The Terms in Kansas

Good evening, everyone. And this is our final segment. We certainly like to thank you for being with us. And thank you for being on boards in Sunday with the Death and Dying series with Bill Moyers. We hope that you found this informative and lightning when it end of life care. Certainly, it's a transition and we've got partners of transition that we're going to introduce to you. And also on the screen, you're going to see a couple of phone numbers. And we encourage your phone calls to the centers and we will get those numbers on the screen and we hope to hear from you. And like I said, we've got partners that can help you with this period in your life that can be stressful, but you don't have to do this alone. And that's why they are with us. This program has been brought to you to help you with end of life care. And so we certainly want to talk to you this evening. Let's introduce to you some of the guests or at least the guests that we have with us. And we're coming to you from various parts of the state. We're going to be coming from here in Topeka and also in the Bunker Hill, Smokey Hill's television station there and also in Wichita Candace with Cam UW.

Now, to my right here in Topeka, we have Judy Martin. Judy Martin is with us and we certainly thank her for her time. Judy is a part time chaplain at the Colman Hill, Neil V.A Medical Center here in Topeka. She is currently leading a group discussion about the program on our terms. She's also the pastor of East Minister of Presbyterian Church in Topeka. She occasionally works for the storm on veil. Periodically helps Jackson County friends of hospice with hospice training. And we certainly welcome you. Thank you, Judy. Now to my left, we have Arty Davis and it's Commissioner Arty Davis. And I like saying the word Arty and Commissioner Arty Davis. Arty is with the outreach and a resource development Kansas Department on aging. He's a former instructor of sociology. His instructions have been in Iowa, New York, Kansas. And we certainly welcome you, Commissioner Arty Davis, on the program with us. And this is great. Now in Wichita, we've got Donna Bales and Donna is really.

And I've got a lot on Donna, but we certainly welcome Donna on the program with us. Donna is president of the Association of Kansas Hospice. And she's also director of life. Let me tell you a little bit about life as the living initiative for end of life care. We're going to, we'll get Donna to tell us a little more about that. And that's a statewide organization. 50 organizations involved in that along with that community groups. We'll be talking more about that. Now also coming in Bunker Hill, we have attorney Dennis Davidson. It's an attorney in Russell and attorney Davis. And we certainly welcome you on the show with us. And we look forward to hearing from you and the program. And again, thank you for being a part of this wonderful program. And then also our last guest that we have on the show with is also coming from Bunker Hill. It's Dr. Eugene Bales. Dr. Bales is professor of philosophy. He's also chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy and Coordinator and Bethany Seminar. And Dr. Bales, I hope that I got all of all of the titles in for you. Dr. Bales, thank you for being with us on the program.

You know, we're going to, you're going to be seeing some phone numbers and we encourage your phone calls. We will have two numbers, two sets of numbers. We'll have one number that will be off air and you'll get an opportunity to talk with our volunteers from the life group. And they're more than happy to take your phone calls. And in fact, they will be waiting to visit with you off air. And then also on air, we'll have a phone number where you can talk with our panel and our guest on air as well. So we encourage you to make those calls. The on-air number is on the screen now, 1-800-866-589-8. That's your on-air number. Now this is our off-air number and the life project on there manning the phones on that one, that's 1-888-202-Life. 1-882-202-Life. So we encourage your phone calls and so you can call us now. Until we get to those calls, we're going to talk with our guests and find out a little more about them. We're going to go to Wichita and we'd like to talk with Donna Bales in Wichita and Donna's with the hospice group there.

But also Donna, tell us a little bit about the life group. Thanks Fred. The life project is one of the most exciting things I've ever been involved in. Over 50 statewide organizations and over 20 Kansas communities and community leaders are actively involved in improving end-of-life care. We're working in the areas of public policy trying to be sure that we have a good policy to support good end-of-life care. We're working in professional education to really help to do better education on end-of-life care and pain management for Kansas health care professionals. And we're working on consumer education to really give consumers the information and the tools that they need. And on our own terms, the Bill Moyer series has been a wonderful explanation of the kinds of death that we're really helping for so many Kansas. And the series has painted the complexity of the issues that Kansas face. We've been listening to Kansas for over a year now.

