 Aloha. I'm Marcia Joyner and we are Navigating the Journey. Today, with our guests, we will revisit a special edition of Navigating the Journey with the late John Radcliffe. John was on a powerful journey that most of us can only imagine. August 4, John passed the way he wanted peacefully at home surrounded by family and close friends. Ending his life with the prescription we've put for more than 20 years. With John in mind, the first episode of Navigating the Journey was created in October 2017 on what we call soft sell to the legislature and the public. Navigating the Journey is dedicated to exploring the options and choices for the end of life here. To assist people to talk about their wishes, it's time to transform our culture so we shift not talking about dying to talking about it. It's time to share the way we want to live our lives and end our lives. And it's time to communicate about the kind of care we want and don't want for ourselves. We believe that the place for this to begin is not in the intensive care. Together, we explore the various paths to life's ending. Together, we can make those difficult choices. Together, we can make sure our wishes are respected. We invited various members of religious and traditions, as well as politicians, to talk with us about the end of life customs in their culture. So if you're ready to join us, we ask Navigate the Journey. Our guest today has been with us through this whole journey. Blake O'Chill was our very first guest on our first show in October 2017. Blake waved everybody. Hello, everybody. And then there was John Governor, John. And John, of course, was on our show. We were on his show. And John was one of the former governors that wrote this beautiful letter why the bill shouldn't be passed and the importance of it to the community. And then there's Scott Foster. Scott, hello. Scott is the director of the Hawaii Society for Death with Unity. And Scott has been on this road for more than 20, 30, I don't know how many years. So to ask those to join us today as we go down and watch the video with John, Blake, would you tell us, since you were our first guest, tell us about what part and journey you've been on and where we are today so John Radcliffe could pass peacefully. Thank you so much, Marcia, for having me on this show and for actually putting on this show to help educate listeners about this journey. And back in 1998, Governor Caetano set up a blue ribbon task force that looked at the issues around dying. And one of those recommendations with Death with Unity that was modeled after the Oregon law. So shortly thereafter in 2000, 2001, we tried to pass the bill, we got closed, but unfortunately they didn't make it. And so then the bill just kept coming back up and up again. And it took practically 20 years, for a bill to finally make it in 2018. One of the big differences was John Radcliffe being sort of the main advocate that people could hear his story. And I think hearing the stories are really, really important. So people saw the journey and understood the pain and the suffering that he wanted to avoid. And so I think it's really, really fitting that at the very end, he got to leave life on his own terms after a seven-year battle with cancer. It just became to the point where he said, I'm done. And then he got to choose how he acts. And I think it's really, really appropriate. So I want to thank you for having this show and for paying honor and tribute to John. Thank you. Well, yes. And that's what hold all of those years every week was dedicated to John. So, governor? Yes. Tell us about you and your role in all of this and that letter from the governor's. Well, you know, first of all, I wanted to say that I've I've always had theoretically an idea of that this was probably a positive thing, but I never really got into the subject until, you know, actually till John took up the cause. And what's ironic about all of this is for those people out there who may not have met John, he is the most alive person you could go and spend time with. I mean, what he was was a person who was always up, buoyant, always positive. I mean, he believed that if some if the mountain had to be moved, he could do it, you know, and so it's so juxtapositioned in a sense, his personality and the subject matter, which to most people would seem to be very serious, which it is. It's a very serious matter, but I would say very, in a sense, you know, dark, but it wasn't to John. No, John, the whole cause of what he was talking about was a way of life, a way to live your life and a way to make it so that you could go and say, I have done what I want to do. I've moved the mountain, you know, it's a happy cause. So I think when John joined the effort, he added a dimension that was lacking. It was maybe not treated as seriously in the past. Now, so that when he was in the middle of lobbying at the legislature to get the bill passed so that people could, you know, exit with dignity, he also had relationships with the prior governors, with like myself. I mean, he came to my show on Tink Tech, Hawaii, and I think he was with you when we sat there and we talked about the importance of the bill. But he also knew former governor of Africa. He knew Governor Kaiton. He knew Governor Ariyoshi, and when the time came and he needed public support, he asked us whether we would support the bill. And obviously everybody did, and hopefully it helped move the measure along. But it really was his personality. That's my point. He was a special person. It was his personality dealing with this issue that made it something that people wanted to do. Well, we dedicated this whole every show for three years was about with John. When I went through all of the files we had on him, all the shows day after day of watching until I found one that was perfect for today. So thank you. Thank you so much for your continued support. Scott? Scott, are you there? I'm here, yes. Okay. Now, we can't see you. Tell us about the beginning of this journey. I first became involved with the issue just before the AIDS pandemic had really become the monster it later became. I was philosophically supportive of the