As a result, nearly 30,000 patients covered by Aetna must accept doctors who remain under contract to the company.

With few exceptions, these patients accepted without complaint the hospital conditions.

Older patients should not accept prescription-drug-induced problems as being part of the normal aging process.

In other words, these patients would, on average, accept a better than 50-50 chance of immediate death to be rid of their condition.

Only four patients accepted the offer, he said, but all felt they had regained control over their lives and treatments.

The patient can then accept they are not special, and that their existence is simply coincidental, without destiny or fate.

And patients accept treatments because, on the whole, they are better than the disease.

Usually after diagnosis, if the patient accepts the treatment, he will stay until well enough to return to society.

Eventually, however, patients accept the circumstances, mainly because there is no choice.

"I guess if it were truly insulting, patients would not come in and accept it," she said.