We've got their experiences and we're really poised to respond to those and see ourselves working as partners with the citizens of Kansas to really be a state where we can live and we can die well. You know, thank you for that. And you know, we were talking here in Topeka and already reminded me that you've been very busy done in your career and in fact it spans for a long time. You've certainly built an excellent coalition, a lot of partners. Certainly the state of Kansas certainly welcomes all of your efforts. You know, I want to talk with Out to Bunker Hill. And if we can talk with Dennis Davidson attorney, you know Dennis from a legal standpoint, end-of-life care, tell us a little bit about how that fits into this picture. Well, we do a lot of a state plan in our practice here in Central Kansas and Russell and always as a part of planning for disposition of your property, you need to be thinking about the end-of-life care issues too. And so we've endeavored to help people understand what a living will is or an advanced directive and to give them an opportunity to use those instruments if that's their intent. And also the importance of having a durable power of attorney for health care decisions and how that differs from a power of attorney generally that a lot of people are familiar with and might have and how important it is that they consider using that instrument so that there's someone appointed who can speak for them and on their behalf if because of illness or injury or some medical condition, they're not able to express their intent, someone needs to speak for them.

You know Dennis, it's somewhat disturbing but for some reason there are a lot of families that are reluctant or hesitant to make a will until it's the last minute. It's a lot of time just too late. Well, that's correct. I've found that on many, many occasions or sometimes I'll have someone call me and say I need to come in and see about making a will but my spouse won't come with me because they don't want to talk about it. And sometimes it takes a while to get them in but we just keep working and we keep trying to inform them and educate them on these issues and what can happen if they don't take matters in their own hands and plan for themselves what they want and usually you know we can we can do the job and get people the services they need. Dennis, thank you. We're going to be coming back to you later and I also want to remind you that on the screen you see the on air number and that's the number that you can call if you like to ask a question on air that's 1-800-866-5898.

You know, and I want to go to Bunker Hill and I want to want to visit just a little bit with Dr. Eugene Bales, you know Dr. Bales from a medical standpoint. Again, we talked about the partnership and how this plays in the end of life care. Tell us a little bit about how the medical community fits into this. I think one of the things that comes to very clearly in this series is the importance of more than just the individual who is dying being involved in this process. It needs to be a process that involves the family that involves medical personnel and a wide variety of others. In many ways, dying in its best sense, if there is any, is something that should be a community experience and not just something that happens to an individual in isolation. That's one of the fears, of course, that many people have that they will die alone. From an ethical point of view, it seems to me that that's part of if there's any good or any happiness in death.

It is that there is a chance for the individual who is ill to come to terms with their life and to do that with their caretakers, with their families and various others. You know, Dr. Bells, is there enough information, and I guess in terms of community awareness or public awareness, the amount of support and help for families out there? Are we doing, is the job done well enough in getting that information to families? I have no direct awareness myself of the situation there, but my own sense from having worked with one person I knew personally who died just recently, was that many people do not have much awareness of what services are available. And the other side of the coin, it seems to me, is that there are many services and a lot of help that needs to be provided, that is not being provided.

So my sense, there's a lot of work to be done on both sides of this question, both in terms of making people more aware and also in terms of providing more help and services generally. Dr. Bells, thank you. 1-800-866-5898, and we've got a call coming from Wichita, we're going to be taking that call, and we certainly encourage your calls 1-800-866-5898, that's the on-air number, and you can call that number if you have a question on-air, and we certainly have our group of experts, and I'm going to call them experts, because they are experts when it comes to this end of life care. They've been in the business for a while, and these are the people that can really help you through this transition period. The call is coming from Wichita, and Wichita, we are ready to take your call. Hi.

