Doctor says depressed patients should not be prescribed lethal doses of drugs.
Oregon's assisted-suicide law, the only one of its kind in the nation, has come under fire from a doctor who says too few safeguards are in place to protect patients with emotional problems from being prescribed drugs to kill themselves.
Dr. Gregory Hamilton of the Oregon-based Physicians for Compassionate Care made the allegation this week at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. He pointed to the case of Michael Freeland, who died of lung cancer in 2002 — one year after receiving a prescription for a lethal dose of barbiturates under Oregon's Death With Dignity Act.
Although Freeland never took the suicide drug, Hamilton said he never should have been given it in the first place, since he suffered from depression.
"You have a depressed man being treated for depression by one doctor and given an overdose by another," Hamilton said. "This is the first case where someone had been prescribed a lethal overdose where we actually have the documents and can actually reveal what's going on with assisted suicide in Oregon."
But Barbara Coombs Lee, president of Compassion in Dying, a supporter of physician-assisted suicide, thinks a patient's depression is irrelevant.
"Because they're sad or depressed," she said, "does not mean that they no longer are mentally capable, that they cannot understand the situation of their lives and make rational decisions about their desires."
Hamilton, though, said Freeland's case proves that the safeguards promised when assisted suicide was legalized are not working.
"In my view," he said, "the majority of patients in Oregon taking over-doses are depressed."
http://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/news/a0031961.cfm
Oregon's assisted-suicide law, the only one of its kind in the nation, has come under fire from a doctor who says too few safeguards are in place to protect patients with emotional problems from being prescribed drugs to kill themselves.
Dr. Gregory Hamilton of the Oregon-based Physicians for Compassionate Care made the allegation this week at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. He pointed to the case of Michael Freeland, who died of lung cancer in 2002 — one year after receiving a prescription for a lethal dose of barbiturates under Oregon's Death With Dignity Act.
Although Freeland never took the suicide drug, Hamilton said he never should have been given it in the first place, since he suffered from depression.
"You have a depressed man being treated for depression by one doctor and given an overdose by another," Hamilton said. "This is the first case where someone had been prescribed a lethal overdose where we actually have the documents and can actually reveal what's going on with assisted suicide in Oregon."
But Barbara Coombs Lee, president of Compassion in Dying, a supporter of physician-assisted suicide, thinks a patient's depression is irrelevant.
"Because they're sad or depressed," she said, "does not mean that they no longer are mentally capable, that they cannot understand the situation of their lives and make rational decisions about their desires."
Hamilton, though, said Freeland's case proves that the safeguards promised when assisted suicide was legalized are not working.
"In my view," he said, "the majority of patients in Oregon taking over-doses are depressed."
http://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/news/a0031961.cfm
