Opinion - Letters to the Editor

POSTED: Monday, Nov. 24, 2008

Says hospital should allow aid in dying

Does St. Joseph Hospital exist to serve the medical needs and wishes of our community? If so, it shouldn’t be categorically denying help to people who choose a procedure that is now legal in Washington state. I regard the passage of Initiative 1000 as a great step forward, a societal advance to help people who are terminally ill. It’s offensive that the only hospital in town proposes to override the wishes of a majority of voters and impose its own questionable values, especially as it claims to offer a full range of services including senior health care.

If people want a treatment that is legal, they should not be thwarted by the religiously based PeaceHealth Medical Group, which owns St. Joseph. It’s especially troubling that the medical group will not even refer patients to doctors who would be willing to give them what they desire, thus effectively denying the benefits of the new law to many Whatcom County residents. Surely not all of the hospital’s physicians and the 400 doctors associated with PeaceHealth are opposed to helping dying patients who want some control over their own death, so why should they have to march in lock-step with a corporate decision that is out of touch with today’s world?

Richard Whittaker Bellingham