NationStates Jolt Archive


Issue Idea: non-voluntary euthanasia / hospice

Tzorsland
15-06-2006, 19:16
This is my first serious attempt at an issue. Comments are of course welcome.

Title: Bring out your dead? I’m not quite dead yet!

Description: Representatives from @@NAME@@’s Hospital Management Organization have come to you with a problem of hospital overcrowding. They have come up with a novel solution, “non-voluntary euthanasia.”

Validity: Only valid in nations that have legalized euthanasia

Options:

[option]“Being told that you only have three months to live can be a very traumatic experience for a patient,” explains doctor @@RANDOMNAME@@ while a team of lawyers and accountants nod in agreement. “It can cause significant and undue suffering to the patient. If we were able to instead relieve all their suffering by gently giving them euthanasia then we would have not only eliminated their suffering, but we can also free up much needed bed space and lower overall operating expenses.”
[effect]patients avoid hospitals because they fear that they may never leave them alive
[stats]government healthcare spending decreases

[option]“I would say that going to the hospital itself would be traumatic if every visit could mean that some doctor may discover a problem with you and kill you on the spot,” says nurse @@RANDOMNAME@@. “We have a problem with a shortage of beds, but the solution is to add more beds not eliminate the patients. We need to increase funding to create the best hospice care system @@CURRENCY@@s can provide. After all, they aren’t going to live all that long anyway, and if the doctor was wrong at least they are still alive!”
[effect]terminally ill patients are housed in lavish resorts at taxpayer expense
[stats]government healthcare spending increases, income tax rates increase

[option]“The nurse has a point,” suggests @@RANDOMNAME@@, CEO of @@NAME@@’s leading pharmaceutical company. “There is always a possibility that the diagnosis was incorrect and death is an extremely irreversible option. Perhaps the least traumatic experience for the patient is to be never told of the condition. And if uncertainty or treatment causes trauma, well we have a number of ‘happy’ drugs that we can administer in those situations.”
[effect]terminally ill patients spend their days in drugged induced blissful ignorance
[stats]government healthcare spending increases slightly, pharmaceutical industry increases

[option]Finally a lone man in a brown monk’s robe speaks out. “Killing patients? Drug induced ignorance? How far must we go down this slippery slope to perdition?” The lawyers and accountants seem to make way as he approaches you, although that could be a result of the monk’s body odor. “We must protect life from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death! We must abolish all forms of Euthanasia. Those who suffer in this life will be blessed in the next!”
[effect]euthanasia is illegal and terminally ill patients are praised as moral heroes
[stats]euthanasia is illegal, government healthcare increases slightly
Quaon
15-06-2006, 21:58
You need an option where some religious nut tries and outlaw euthanisia.