issue because I had been working with the National Hemlock Society. And at that time, there were very few of us that went down to the legislature. But the hero to me is the late Andy VanderVort, Andy, a lady, a nurse, registered nurse, Andy VanderVort, who brought me to the issue kind of full term after AIDS hit. And of course, so many of my friends were suffering from AIDS that I was wholeheartedly for the issue. And as we went along, it grew slowly and surely and every year we added more and more people. But I must say that had Andy VanderVort not been working with the Hemlock Society and brought me to the issue, I would have probably just shrugged my shoulder and said, so what? But so the issue has been fulminating for, I don't know, 30 years anyway. And I was very grateful to have been included in this gathering of folks who each played their own own part in the history of this very important issue. Now, now that it's law and has been operative for several years, I guess we can all pat ourselves on the back for having that faith in people like Andy VanderVort and Uncle Jugi Heen. I've got to mention Uncle Jugi Heen who was very involved early on. There's a whole list of them. They're on our website, the Hawaii Death with Dignity Society, if anyone wants to know the history. Once we pass the bill, I kind of have stepped away from it and let nature take its course as it would be. But thank you to all and anyone who was involved in those early years and certainly John Ratcliffe who played a key role at a key time. Thank you for inviting me and including me in this group. Thank you, Scott. And now we shall see the bill with John. And again, thank you, Scott, and Blake, and Governor Waihe for joining us. And now we'll go to John. To have you. For anybody that doesn't know, I can't imagine that there's anybody in Hawaii that doesn't know John. He has been here since when, 40 years now? Well, yeah, I came here in 1975 to run the State Teachers Union, and I did that for 13 years. And following that, ran for Congress in 1988. I lost, which was a very good thing for me. It really helped me a lot in life. And then I settled in and started operating the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly. J. N. Musto and I pretty much ran that organization for 17 years and he for 30, you know. And then I retired from that. And I've been a lobbyist for, since around 1990 or so, so I do a lot of lobbying. And I've been at the legislature now for, you're right, 41 years. Yes. Yes. Have I known you that long? I guess it hasn't been that long. So we've known each other a long time. We were doing civil rights stuff together back before when we were trying to get a Martin Luther King Day here, when it was very tough to get people to come out. It was. And we also did a lot of stuff for gay rights and stuff when it was not very popular. Are we always on that side? Well, we're, yes. Yes, we are. Marcia and I are both card-carrying Democrats and liberals. So that's just the way that is. Well, but we want to talk about you today because you are venturing down a journey, a path, that most of us have seen, have had family members, but we don't get to talk about it. Now, the paper said that you actually had your chemo treatment while you were the guest at the legislative opening of the legislature. So how does that work? Well, it is something, it was hard to see it. I mean, you could see it on me if you looked, but I didn't make a big deal of it. What happens is that when I have chemo, it's three days of chemo, not just a minute. So I go down on a given day, in this case, a Tuesday, and I put about five hours in when they infuse me with these chemicals. And then they take the infusion stuff off and they plug me into a machine that meters chemo into me every 90 seconds for two days. So that's what I was doing on the floor. I'm sitting there with a bag here that meters chemo directly into my system, and then the next day I get it removed, and then I get sick for a few days, and then about today, after all that goes through, that was last week, now by today, I'm pretty good. I'm tired, but I'm pretty good. You look great. I'm pretty good. It's a lot of chemo. I don't know how much more I'll be able to take, but right now it's working. But with cancer, there's a reason that it's called the emperor of diseases, because it has a thousand, a million ways to transform itself, to move itself around in your body and do things to you. So you have to be constantly watching for things. I mean, it might be fingernails, it might be swords, it might be eruptions, it might be skin eruptions, it might be terrible pain in your gut, it might be anything. You could go half blind and stuff. Various and sundry things happen to you when you have chemo because there are side effects, and they're not very pleasant. The question about life here, and the thing that we all should be thinking about is, what's the quality of it? How long can you stand it? I've argued that what I've gone through, and what I know that others have gone through who have suffered and suffered much worse than even I have been suffering, and painful, terrible, terrible things. Where was I going with that? I can't remember where I was going with that because it gets me in the head. But I realize that that happens, and people don't talk about that, the quality of life that's left to you at the end. Are you going to lay there in bed, exhausted, and in pain, and suffering or not? Can you get better? How long can you stay better? That sort of thing. I get out and walk as much as I can. I exercise as much as I can. I think people can see that I'm making an effort. I do not want to die, but I'm dying. So I'm not a fool. I think we have to understand what the thing is and deal with it, and I'm dealing with it. It's unfortunate in life that not a lot of people want to confront this, I guess, ugly fact. I am willing to do it. I've always been willing to be the guy if I have to, to do it, so there you go. I'm a cancer survivor, and I know that pit of your stomach when the doctor says this is what it is, and it's really difficult mentally, as well as physically, mentally, to deal with