The Culture of Selfish Zealotry Keeps Families From Their Dying Loved Ones

This is exactly what I was talking about.

Jennifer Johnson, barefoot and in her pajamas, ran to her grandfather's bedside once a hospice worker said his death was moments away.

She got there - one minute too late.

Johnson said the chaos outside the hospice where Terri Schiavo is dying kept her from saying goodbye. When Johnson arrived, a police officer demanded identification; she had none. And after a hospice employee cleared her, another officer halted her for a search with a metal detector.

The delays lasted three to four minutes - the last of her grandfather's life.

"It's a terrible, extra obstacle to put in front of a family. ... Everything is about Schiavo," Johnson said. "It's all about her and in my family's case, it cost us dearly."

Woodside Hospice has 70 patients besides Schiavo, whose parents are desperately trying to have her feeding tube reconnected. Dozens of protesters have arrived from across the nation since the tube was removed March 18, and at least 15 have been arrested, prompting a police barricade around the facility and unprecedented security.

Family members visiting patients must pass through a police checkpoint to park, then show identification outside the door before another security screening inside. They also must walk by scores of signs decrying Schiavo's "crucifixion," "torture," and "starvation," plus navigate around hordes of media who have been camped outside.

"To have to maneuver through all of this and have a hostile environment outside when all they want is peace and quiet and to enjoy those few days they have left with a loved one is a horror," said Dr. Morton Getz, executive director of Douglas Gardens Hospice in Miami.

Getz said many people with a family member in a hospice have to make the same excruciating decision that courts have made for Schiavo.

"It's causing a lot of grief and questions in their own mind on whether they did the right thing," he said. "It's unconscionable to have a family member to be near the end stages of life and to get there, you have to walk through signs that say, 'Murderer."'

I'm sorry that the Schindler family hasn't been able to see beyond their own no-doubt-considerable grief to ask publicly that protestors stop this. That's not to blame them although I think they feel that these people are important to their cause.

So perhaps it's time to move Mrs. Schiavo to a different facility, one where the circus can't parade into her room all the time. There is no reason for the Schindler family lawyers, all these religious and political types who have no association with Mrs. Schiavo, and all the others to be there. We keep hearing how "private" Mrs. Schiavo was in her life and yet someone - and I do not believe it is Mr. Schiavo - keeps supplying CNN with increasingly pathetic looking pictures of her (I've seen two in recent days). However, it's not clear from the pictures how much is wasting and how much is the fact that she is no longer being made up with cosmetics as she was in videos. Yes, I think it's worth questioning who is supplying the images and with what permission?

At this point, everything should be done to make the situation as calm and peaceful and painless for Mrs. Schiavo as possible. No one but her husband, family, specially chosen friends, and medical staff should be anywhere near her. Hospices always have a very adequate spiritual team on hand so there is no reason to bring in armies of outside ministers, priests, etc.

But that same situation should extend to other patients and their families at the hospice. Just as with Mrs. Schiavo, they've done nothing to deserve this terrible intrusion into a most difficult time in their lives.