Just What The Doctor Ordered
By FrankNatoli Posted in Archived — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The General Medical Council in Manchester, England, recently found neonatologist Dr. Michael Munro “fit to practice” after examining his intentional injection of 2,000mg of pancuronium bromide into each of two premature infants.
The series of articles in the London Times by authors Melanie Reid and Louisa Barnett detailing the circumstances include “When prolonging life becomes prolonging death” [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article2045207.ece], “Doctor gave babies fatal drug to ease distress of dying gasps” [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article2051202.ece], “Doctor is cleared of hastening deaths of babies” [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2057093.ece] and finally “We must debate end-of-life issues, says doctor cleared of misconduct” [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article2062145.ece].
To summarize the context, quoting from the first article:
“The consultant was caring for two very premature babies. Both Baby Y and Baby X were unable to breathe independently. One suffered significant heart problems, the other had a big brain haemorrhage. In both, separate, cases at Aberdeen Maternity Hospital the difficult decision was made, with the parents, to withdraw treatment.”
“The breathing tube was removed and a course of morphine was begun. The babies began to struggle to breathe, a normal part of the dying process known as agonal gasping. Were we Victorians, we would know this….”
“Baby X’s parents asked Dr Munro to alleviate his suffering. The GMC was told that the doctor administered a drug that he told the parents ‘was on the verge of what society finds acceptable’”.
“In Baby Y’s case, Dr Munro did the same, injecting 23 times the normal dose of a muscle relaxant called pancuronium. Both babies died soon afterwards.”
Dr. Munro and writers Reid and Barnett are certain that life that has become too unpleasant should be ended intentionally, scientifically and professionally. Judging by the descriptions in the articles, everyone involved was satisfied with the “peaceful” way the babies died.
Curiously, the web page URLs that each article, on consecutive days and all but one by the same author, are placed indicates some confusion on the part of the London Times. The first day’s article was “comment”. The second was “life and style”. The third was ominously “crime”. And the fourth was “health”.
Not once does either author note in any of the articles that pancuronium bromide is not an “ameliorative” drug, i.e., it is not a drug designed to “make or become better”, as the OED defines it. There are of course a plethora of ameliorative drugs for all occasions. There is even an ameliorative prescription drug that so perfectly reproduces the chemical effect of tetra-hydro-cannabinol a/k/a marijuana that the user experiences the “high”! So much for the “necessity” of “medical marijuana”.
As a matter of fact, the sole objective of pancuronium bromide is to kill a living being. That is why, again without mention by either author in any of the articles, that pancuronium bromide is the second of three drugs used in the lethal injection “cocktail” to execute felony murderers in the United States. Curiously, this fact did not escape the London Times’ own search engine, see [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sitesearch.do?query=pancuronium&hitsperpage=10&nextOffset=0&offset=0&leftStartIndex=1&leftEndIndex=10&submitStatus=searchFormSubmitted&mode=simple§ionId=2820]. It also did not escape the notice of at least one of the readers who submitted a comment, a fellow who identified himself as a medical doctor from Australia. A web search on pancuronium bromide reveals innumerable articles condemning its use as a tool of execution because its effect is cruel and unusual from a medical perspective! There are articles asserting that veterinarians are forbidden to use pancuronium bromide to “put down” animals because its physical effect is too horrific.
Well, which is it? The essence of humanity, as Munro, Reid and Barnett would have you believe? Or cruel and inhuman, as witnesses to capital punishment in the United States would have you believe? Lincoln noted the both the North and the South were certain that God was on their side. He observed “we cannot both be right, and one of us must be wrong”. Lincoln’s words would appear to have yet another appropriate application.
Leaving aside the abysmal depths to which people can rationalize any behavior, consider the origin, and the apparent demise, of the human emotion called “compassion”. As a medical doctor writing to the Philadelpha Inquirer once noted, my apologies for forgetting his name, “compassion” is derived from the Latin “cum passio”, which means “to suffer with”. Contrast that with the commonly understood meaning of “compassion” today, perhaps hearing that your neighbor got a notice of an impending audit from the IRS, and you “compassionately” react with something on the order of “gee, that’s too bad”. The most difficult aspect of analyzing our societal refusal “to suffer with” is who is more absolute in the refusal, the sufferer or the suffer-ee? All of the evidence in the subject articles is that the latter, the “suffer-ee”, will not witness any suffering, and will not even broach the subject of an ameliorative drug that eases the suffering without intentionally and immediately ending the life, however modest, however brief.
We are becoming a society without compassion. The promise is to “end suffering” but the delivery is cold, brutal and short. Just what the doctor ordered?