The link to Reuters Health site talks about a new vaccine that does not - repeat not - protect the elderly from Pneumonia. This is obviously seen as being a failure.
My reaction? So what are we meant to die from?. I think think of almost any other death that might be worse than what used to be called "the Old Man's friend". What do we really expect from our health-care system to cure death itself? On PEI Cancer and heart disease are the two top causes of death.
When I first came to the Island full of piss and vinegar and eager to cure the health-care system I had dinner with two doctors - they were middle-aged and married to each other. After hearing me out politely, Elizabeth quietly told me that the biggest problem facing health reform was our attitude to death.
She explained that we as people can no longer seem to accept death as inevitable and hence put onto the medical profession the duty to prevent it all costs. About 50% of our personal lifetime health care dollars are spent in the last year of life as a result. 50% of our costs in the last year! If you want to reduce health-care costs, we have to look at death and our attitude to it.
Her quiet advice has been churning around in me ever since. It was both the sense of what she told me and also the power behind her words. I did not see them again.
Last year just after my wife Robin as diagnosed with breast cancer I learned that Elizabeth had just died of it. When I had had dinner with them all those years ago, she had just been diagnosed herself. Now it all made sense to me. Why I was so struck by her advice. She was giving me this insight from the depths of her soul as she faced her own death and the choices that it created for her and her family. She died with great dignity in palliative care.
In many cases other than accident, we can choose how we die. My concern is that if we put all our faith in the medical bucket that we risk choosing the hardest death of all - the unaware death. Robin and I talk a great deal about how many times and under what circumstances will she go through chemo again. At what point will she take charge and ask the medical profession to step aside are the underlying questions.
7:43:54 AM 
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