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March 26, 2005
Culture of Life
Right-wing photo ops disrupt the lives of the dying and their families.
Jennifer Johnson, barefoot and in her pajamas, ran to her grandfather's bedside once a hospice worker said his death was moments away. She got there — one minute too late. Johnson said the chaos outside the hospice where Terri Schiavo is dying kept her from saying goodbye.
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"To have to maneuver through all of this and have a hostile environment outside when all they want is peace and quiet and to enjoy those few days they have left with a loved one is a horror," said Dr. Morton Getz, executive director of Douglas Gardens Hospice in Miami.
Getz said many people with a family member in a hospice have to make the same excruciating decision that courts have made for Schiavo.
"It's causing a lot of grief and questions in their own mind on whether they did the right thing," he said. "It's unconscionable to have a family member to be near the end stages of life and to get there, you have to walk through signs that say, 'Murderer.'"
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Johnson, 24, said her 73-year-old grandfather, Thomas Bone, was restricted from moving freely around the hospice grounds during his final days. He died just hours after Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was removed and protests intensified.
"They've taken away hospice's greatest quality, that it is peaceful and serene and quiet and calming — and it's not fair," Johnson said.
Posted by Half-Cocked at March 26, 2005 08:12 PM