this is what's going on. And so I'm really honored to have you to talk about it, your willingness to talk about it, and you are, as always, which is in your DNA, to lobby for the ability to have medical aid in dying. So let's talk about what is medical aid in dying. What it is, is a legal prescription that will allow a patient to personally take that medicine, not being given to it, but have to take it themselves. It's not the doctor that does it. You do it if you feel you need it, when you feel you need it, with your family around you, and so forth. That's what that's about, so that the doctor doesn't go to jail for doing that, okay? What do you mean go to jail? Well, right now it's not legal for doctors to prescribe a medicine which will end a person's life. It's just not legal in the state of Hawaii. It's legal in six other states, not legal here. It's being, it's in approximately 20 more legislatures this year, in addition to our own, so that's almost half the states in the union are involved in this, and it's something which is moving nationwide, because as in some other issues that have occurred socially, this is one in which the minds of America have changed over the years. For example, we've done a poll here in Hawaii just recently, which indicated that 80% of the people of Hawaii would like to have this. 20% have problems with it. Only about 12% of people in Hawaii are adamantly opposed to having this option. Now, I guess my, how it is, how is it okay for a doctor to turn off the ventilator in the hospital? How is it okay for the doctor to prescribe morphine, give her as much as she needs? How is it that they can do terminally sedation, and that's okay? But to write a prescription for a person to take it themselves is not okay. Well, it's a, we're, I think we have a situation in which medicine has become better over the years to such a degree that we can be kept alive indefinitely for a very, very long time anyway, with nothing else going on than artificial stuff keeping you going. That we can do. But we still have a prejudice against allowing people to control their own lives at the end. That is just a prejudice that is in the medical field. I understand it. It comes with the Hippocratic Oath, Do No Harm. But, you know, a little common sense would be useful with the Do No Harm part. And I think doctors, most of the doctors that I talk to support this option. None of them that I know of except for Chuck and a few others are willing to come out and talk about it. Chuck is your doctor? Yes, Chuck. He's the other guy on the suit with me. So let's talk about, you just said suit. You are suing? Yeah. We're also suing in court to determine what the law is. We have had two attorneys general in the state of Hawaii, the last one, David Louie and the current one, Doug Chen, who have indicated that the current status of the law does not allow doctors to proceed with providing that medication and be assured that they were not going to be prosecuted. So we are going to the courts to say, is that the way you see the law? The attorney general applies this. You be the judge, so you say. So, but I saw Mr. Louie say, well, he did backtrack and he said, well, if there are enough safeguards, then he felt it would be okay. Sure. And there are plenty of safeguards. This is a very specific legislation. The legislation, you have to be of sound mind. You have to have less than six months to live. And there have to be two doctors that have to say that. You've got to have, you know, two doctors willing to say that they're go ahead with this. There's all sorts of safeguards in it. It would be pretty much like the Oregon law, which has worked now perfectly, perfectly for 20 years. John has been a survivor of polio. Yes. TB polio, virtually every other childhood disease known to man, but survived most of it. The worst of those was the polio. I had polio when I was eight and was paralyzed for about three months, fully recovered from that. And that was wonderful. That was the most difficult childhood thing, but it did help me become a terrific reader. So that's good. Yeah. So that's why I'm calling him survivor. And he's going to survive this also. Oh, yeah. I mean, now, in terms of what you mean by survival, is my body going to survive this? No. What's going to happen is that my body is already gone. I mean, I was given six months to live two years, almost three years ago. I've been working very hard on staying alive. But trend lines don't go that way. The question is, and people seriously say this to me, well, what about a miracle? Yeah, I'm, I'm happy. I'm open for a miracle. I'm, I'm up for that. I would like a miracle. Well, let's have a miracle. Okay. It happens. That'd be great. But in the meantime, in the meantime, I think I've got to take action to, because I know it's coming. Well, we all, we all do. I've been there. Yeah. I mean, I have been there. We all, and there isn't an end to it. We all, one of these days, it's going to be the end. So, you know, folks, and it's not that everybody dies. And that's not the important thing. The important thing is what did you do when you were alive? Did you do the best you could when you were alive for the most people that you could? You know, were you helpful? Were you a good neighbor? That's the kind of thing that makes a difference. So let's talk about the bill that is before the legislature. And if, well, and simply put, what can we do? Thank you for asking that question, because Marcia and I are both smiling at that because this is an organizing question. If you believe that you have a right to determine under certain circumstances your own method of death because of pain and suffering and things that cannot be otherwise prevented, if you believe in that, then you got to organize and you got to get down to the legislature and you got to make a scene because they are going to do and nothing, nothing, unless there's some reaction from the people. They don't care about the fact that 80 to 88 percent of people in Hawaii want it, that Catholics and other Christians are now supported. It's troublesome to have to take up these tough social issues. So unless people say take