Hi. First of all, I want to thank you, it was a great program. Thank you. I'm healthy, and I have talked to my family a lot about when my time comes. But what this program really made me question is what support or information can I give my family and the caregivers? Is there pamphlets? Is there some kind of packet so that I can sit down with them, they know what I want, get it in writing, but also where they can go for support and assistance in making sure I get what I wish. You know, I'm going to, we're going to go to, here in Topeka, Judy Martin, and Judy is a chaplain at the Colmry O'Neill. Judy, you heard that question about the support. Wichita, thank you for that call, by the way, and you heard about the support. What kind of support is out there? There are pamphlets, there is reading material, contact your local hospice, your own clergy, should be a very good source of information about preparing to die well and dealing with relationships and what to expect as the death of a loved one draws near.

I have that information available for all of my patients. You know, Donna Bales in Wichita, we're going to go to Wichita, Donna Bales. Donna, you want to follow up on that support and what's out there? The caller asks for information to share with the family, and we think that is so important. One of the things that I'd like to point out is when the phone number comes up again for the life project, there are caller standing by there tonight, but that number will be operative now for many months into the future. We invite, there's the phone number now, anyone from Kansas to call us, we'll be happy to send you information. We also want to tell you that we have a website which is lifeproject.org for Kansas who have access to the internet. All of these materials are available on our website. We have partners from Midwest Bioethics and Kansas Health Ethics that actually have the samples of the legal documents that you need.

There's information on our website about talking with your family members, questions to ask your physician, questions to ask your clergy, what you should expect and pain management, how to start these very tough conversations. We really think that getting people to talk with one another is so important. Dennis mentioned a little while earlier that one spouse will come to work with them, but the other one doesn't want to talk about it. Sometimes these toughest conversations are the most important, so please call us. We'll send you information, and please visit our website at lifeproject.org, and you'll find a lot of material there. You know, Don, I think you've raised a good point. I think a lot of families just don't want to talk about the end of life, but it is an important thing that we need to discuss as families. We've got a call from Topeka, and we certainly thank you for that call. Topeka, what's your question? And we have our call from Topeka.

We have a call coming from Topeka until we get that call. I want to go back to Topeka while we're here and visit with Artie for a minute. Artie with the outreach and resource development. Outreach certainly plays an important role in the end of life care, and tell us exactly how that piece fits. With Donna mentioned a lot of that, we link to the website through the life website, and we also are producing an end of life chart that doctors can post in their offices, and we've posted all over Kansas. People can call our 800 number or get it through the website, the hospice website, or the life project website. A lot of it too is just getting personal, as was mentioned, people are not comfortable talking about this subject, so we need to connect people with others who are comfortable talking about it. We all know we're going to reach our end, and this whole program, the whole series, is certainly pointed out the importance of facing it, accepting it, planning for it. It's part of, we can really appreciate our lives more when we do that.

Judy Martin here in Topeka, we've got a call coming from Wichita, and Wichita, what's your question? Hello. Hello. Yes. I was wondering for people who do not have anybody just, you know, at the end of their life, and they really wish to die. Is there any way they could help them in a group to die, so they wouldn't be alone, they wouldn't be scared. Could they do that? That's hospice. Donna Bill, we're going to go to Wichita, or Donna Bales, you heard that question, and let's talk a little bit about that. Let's do. Unfortunately, at some point I have to agree with Dr. Bales, we still have so far to go, and what we offer people. However, we do have two residential hospice units in our state, where patients can go, hospice patients, and spend the last weeks or months of their lives. And often, these are people who do not have someone who can help to care for them in their home. And again, if you'll call the number, we'd be glad to tell you, one of those is in Hutchinson, and one is in Topeka.

And those are services that are available now within the state. Some assisted living houses will also accept patients towards the end of life, and if they're particular parts of the state that you're concerned about, we'll be glad to help you. On our website, or by calling our phone number, we are developing now, they're not completely ready, but community resources in our 20 caring communities. These communities that are very actively working to improve end of life care in their own locale are all creating directories for consumers of resources. So please, again, check the website, call us, we'll try to connect you. Dr. Bills, thank you for that. 1-800-800-866-5898, that's our on-air number to call. We've got to call from Topeka. Topeka, what's your question? Topeka, we have a call from Topeka. What is your question, Topeka? Hello? You know how we're getting a Topeka call, and we'll, Topeka call back, because we certainly, we certainly do want to talk to you, so make sure that you call back. You know, we're going to go to Topeka here, and I want to talk to Judy Morton, because a chaplain plays a very, very big role as everyone does, and certainly just recently, and I watched this series with interest too.

