Talking About Options Prolongs the Quality of Life

This week's question at the On Faith page of the Washington Post asks:
Proposed health-care reform legislation includes a provision that allows Medicare to pay for "end-of-life" counseling for seniors and their families who request it. The provision nearly derailed President Obama's health-care initiative. Some Republicans still argue that the provision would ration health care for the elderly. Does end-of-life care prolong life or does it prolong suffering? Should it be a part of health-care reform?

The inclusion of provisions to pay for “end-of-life” counseling should be included in any health care reform packages. Erroneously called “death panels for seniors” by Sarah Palin, these provisions would facilitate conversations about life and death in general. As a Christian faith leader, that seems of supreme importance to me.

“End-of-life counseling” does not necessarily prolong suffering. It will not necessarily prolong life, either. But it can, and usually does, prolong the quality of life when it leads to discussions about life and death. How could it ever be a bad thing to talk with someone about their options for the end of life or harmful for a doctor to have a clear understanding of what a person’s personal wishes are?

“There are worse things than dying.”

This is the conclusion my 86-year-old mother reached during a recent discussion about her wishes for whatever time she has left in life. We had this talk when, following a serious heart attack, her cardiologist was insistent that she could no longer live alone. My mother was equally insistent that she is not ready to leave her community and live with me, four hours away from her friends. His grim-reaper warnings that the “next time could be fatal” fell on deaf ears. “There are worse things than dying”, she told me.

As a person of faith, I believe that she is right. I trust Jesus’ promise that “in my Father’s house are many rooms… I go now to prepare a room for you there.”

Ideally, a person would have a spiritual advisor to talk to- a pastor, priest, rabbi… But not all seniors have that benefit. Nor do all seniors come at death from similar perspectives.
While each person faces death in their own way, and different races and cultures may traditionally deal with these issues in slightly different ways, death does come to each of us.

“To everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die…” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2a)

It has been said that some people live until they die, while others come to the end of their life, only to find they never really lived. To live until you die is to prolong the quality of life. Christian faith teaches us that we don’t have to fear death. My mother is right. “There are worse things than dying.”

It’s a conversation worth having.