The following letters was just sent to Newsday.  Feel free to
post it anywhere you like:

Dear Editor:

     As a ventilator-dependent person for 30 years as a result of
Post Polio Syndrome, I was very upset to hear about Mr. Bill
White's death.  White, who spent 32 years on a vent after a
gymnastic accident, asked to die.  And hospital officials granted
Mr. White's wish, pulling his plug.  All too easily, if you ask
me!
     Too few value the lives of men and women with disabilities.
Those people, whether doctors, lawyers, politicians, or hospital
administrators, seem at times all too willing to pull a disabled
person's plug and allow someone like Bill White to die.
     It is time that those in power provide the assistance -- the
services -- people like Mr. White need to enjoy life.  Perhaps if
those service were provided, Mr. White would not have chosen
death.
     I had hoped something could be done to improve the quality
of life for Bill White.  Many of us men and women with
disabilities, including Christopher Reeve, tried to talk White
out of his desire to die and get him the services he needed.
Instead this significantly disabled man, who was ventilator-dependent, and
who spent 32 years on a vent lying in a bed in
Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York chose death.
     If you ask me, White wanted to die because he felt hopeless,
and no doubt because New York State hadn't provided the personal
attendant care services Mr. White needed to live independently --
outside the hospital.
     Because of his institutionalized situation, Mr. White saw no
reason for living.  He felt he had no life.  No hope.  And yet if
he had had a better quality of life -- one outside the hospital,
for example, with appropriate personal care attendant services
(as I do), his depression, his hopelessness, would probably have
lifted.
     Outside the hospital Mr. White may have been able to visit
friends and have the freedom to run and organize his own life.
Instead he spent 32 years confined to Strong Memorial Hospital.
And he finally gave up on life.
     Society failed Bill White.  But Society often fails men and
women with disabilities.  The conservative Republican Congress is
presently trying to gut the Americas with Disability Act.  If
they succeed, there will be many more disabled people like Bill
White giving up on life and choosing death.  Is that how we want
to start the new millennium?  I hope not!

Sincerely,


Robert Mauro


                      Bob Mauro, [log in to unmask]
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