My dad just passed this past week, and the first person at the hospital that visited us when we got there was a chaplain, and it certainly was great, and you guys do an excellent job, and talk a little bit about that. That is a primary role that chaplains serve as to be there at the time of death, or prior to death, to help people learn what to do at that time of death. What's important for them, and especially to provide comfort and understanding of where do we go from here? The patient has died, funeral arrangements, what we need to do at this stage, but primarily to help the family at the point of death, process and transition with that loved one who is dying.

I think it's wonderful for families to be around the bed as a patient is dying. Recently, I was in an emergency room here in Topeka at Stormont with a family whose father was passing away, and they were singing hymns, and it was a marvelous experience for them to be singing to him the songs that he wanted to hear. And they just sang him into the kingdom, and I thought that was a wonderful way. It was at home going. Yes. We've got a call from Lassine. Lassine, are you with us, and what's your question? I was wondering if I'm having problems with my mom doing a wheel. Well, my two sisters don't want her to do it. One reason they don't want her to do it, she don't want to be hooked up to any, when she wants to go, she wants to go, she don't want to be hooked up to any machines.

Lassine, you know, we've got an attorney, I mean, we've got attorney Dennis Davidson there in Bunker Hill. Dennis, you heard the question? Yes, I think the caller's mother needs to take the opportunity to review what an advanced directive is, or what's commonly called a living will. It has nothing to do with your property, but it does have to do with what the caller's talking about. And that is that if a person has an illness or an injury that is going to result in their death, and the application of life sustaining procedures, is only going to result in the prolonging of the dying process, but will not cure the patient. Then they can state in this document known as a living will that it is their intention that these life-sustaining procedures not be applied to them, and that they instead be withheld, and that they allowed the dignity to die naturally, providing, however, specifically that it's not their intention to refrain from receiving comfort care. That's not what this is about. This is about not artificially prolonging the dying process, and Kansas has what the legislature has called the Natural Death Act, which specifically gives Kansas the right to express their intention in a document like a living will.

And I really think that that's what this caller's mother needs to be looking at, and probably signing up, you know. And then after she does that, it's very important that she let her doctor know she's done it, and what we always do for our clients is provide several copies and say, take one to your doctor and ask them to put that in your chart. Take it to the hospital, if there's a hospital that you have a relationship and ask them to put that in your chart, and then make sure a family member or a close friend or a loved one also has a copy. Because health care providers can't honor a living will if they don't know about it. So it needs to be communicated that you've stated your intention and that the documents available to them. Dennis, thank you. You know, we've got a call coming in from Newton. And Newton, are you with us? Yes.

Thank you. Ask your question. Thank you. Yes. My question is, I don't understand who falls under the durable power of attorney. Is that a lawyer or is that a friend who you're giving power to? Thank you, Newton. And we're going to go back to Bunker Hill. Dennis, you're still there. So did you, did you hear the question, Dennis? What you're talking about is the durable power of attorney for health care decisions, which is a document that you use to appoint someone else to speak for years so that they can communicate your intention that that medical care either be accepted or withheld someone who can provide or ask for health care services to be provided, check you into the hospital. If someone who can review your medical records for you, if you can't do these things for yourself. And the direct answer to question is, this could be anyone that you trust. You would select the person that you most feel comfortable with. That you would want to speak on your behalf if you can't speak for yourself.

Thank you, Dennis. We're waiting for calls. You have that number 1-800 that's on your screen now 1-800-866-5898. Want to go to Bunker Hill, want to stay in Bunker Hill, want to visit with Dr. Eugene Bales. And Dr. Bales, and my question is, and we heard Judy Morden talk about how important it was to have chaplains there. From your perspective, the doctors, this is a certain new type of bedside manner. Maybe not new, but are you often involved, or do you get involved with families in end of life care when they're actually at that point? No, I don't personally am not involved in that kind of work, but I'm aware generally of the shift in the last 20 or 25 years in the concern for making the education of doctors more oriented toward human care of the patient and the move away from a purely technical approach to medicine. So I think that's been one of the things that is absolutely essential in the development of good health care at the end of life.

