicians to refrain from involvement in assisted suicide. In Oregon, where assisted suicide has been legal for some time, most physicians continue to provide excellent end of life care and refrain from writing lethal prescriptions to vulnerable ill people.
4th paragraph: Ask to hear from your doctor regarding whether he or she shares your philosophy of health care with regard to providing supportive care and not writing lethal prescriptions under the Death with Dignity Act:
Naturally, in an area as important as this one, patients have the right to know if a health care provider or institution has a policy or practice which is compatible with their own. I am hopeful that you share the belief held by me, the AMA and the WSMA that physician-assisted suicide contradicts the role of physicians and endangers vulnerable patients. In particular, I would like to know if you and your partners share this philosophy of care and therefore will not be counseling your patients to commit assisted suicide or writing lethal drug overdose prescriptions under the DWDA. It is very important to me that I receive health care I can trust with my life and with the lives of my loved ones. I look forward to hearing from you about this essential matter. Again, my family and I greatly appreciate all you've done for us.
Sincerely, ______
Sample Outline of a letter to your area nursing homes, assisted living facilities, or 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, ______