Nora Wagner Tells of Terri's Pain

Cybercast News Service

(CNSNews.com) - A nurse, who worked until Monday at the hospice where Terri Schiavo is dying of dehydration and starvation under court order, claims Terri feels pain and the nursing staff medicates her for that pain. Nora Wagner also claims she was fired Monday after expressing support for keeping Terri alive.

Wagner has been a nurse for 30 years and spent the last two years as a contract employee of an agency that provides nurses to the Woodside Hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla., where Terri has been kept since April of 2000. She told a Florida television station that Terri's feeding tube should not have been removed.

"She's not physically ill, other than being brain damaged," Wagner told WPTF reporter Sarina Fazan.
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Experts Say Ending Feeding Can Lead to a Gentle Death
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: March 20, 2005 (Excerpt)

To many people, death by removing a feeding tube brings to mind the agony of starvation. But medical experts say that the process of dying that begins when food and fluids cease is relatively straightforward, and can cause little discomfort.

"From the data that is available, it is not a horrific thing at all," said Dr. Linda Emanuel, the founder of the Education for Physicians in End-of-Life Care Project at Northwestern University.

In fact, declining food and water is a common way that terminally ill patients end their lives, because it is less painful than violent suicide and requires no help from doctors.

Terri Schiavo, who is in a persistent vegetative state, is "probably not experiencing anything at all subjectively," said Dr. Emanuel, and so the question of discomfort, from a scientific point of view, is not in dispute.

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These "experts" claim they know, without question, that Terri is not experiencing pain.

Ms. Wagner disagrees. She lost her job because of her account of what she witnessed.

The New York Times keeps promoting starvation as a very peaceful way to die.

In that case, I guess world hunger is no longer a problem worthy of our attention or aid. After all, the victims of famine aren't suffering. Starvation is a good thing.