And that is that people begin to think about the individual who's dying as a human being, and what they're good is, and not merely using technology to prolong life without any concern for what that's going to mean for the family, for the individual who's dying. Or for others. Dr. Bales, thank you for that. We have a call from Topeka. Topeka, are you with us? Yes. Thank you. Ask your question. How do you deal with someone who doesn't want to die, and they don't want hospice? Well, I tell you, we're going to go to Wichita and Donna Bales, did you hear the question first of all? Yes, I did. And it's a hard question. If someone is dying and they don't want to die, I think that what we have to focus on at this point is what is the prognosis for that patient? And what is that patient's wish is, this sounds like a patient who really needs someone to do listening.

Another thing that I really appreciated about the Bill Moyer series on our own terms is we saw over and over physicians who were willing to take time to listen to what the patient wanted. Unfortunately, the healthcare system can move so quickly that we forget to do that. And this sounds to me like a case where there needs to be some listening going on. And hopefully, there is someone in this person's life who can really sit down and look at the options, can pull in the whole family, can do some talking. And I would encourage the caller to help this patient get that kind of care from her own medical community. Dr. Bills, thank you. Topeka, thank you for that call. Do we have a call from Wichita? Wichita, are you with us? Yes. Thank you. You can ask your question. Yes. I'm a terminally ill cancer patient. On a living well, though, is it possible to have an independent medical crisis treated? Say, a heart attack or something so that the cancer process can continue, but still go ahead and deal with an independent.

Let's go ahead. Thank you. Let's go to Bunker Hill, Attorney Dennis Davidson. Did you hear the question, Dennis? I did hear the question, and I think I understand the question, but let me restate it to be certain. It sounds like the caller is saying that if he executes a living well, he wants to be certain that if some medical condition occurs, that can be cured. And that he would want that treatment, that the living will not prevent him from getting the care that he would want, even though he may also have a condition like cancer that is ultimately going to result in death. And the answer is, yes, you can do that. First of all, most of the forms of living wells that are being used in cancers without really any change would provide that you would get the care that you want. Say, for example, if you sustained a heart attack and it wouldn't encourage your health care providers to withhold that care because the care is only withheld if your attending position has certified that the medical condition is going to result in your death.

And that the giving of this care is only going to prolong the dying process. Your example is one where a physician would not be certifying that, but rather would be giving you the care that you need. But also, you can customize these documents and you can give very specific directions about what kind of care that you want and what kind of care that you don't want under any circumstances. So the answer is yes, you can do that. Dennis, thank you. Can we have a call from Hiowathe. Hiowathe, are you with us? Yes. You can ask your question now. Okay. I want to know if a next tip can or a person with the power of attorney in health care can override a living will. Okay. I think we should go to Bunker Hill and visit with Attorney Dennis Davidson. Did you hear that question, Dennis?

I did. And this one is a short answer. The answer is that a power of attorney for health care decisions does not authorize the person that you appoint to override your living will. The living will will take precedence. Thank you. We have a call from Wichita. Wichita, are you with us? Yes, I am. You can ask your question now. I was just wondering, is there any ways that you can get somebody to help you with a patient that is my sister? And I don't want to put her in a care home. And she's, I just got an older sister and a brother and they can't need to want to help me and everything. So I was just wondering if there's any way you can get somebody to help you take care of a person like that. Because I have to put her in a home. We have a ramp made for up at my head tonight, even when we're going to be able to get her up and down the ramp this winter. And I've had a two light strokes and I've had a mom's heart attack and a bad blood charge for my lungs and everything.

