An excerpt from last Sunday’s 60 Minutes segment, “The Cost of Dying”:
Charlie Haggart is 68 years old and suffering from liver and kidney failure. He wants a double transplant, which would cost about $450,000. But doctors have told him he’s currently too weak to be a candidate for the procedure.
At a meeting with Haggart’s family and his doctors, Dr. Byock raised the awkward question of what should be done if he got worse and his heart or lungs were to give out.
He said that all of the available data showed that CPR very rarely works on someone in Haggart’s condition, and that it could lead to a drawn out death in the ICU.
“Either way you decide, we will honor your choice, and that’s the truth,” Byock reassured Haggart. “Should we do CPR if your heart were to suddenly stop?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“You’d be okay with being in the ICU again?” Byock asked.
“Yes,” Haggart said.
“I know it’s an awkward conversation,” Byock said.
“It beats second place,” Haggart joked, laughing.
“You don’t think it makes any sense?” Kroft asked the doctor.
“It wouldn’t be my choice. It’s not what I advise people. At the present time, it’s their right to request it. And Medicare pays for it,” Byock said.
Watch the entire piece:
“I think you cannot make these decisions on a case-by-case basis,” Byock said. “It would be much easier for us to say ‘We simply do not put defibrillators into people in this condition.’ Meaning your age, your functional status, the ability to make full benefit of the defibrillator. Now that’s going to outrage a lot of people.”
“But you think that should happen?” Kroft asked.
“I think at some point it has to happen,” Byock said.
“Well, this is a version then of pulling Grandma off the machine?” Kroft asked.
“You know, I have to say, I think that’s offensive. I spend my life in the service of affirming life. I really do. To say we’re gonna pull Grandma off the machine by not offering her liver transplant or her fourth cardiac bypass surgery or something is really just scurrilous. And it’s certainly scurrilous when we have 46 million Americans who are uninsured,” Byock said.
A former fetus, the “wordsmith from nantucket” was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968. Adopted at birth, wordsmith grew up a military brat. He achieved his B.A. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles (graduating in the top 97% of his class), where he also competed rings for the UCLA mens gymnastics team. The events of 9/11 woke him from his political slumber and malaise. Currently a personal trainer and gymnastics coach.
The wordsmith has never been to Nantucket.