Implantable devices can make death slow and miserable
Lynne Warner Stevenson, a Harvard Medical School heart specialist, said people with implantable devices to restart the heart can lead to deaths where , "They are short of breath, getting weaker and weaker. They feel like they are drowning.. For them, these devices can convert a rapid death to a slow and miserable death." She was referring to internal defribrillators, which can continue to shock the heart during dying and even after death.
Some doctors are reluctant to turn off the devices when a patient is dying, thinking it is close to physician-assisted dying. Yet some hospice nurses carry a magnet with them, to use when a peaceful death is inevitable.
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