And I've had my husband, my husband, my wife has been taken care of her and we just are getting where we can already do it. And where I've been so here on everything. Thank you for your call. We're going to go here in Topeka, Judy Morton, Judy. You hear that question? Yes, I did. That's a common concern. You're not alone in being ill yourself and having to take care of a loved one. And that just taking care of a loved one who's sick is very, very stressful. But when you've had health health concerns yourself, it becomes almost what seems like an unmanageable problem. But I would start with your sister's physician and your physician. The physician should have an idea of what requirements your sister is going to need and then begin to look for placement options that would be available to not only meet her needs but what she can afford financially.

And the doctor would have access to people that are able to help you with the financial concerns as well as meeting her physical and emotional and spiritual needs. Judy, thank you. 1-800-866-5898. That's our on-air number. We have a call coming now from Topeka. Topeka, are you with us? Yes. Thank you. You can ask your question now. Thanks for calling. Well, what I was wanting to find out was that me and my boyfriend, we've lived together for over 10 years. And when I went to hospital and got sick, he called and they wouldn't give him any information on how I was or anything. And it's kind of like my first where if he would go in or something happened, I would need to sign papers, you know, information on him and everything. And they won't let me do it because we're not legally married. But I was wondering how we could take and draw up, get papers to work. We can, you know, give him consent or a me consent, which everyone went off to or something like that.

Thanks for your call. You know, I'm going to draw a short straw here and we're going to go to Bunker Hill and Dennis, Attorney Dennis Davidson, is that a legal question or where are we on that? I think so. And I think that the answer lies in what we've been talking about this evening, which is the durable power of attorney for health care decisions. And there's two ways, at least, that you can set up these durable power of attorney for health care decision documents. One is where it only becomes effective. So, for example, the caller could appoint her boyfriend as her attorney, in fact, for health care decisions, but make it only effective if she has a condition where she can't speak for herself. But also she can execute that document and make it immediately effective. And this would give him the right immediately to access her health care information and and her health care providers. So, they probably need to look into each appointing one another as the attorney, in fact, for health care decisions with one of these documents.

And I think that Donna Bales indicated that there was a website or a resource where they could get a look at the documents that are involved, or I think most hospitals and other health care providers also have them. They wouldn't necessarily have to go in and see an attorney, at least, to review a durable power of attorney for health care decisions, if they had further questions they might need to consult counsel, but that's what they need to do. Let's go to Wichita on Donna Bales. Donna, you had a follow-up with that? Let's give that website address again where they can get it. It's www.lifeproject.org. And on there, there's a whole section of consumer resources. And in there, you will find websites that you can link directly to that actually have the documents that you can print off. If you're not able to do that at home, you can certainly do it at the public library or again, call us and we'll be happy to send it to you. Donna, thank you. I want to put you on the spot, but while we've got Donna here, Donna, do you want to give that phone number for the live group if you want to ask a question off there?

Yes, it's 1-888-202-Life. That's 1-888-202-5433. And again, you can call tonight and talk with the operators there or you can call during office hours, we'll be glad to talk with you. I also want to tell Kansans that as they live with people who are in pain, one of the things that we have in our state is a pain hotline. And it's another part that the life project is really working on is trying to deal with pain and to be sure that Kansans don't die in pain. We know that far too many people do have severe pain. And so we've created this hotline for and it's on our website again. I don't have that number right in front of me, but we're encouraging consumers. If you have pain, get your physician to call that pain hotline and talk with another colleague who can help to deal with that. It's not really a question someone's raised tonight, but it's a question that we've heard on the call in line throughout this week. Pain hotline, that's interesting, Donna. Hey, we have a call from Topeka. Topeka, are you with us?

Call from Topeka. You can ask your question now. I'm a woman in my 40s. My mother's in her 60s and she's taking care of her grandmother who's in her 90s. And what I'm concerned about is that neither one of them would want to be in a nursing home if they were both to become so ill. And the concern that I have was like I saw in the documentary about the woman who lost her job and taking care of her mother for eight months. And where did the caregivers go? You know, someone as young as myself. Where would I go to seek help if I wanted to try to take care of if I was in the position to have to take care of both of them at the same time? Are there any resources for the caregivers to go and get help? Let's go to, let's hear in Topeka, Arty Davis, and we hear resources from that caller. We had quite an age range there, 40s, 60s and 90s if I remember right. Resources, and what do you think about that?

