X-Message-Number: 20534 From: "davepizer" <> Subject: Facility for terminal patients Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 11:14:14 -0500 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0021_01C2992A.C850A640 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Here is a reply to Dr. Thomas Donaldson's post. I realize that the post was particularly to Dr. Lemler, and he may also choose to comment. ---------------------------- Thomas Donaldson said: Hi everyone & particularly Jerry Lemler: Your suggestion that Alcor provide a facility for terminal patients seems close to Dave Pizer's idea that his own setup might provide such a facility. If I understood Dave, that was one of the main long term goals of Dave Pizer. David replies: I saw the need for a place for Alcor members to be able to come and deanimate during the 11 years that I was on the Alcor Board and/or was an officer of Alcor. I have discussed this with Dr. Lemler on a couple of occasions. He has mentioned his desire to create a type of Ronald McDonald type facility for cryonicists. There are some pros and cons that I envision on who owns this facility that I will discuss below. Thomas Donaldson said: 1. Why then aren't there efforts to combine these efforts? 2. If anything, it would probably cost a lot less to make such arrangements with Dave Pizer than to set up an entirely independent facility. 3. Dave has been a member of Alcor for some time, and at various times took an active role in Alcor, though he isn't doing that now. 4. No, Dave does not exude an air of scientific or medical expertise, but that hardly means that his cooperation could not be valuable. David replied: Pros and cons Reasons for Alcor to have a facility of their own: 1. Control. Alcor's own facility would allow them to have complete control (as much as possible under the laws of the state of Arizona. Keep in mind that there are not a lot of laws pertaining to cryonics so this type of facility will be subject to the opinions of law enforcement people and law-makers. Reasons for Alcor to not own the facility 1. Avoid appearances of wrong doing. When Dora Kent was allowed to deanimate in the Alcor facility in Riverside it helped for her to get a better suspension than if she had suffered legal death somewhere else. However it caused a great controversy which Alcor then had to defend those actions and that defense (as it became successful) may have triggered bureaucrats to cause Alcor problems in other areas. (too complicated to discuss here). So much so that Alcor finally had to move out of the state. Many non-cryonicists just do not understand that Alcor wants to give its members the best suspension possible and that Alcor does not want to make large sums of money to be divided as some form of profit among living members. So when a member deanimates under Alcor control and Alcor "takes in" a large sum of money, the non-cryonicists just do not seem to understand. At this time, many cryonicists think that it will be best for Alcor not to be viewed as supplying a place for people to die, (with Alcor in control), and then Alcor eventually getting a large sum of money as a result of that death. 2. Shared costs. If Alcor owns the facility, they will have to pay for its costs to own and operate. These costs might include: Purchase price (perhaps a debt to service), property taxes, property insurance, utilities, liability insurance, repair and support, caretaker, and other possible costs. If the facility was at the future VentureVille site, some of these costs might be defrayed or reduced. For instance the need for a separate caretaker would go away. But even if this was part of Ventureville, there would still be the costs and they would have to be recovered by the users of the facility in some way, just as if Alcor owned it. Thomas Donaldson said: Moreover, even if you want a facility right next door to Alcor's facility, there would still be problems in catching EVERY terminal patient right at their moment of death. Nothing prevents a suspension team from being based at Pizer's place rather than at Alcor itself... if instant response is wanted. Pizer's reply: Above we were discussing the pros and cons of ownership of the proposed facility. Now we are discussing the distance (these considerations would exist no matter who owned the facility). The VentureVille site will be about one to one and a half hours drive from Alcor in easy traffic. In hard traffic or an accident on the freeway this could be longer. The advantages of not having this facility at VentureVille and having it closer to Alcor are that Alcor may be able to do the suspensions better if they are 15 minutes away then if they are an hour or two away. Either case is better than if the suspension is in another state. The distance problem may be handled by Alcor having suspension preparation equipment permanently at the VentureVille site. I think a patient could be washed out and cooled down at the site or even on the way to Alcor in a specially equipped vehicle. If this could be worked out, there would be no loss of time being an hour or so away as more than that is needed to get the patient prepared for perfusion and more than that is needed to get the Alcor team assembled and ready to do the complete suspension. I might be wrong on this as things have changes somewhat since I left Alcor management. The Advantages of having the facility at VentureVille are a little more complicated. So I will try to relate what I saw as a terrible problem in getting people to move close to Alcor at time of death. During the 11 years that I was involved in Alcor management one problem that I saw was how members acted when time of their now personal death came upon them. Some of the members made bad decisions regarding how they would get suspended. One thing that dying people do not like to do is go away from their homes and die in a strange place. So if dying members are unfamiliar with the place and won't leave their homes, it doesn't matter if the hospice is 15 minutes or 1 an hour and 15 minutes away from Alcor. The advantage of having a hospice, (or as Dr. Lemler has refereed to it - a Ronald McDonald type facility for cryonicists) at VentureVille is that all cryonicists would have a time to visit the complete facility (the resort, the retirement center, and the hospice) during times of their healthy lives. So when it was time to go to a hospice close to Alcor and die, chances are that many of our members will have visited the VentureVille area several times and it is not a strange place to them. It is a place of other supporting members (hopefully cryo-friends) who will be there with them during the dying process. And it either case the dying person can have their family accompany them to either facility. Another consideration may be that the suspension team will be comfortable at VentureVille while waiting out the start of a suspension. With computers and separate facilities the Alcor personnel can be working on their Alcor projects while waiting out (sometimes a very long) dying period. Still another advantage might be that some (perhaps later on - many) cryonics members will be living at the retirement/cryonics community and so they don't have to "move" there from somewhere else when it is time for their own suspension. Dr. Lemler has mentioned to me another important consideration. At present, Alcor seems to have a good relationship with officials in Maricopa County where the present hospice is located. VentureVille is in Yavapai County. It is unknown what the attitude would be of officials in this county. This would have to be explored by Alcor management before they would want to proceed to far along. ---------------------------------------- Finally, I would like to mention that whatever way the Alcor Board finally agrees they predict will be best for Alcor, I will be willing to help out. At present I don't have a preference. In some ways, it would be better for me if Alcor had its own facility close to them. Then I would not have to be involved and this would be one less thing we would have to work on in developing a cryonics community. (If Alcor builds its own hospice type facility, we will still pursue the cryonics community and retirement center idea). For instance, if the Alcor Board comes to the conclusion that it is best to have a Ronald McDonald-deanimation facility close to Alcor and operated by Alcor, I will support that and if Alcor wants my help in procuring that real estate and verifying zoning usage's ect., I will be glad to help Alcor procure that if they feel they need my help. ------=_NextPart_000_0021_01C2992A.C850A640 Content-Type: text/html; [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=20534