By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

THE pain suffered by a family grieving over the death of a terminally-ill family member should not be exacerbated by the presence of law enforcers coming to their residence for homicide investigation.
In line with this argument, Sen. Jesse Lujan, R-Tamuning, has introduced a compassion bill that would allow the family to mourn with dignity and in privacy without government intrusion.
“We don’t have a hospice here. So doctors allow terminally-ill patients to enjoy his or her last days in the loving care of their family. But under the present law, any death that occurred at home is considered homicide, so police officers come to the house to investigate the case,” Lujan said.
Lujan introduced Bill 6 following the death of Stanley Edward Palacios Cruz, a 14-year-old boy who succumbed to cancer late last year. In anticipation of the boy’s death, his physician sent him home so he could enjoy his last days with his family.
Mike Perez, the senator’s chief of staff, recalled that police officers came to the Cruzes’ residence to look into a possible foul play.
“It was traumatic enough for the family knowing that their patient was to expire soon. The police were aware of the circumstances of the boy’s death, but they still had to do the investigation because that procedure was established by law. They had to go through the motion,” Perez said.
The Cruz family and medical authorities considered the investigation procedure “unnecessarily intrusive.”
The existing law, called “The Natural Death Act,” recognizes a fundamental right to control decisions relating to one’s own medical care, including the withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment in case of terminal condition. The law, however, does not fully provide for the privacy of patients and their families.
“The present law says that if a person dies outside of the hospital, the police have to do an investigation before ruling out foul play,” Perez explained.
Lujan’s bill, titled “The Stanley Edward Palacios Cruz Family Compassion Act,” seeks to afford families protection from “unwarranted governmental intrusion,” when anticipated death occurs at a place and under conditions permitted by law.
The bill supports a patient’s decision to leave the hospital or other institutional setting “upon certification of anticipated death by the patient’s attending physician.”