That's a difficult question. Donna said early in the program, unfortunately the resources are not adequate to the need. And I think Bill Moriers said this dying is a real spiral to the family. Given that, I would suggest calling as many community resources as possible starting with your department on aging, your area agency on aging. And you can be connected to whatever network is available locally. That's the place to start. You know, I think it's already I think it's safe to say that there are resources out there and certainly certainly a lot of a lot of help for families with the end of care. You know, we've got a call coming in from Topeka and Topeka, are you on the line with us? Yes, I am and you can hear me. Yes, I can hear you very well. You can ask your question now. I work primarily with people that are going to vision loss, vision, but they're also often at the end of their lives. And I'd like to know especially your role, Kansas, what is being done to help those that are isolated and lonely and also don't always have a lot of transportation support.

You know, I'm going to once again, I'm going to draw a short straw and let's go to Bunker Hill because in the western part of the state, Dennis Davis and Dennis, if this is not a question for you, then perhaps we can talk with Dr. Eugene Bales. But did you hear that question on the vision and the support? I did and I think maybe Donna might really better be able to respond to the question. I'm not aware of particular resources for visually impaired folks. I know we are working on rural issues. I guess one of the things that I want to say to preface a comment or two here is to encourage, Kansas need to tell us their stories and where we're lacking resources is where the project partners of the life project want to work on improving them. We have a tele hospice project going on right now in a number of rural areas of the state where those who are at the end of their lives have caregivers actually come into their homes regularly.

But in between those visits, they can sit down and look and talk to one another through the very simple telephone and monitor. They're able to talk to one another. They can discuss issues. They can work with a family member that may have come in from out of town. That's one very small step. I think that dealing with the rural issues is a huge issue for us. We know that it cost more to care. We know that Kansas is aging. There we're going to have more and more people in the next couple of decades who are living in rural Kansas who need additional help. And that's why I believe the public policy part of what we're doing with the life project is so important. I wish I had more news to tell you of where to go right now for help. Thank you. Thank you Donna Bales in Wichita. You know, we have 1-800-866-5898. That's our on-air number. And that's the number that you can call. And we've got four excellent guests with us that can answer your questions. And the phone calls have absolutely been wonderful.

And we certainly want to encourage you to keep those going. You know what we like to do is we're going to share with you some information. And we want you to stick around 1-800-866-5898 information. We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. And you still have time to get your questions answered by calling 1-800-866-5898. Thank you.

Donna Bales in Wichita, did you hear that question? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. I have had doctors sit there and tell me they're afraid of being sued. They don't want to prescribe the pain meditations because I'm going to go out and wreck my car and they're going to get sued or something like that. Donna Bales, what do you think? Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We had a Canadian physician say to us in one of our meetings that he said you Americans are the only people on the face of the earth that act as if death is an optional event.

It's not an easy subject. It's not an easy subject. It's not an easy subject. It's not an easy subject.

It's not an easy subject. It's not an easy subject. It's not an easy subject. It's not an easy subject.

We have a call from Hutchinson. We have a call from Hutchinson. We have a call from Hutchinson. We have a call from Hutchinson.

We have a call from Hutchinson. We have a call from Hutchinson. We have a call from Hutchinson. We have a call from Hutchinson.

We have a call from Hutchinson. We have a call from Hutchinson. We have a call from Hutchinson. We have a call from Hutchinson.

We have a call from Hutchinson. We have a call from Hutchinson. We have a call from Hutchinson.

We have a call from Hutchinson. Next time on mystery, when a sacred relic goes missing, a body is found. Next time on mystery, when a sacred relic goes missing, a body is found. We have a call from Hutchinson.

We have a call from Hutchinson. We have a call from Hutchinson. We have a call from Hutchinson.

We have a call from Hutchinson. We have a call from Hutchinson. We have a call from Hutchinson.

We have a call from Hutchinson. We have a call from Hutchinson.