it up, they're not going to take it up. They're going to fool around. So I urge every single person out there watching this, if you know a legislator, call a legislator. Call a legislator. Talk to a legislator. Every single one of them, you know, find out how they stand on this. And if they are against it, move them toward it. If they're for it, thank them and get their vote. Just to let you know, when you know this, only in Hawaii or all of the legislators, all the city council people, all of the Ohaha trustees, their phone numbers are listed, their doors are not locked. Go, call, be there. If you feel this is something that you can benefit. Now, you know, we, it's the, he doesn't want to go, but it's the cancer that's taking him away from us. And so we need to not only support John, but hundreds of other people in the same condition. I watched my mother. She had emphysema and, you know, you can't breathe. And every breath she labored for a year and having to watch her, because we had her at home with hospice, it tore me up. Marsha, I gotta tell you again, folks that are watching this, because I'm in the situation now, people call me all the time and it's the damnedest thing. People are calling me for things that happened in their families 25 years ago, that they feel guilty about today. People have called me that are crying themselves to sleep at night now. What they did or didn't do 25 years ago and still with them. You know, that's not right. No. I mean, that's not fair for people. And it's just time, folks. You know, I say to people, ask your own moms and dads out there how they feel about it and talk to them. The title of the bill is relating to aid in dying. Yes. And it's HB House Bill number 201. Right. Is there a Senate bill? There will be a Senate bill because a companion bill coming out of the Senate. I can't remember the number offhand, but it's out now. I think today's the last day for introduction. I think it's out today. Yes, Senator Inouye. Yeah, Senator Inouye's got. Lorraine Inouye. Lorraine's got a House or Senate Bill five something, but I'm not sure. And the number. Yeah. So, but we do need your support. We do need you to call, to write, to visit, do whatever you need to do. Now, there's also we need you. We need this. This is not just really not about me. Okay. I'm over with in that sense. This is about other people. The reason I decided to do it is because I knew that other people needed to have this done. And as I sit with chemo patients all the time, you know, it's rough just getting up and walking around for most chemo patients. So they can't do this. And then they weren't going to do it anyway. I mean, was it their thing? It's, you know, I'm the kind of guy that stands on the street corner and says, the people, look at this. I did it when the civil rights movement, I did it for the Vietnam War. I've done it for teachers. I've done it for university professors. I've done it for all my clients. Be fair, you know, and that's what this is about. Well, we try to help others get a fair shot. I think that just seeing you willing to talk about it, willing to be vulnerable, willing to put yourself out there so that the rest of us can say, you know, here's somebody that's really knows what they're talking about. It's not somebody that says, well, if no, this is real. Your listeners might be interested or watchers might be interested to know that I also spent 10 years on the employee union health fund trust board. Some of that time is the chair of that. And that's the largest public sector health trust in the state of Hawaii. And so I know a good deal about how health insurance works and what it's about. This is extremely costly for the state as well. I thank God that I have Medicare and am able to, you know, to get through this because I'm also have insurance. If I didn't have insurance, this wouldn't be an issue because it's costing to keeping me alive is costing thousands of dollars a week. Yes. Nationwide statistics say that Medicare spends more on people at the end of their lives and all of their lives. And it's estimated that one day in the hospital with what you're doing is a $10,000 a day. Oh, yeah. And I've been in lots of days. Yes. So I've been in lots of days. Yeah. Now, let's separate this. We don't want you to think that, oh, it's costing so much money. So we're going to get rid of Grandma. No, no, no, no, let's do not confuse the issues. Go back and look at the legislation. Legislation is very clear. Yeah. So this isn't something that somebody does to somebody. Yeah. So let's let's let's clear that up. Don't don't think for a moment that you often hear that. I know. Yeah. Well, we can't do that, you know, because yeah. So no, trust my own siblings. But seriously, grandma's estate is gone by the time you get through this, the medical costs. We're not talking about grandma. So we're not. So we're not doing that. Okay. So don't go there. Don't even think about that. This is your choice that you get to do for yourself. And nobody else gets to make that choice. Nobody else gets to make that decision. So don't let anybody scare you and say, oh, we're going to do this. No, this is your choice. And it is about your choice. It is about each one of us. We get to choose who we're going to marry. We get to choose who we go to school with when we go to this place. When we go on vacation, we get to choose. So we should be allowed to choose when the illness has taken the quality of life away from you. When there is no choice, when there's nothing else that medical can do for you, you need to be able to make that choice. Without this choice, my end, my choice is going to be what I'm left with, which is starvation. Well, don't do it yet. We need you for a while. So listen. Aloha. Thank you. Thank you all for being with us over the years and support John. We did finally get a bill passed, care our choice. And it took effect in 19, 2019, to think of all the years and all the people. So again, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I don't know what else to say. But in honor of John, all of the people that worked so hard to make it happen. Aloha. And we'll see you next time.