Death with Dignity
Ever since Oregon State legalized Physician-assisted suicide in 1994, there have been many legal and ethical debates over whether the process should be abolished. Today, physician-assisted death is legal in Hawaii, Washington, Vermont, California, Montana, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and the District of Columbia.
Most of the deaths with dignity debates are centered around whether the process is ethical and whether a patient's autonomy should be granted in critical cases such as ending life. The growth in the number of states where death with dignity is allowed also represents a shift in the attitude of medical professionals and the general public towards physician-assisted suicide. In a 2017 Medscape Poll where 5200 medical professionals were interviewed, 58 percent of the respondents agreed that dying with dignity should be legalized for terminally-ill patients (Frellick, 2019). In another poll conducted by Gallup in 2018, 72 percent of the respondents supported death with dignity for terminally-ill patients.
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Regarding patients’ rights, a patient can refuse life-supporting treatment. Physicians have a duty of avoiding harm to the patients as well as respecting their autonomy (Sulmasy & Mueller, 2017). This evokes the debate over whether the patient's autonomy should be respected at all times. Proponents of physician-assisted suicide maintain that through helping terminally-ill patients die, the physician not only respects the patient's autonomy but also fulfills their duty to relieve pain.
Telehealth and its benefits
The world has witnessed rapid technological growth in the past 40 years. The growth in science and technology has changed the way many industries function; leveraging technology comes with increased profitability and effectiveness. One of the ways in which the health sector is exploiting technology is telehealth. By 2018, about 76 percent of hospitals in America had partially or fully integrated telehealth in their process, a significant growth compared to the 35 percent recorded in 2010. The adoption of telemedicine has benefited both patients and health institutions.
For patients, telehealth has increased accessibility to health care and reduced the cost of accessing medical services. Patients living in remote areas no longer have to travel to urban areas to access healthcare ( O’Connell, 2015 ). Through technology such as video conferencing, homebound patients, the elderly, and those with busy schedules can access medical services with ease. Such technologies have also removed the logistical costs associated with clinic visits. For health centers, telehealth has reduced the cost of doing business thus increasing profitability. Telemedicine eliminates the costs associated with in-patient admissions and enables more efficient utilization of medical professionals.
References
Frellick, M. (2019, June 11). AMA Reaffirms Stance Against Physician-Aided Death. Retrieved from https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/914231
O’Connell, P. (2015). Advantages and Challenges to using Telehealth Medicine. Global Journal of Medical Research: F Diseases . Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c01d/af7bcedafa5adab369b299b887bebf8b5c1a.pdf .
Sulmasy, L. S., & Mueller, P. S. (2017, October 17). Ethics and the Legalization of Physician-Assisted Suicide: An American College of Physicians Position Paper. Retrieved from https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2654458/ethics-legalization-physician-assisted-suicide-american-college-physicians-position-paper
