Don’t forget… “Pro-Life” means ALL of life… not just prior to birth… Cardinal O’Connor was right in that…
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When the tragic details of the final days of Russian bard Ada Yakusheva emerged on Facebook… I was stunned. I heard that Yakusheva was battling cancer, but what I hadn’t realised is that her doctors denied her pain medication, on the basis of some bureaucratic error. When her relatives confronted them about her suffering, her doctors curtly told them, “Everyone suffers”. Only on her final day alive did Yakusheva find some dignity and peace. A hospice doctor transferred her to a palliative care facility, where they gave her a shot of morphine; she curled up, and slept, for what was probably the first time in a month. The following morning, Yakusheva passed away peacefully.
I found out about this through the Facebook page of noted critic and TV presenter Irina Petrovskaya. Irina, who was a close friend of Yakusheva and practically considered her family, cursed the doctors who made the old woman suffer so much. Her post soon went viral. Practically everyone saw it… even trolls who tried to attack Irina for her “liberalism” (liberalism? Really? An elderly lady, an admired and respected artist, was left to die in agony… and their first concern is liberalism?). It was shared hundreds of times over. In the comments, people related their own stories of despairing over dying relatives who weren’t allowed to depart this earth with any kind of dignity.
Narcotics legislation is murky and convoluted in Russia. The authorities have pulled out all the stops in their attempt to fight high addiction rates. Yet, the bureaucratic hassles that are routinely associated with trying to get dying patients decent care are unconscionable. Animals are treated no better, with veterinarians subject to such stringent rules regarding pain medication that most simply don’t offer adequate care for pets and other animals in need of invasive treatments such as surgery.
The other issue here is, of course, the attitude of the actual doctors. Most simply don’t have the training to make their patients comfortable. Once it’s clear that the patient is dying… a lot of them simply stop caring. Even though palliative care is certainly a major aspect of healthcare in modern Russia, many doctors still resist any urge to call a colleague who works in that field, if only because they don’t want anyone taking over their case. Yakusheva’s doctors went as far as accuse her relatives of trying to use the dying woman’s condition to score drugs for themselves. The fact that this happened to a well-known personality speaks to the enormity of the problem.
There was no way that these fine and caring individuals were unaware that the details of her suffering and their response to it… or lack thereof… would be made public. They knew. They just didn’t care all that much… convinced that their colleagues would stand in solidarity with them and that their jobs wouldn’t be in any danger. However, you might ask, what about their professional reputation? Well, as Konstantin von Eggert once told me, the whole notion of a reputation has yet to take hold among many Russian professionals. We were talking about politicians at the time, but the same can easily apply to doctors.
Sometimes, I think that doctors wield even more power than politicians… at the very least, their authority’s more immediate. My colleague Anna Arutunyan once said, “It’s because doctors deal with death”. Russians don’t shy away from death… they deal with it head on, and have much more respect for the people who often act as death’s watchmen. I suppose that’s why the whole culture of “let’s get a second opinion” is not very big in Russia… although, perhaps, I’m overanalysing it. Perhaps, it’s really an issue of long lines and rudeness at your local hospital… and the suspicion that the professionals at the hospital next door may be just as rude. For whatever it’s worth, Ada Yakusheva is now at peace. It’s her grieving relatives I worry for now… and the sick and dying who will come after her.
12 October 2012
Natalia Antonova
RIA-Novosti
http://en.ria.ru/columnists/20121008/176490533.html
Editor’s Note:
Yes, Russians do deal directly with death. In fact, all of the Orthosphere does so… yes, it’s the same from Ethiopia to Egypt to Syria to Serbia to Greece and Romania… throughout the entirety of our civilisational space. On the other hand, suburban Americans (especially, the Affluent Effluent) avoid the subject, as they’re voracious grasping brats and self-absorbed immature children. You can see this in the konvertsy. One of the reasons that Real Orthodox are more “forgiving” and more understanding of idiosyncrasy and “marginal” people is our gut knowledge that we’re all going to die and face our Maker, like it or not.
Death is the ultimate reality. All Orthodox, both “Eastern” and “Oriental” know this… in an inarticulate (but immediate) fashion. This gives us an ultimate sobriety about life in general, our fellow human beings, and our personal lives. American konvertsy show the shallowness of children without a child’s very real innocence and purity (indeed, they glory in dwelling on nasty subjects and of accusing this one or that one of impurity). That’s why we should never ordain konvertsy until they’ve been at least a decade amongst us… and never ever ordain former heterodox clergy.
They lack the sobriety of the Real Orthodox… they’re like blind people. Blind people aren’t to blame for lacking sight… konvertsy aren’t to blame for lacking understanding and insight. However, to ignore that one can’t see or one isn’t really one of us isn’t a tragedy… its stupidity. Sometimes, a blind person needs your elbow to navigate around an obstacle… just as konvertsy NEED the constant presence of Real Orthodox around them for the first decade to gel properly (that’s why the konvertsy conventicles are so “off”).
Death is real… deal with it. Life is real, too. That means that either we deal with reality, or, reality will deal harshly with us. For instance, let’s make sure that Bishop Mel (he ain’t perfect, but he’s the best of the current lot to pick from) gets the white hat at the Parma Sobor, not Dahulich, Peterson, or Golitzyn. We didn’t elect the right guy the last time… and reality did deal with us, didn’t it? Let’s not step in the same cow pat again… God did give us brains, after all.
BMD
