This week in the UK there is a renewed push by MPs to review the current guidelines regarding assisted suicide on compassionate grounds. Lord Falconer, who heads up The Commission on Assisted Dying reported that the current legal status is inadequate and incoherent. Understandably there are concerns that the elderly could be vulnerable to those who don't have their best interests at heart.
For the past six years, I have watched my father deteriorate to a point where he has lived in diapers for the past four, didn't recognise either of his two daughters or remember my mother, his wife, who was the love of his life. He could not feed himself. He lived but he did not have a life. He passed away in his sleep two weeks ago at the age of 94. He had batted nine good innings but just as in baseball, there is no prescribed limit to how long a game can go into overtime.
Our beloved 14-year-old cocker spaniel Sammy who has lived for the past six months with senile dementia, blindness, a lack of bowel control and use of his legs, was put to sleep yesterday. With our dog we were allowed to choose when to end his life so that he could die with dignity and achieve a 'good death'.
We were not allowed that option with my father.
It is unclear when and who decided it was right for doctors to keep the very sick and helpless alive through the latest advances in medicine even if it means prolonged suffering. And when and who decided that it is right to keep our parents, our grandparents, our friends, siblings, and children alive at any cost? Human suffering is long and drawn out whereas our pets suffer only until we make the decision that they should suffer no more.
In the United Kingdom, in the past 20 years the number of people over 85 has doubled - a total that could double again by 2033. Long term care costs for Britain's growing elderly population has increased 67% between 2007 and 2009, and could cost up to £106 billion a year, equivalent to paying for a second NHS, according to Henry Featherstone, Head of Policy Exchange's Health and Social Care Unit.
Most experts believe that technological change in medicine is the driving force behind the long-term rise of health care spending. However, if one analyses health care expenditures, over half of health care expenditure in both the UK and the USA are spent on patients who die within one year. It is unclear just how much is being spent for services that are not only unnecessary but unwanted. What needs to be analysed is who is benefiting from the billions being spent on health care for people who are being assisted to live against their wishes.
Currently, assisted death is legal only the countries of Belgium, Luxembourg and The Netherlands and the states of Washington and Oregon in the United States. There are stringent guidelines that require two oral and one written request, two physicians to diagnose the patient and determine if the patient is competent, a waiting period, and physician verification of an informed patient decision. The percentage who apply for voluntary assisted death is estimated to be as low as 1% and as high as 3%.
Shouldn't this difficult decision on how to die be the choice of the individual: whether it means clinging on to life for as long as possible or to end one's life when they have full cognitive functions to decide? For the small percentage of the population who choose assisted death, it doesn't seem right that our current laws deny them the right to escape an intolerable life of pain, sickness, and suffering should they wish to do so.
Should the time come, and believe me I hope it does not, I will follow John's wishes. If he wants to hang in, I will bless every second I have with him. If he says enough, I will find a way to make that happen.
as legal guardian, I placed a "DNR" statement in her files.... but when I got a phonecall from the nursing home that indicated that she had sustained respiratory failure - and they had revived her...
I asked the social worker to review the files, and locate the DNR... she did, and when she came back on line, I asked why they had ignored it. I noted that my mother had been predeceased by her husband, brother and one of two sons, and NO ONE was going to come out of the woodwork to 'save Mommy". Then, after a discussion with the social worker about the wisdom of reviving a clearly terminally ill woman whose competencies placed her in the "infantile' stage, I threatened to sue them if they revived her again.
two weeks later, she died quietly, in her sleep.
I have an advanced directive.
He was not getting any better, and was not going to get any better. We put him on "comfort measures" on a Tuesday afternoon; he passed on Saturday evening.
The wait was difficult - we wondered if we had made the right choice, as we were not expecting him to hold on for more than a day, maybe a day and a half.
No matter how it happens, it is always difficult.
The best we can do is make sure we and our loved ones have an advanced directive spelling out that we/they don't want extrordinary measures taken when there's no chance of meaningful improvement. And even then, family members will most likely have to fight the medical profession to get them to obey those wishes.
There's also a significant number of people who've had no major medical interventions to keep them alive, but whose bodies go on and on long after their minds are gone. We have no way to deal with those people either, and as much as I believe in pulling the plug when the time comes, I'm not ready, nor are most other people, to say we can end the life of someone who isn't able to speak for him or herself. It's a tragedy all the way around when that's the situation, but I see no easy solutions.
We =need= to have the discussion that Dr. Kevorkian courageously tried to start and to demonstrate within his profession, in our society at large. This grim aspect of Death is also a part of Life, and as such it is also a part of Care. We need to talk about this. And, we need to have laws about this.
However, this is different; this is old age, the natural progression of humans; nothing wrong with me, I am just old; but I cannot walk, eat, urinate, or defecate as I used to; my vision is degraded, I am too weak to do anything except lay in the bed. I would think that I would want to go, but we don't know the minds of those in this situation, as our instinct is to survive. But I would not want to live like that, because it is hard for my children, too. So whatever laws or entitlements come about that would allow me to go, I would prefer to have.
But this is the big deal: Do we know the motives of those who wish to pull the plug? Is there money, is there land, is there freedom, is there revenge, is there relief, is there love...such a difficult choice.
That's the point of the debate.
And once they've made the choice to go, are doctors allowed to help them with it?
Having taken my step-mother off life support from Alz. she was one of the fortunate ones, it only took her 2.5 years to succomb. The toil it took on my 80 year old father was more devestating....
There are numerous ways that a doctor can end someones life peacefully and without pain. An overdose of morphine for example can suppress the respitory system and allow someone to slip away without pain. Both the US and Great Britain need to take a serious look at this and stop legislatiing from the bible and start using some common sense.
For the record I can tell you really put yourself out there on a limb to agree the compassionate care laws are good for society.
Those very thing put me at odds with liberals in just about every issue that arises.
I don't know what you mean by this, but being a Hospice nurse for the last 10 yrs. I have never seen a family have to pay anything due to the Hospice diagnoses. Most who come to hospice have done so because they are tired and there is no help for the diagnoses. A patient and family who seek aggressive treatment may revoke the Hospice benefit at anytime. Social Security, Medicaid, and major insurance do provide a flat benefit for Hospice. We do however need to provide financial support for those who want to keep their family member in the home with improved "paid caregiver" support. Many families need the support with 24 hour care and find nursing homes not an option. Some will risk their own health to prevent this. At these times we have a 5 day respite to allow the family and patient a short relief from care. Most do not use this option, but most hospice team members will offer this part of the Hospice benefit.
Hospice care involves getting the patient's pain in control or other symptoms, support the caregiver and prepared the family for the terminal diagnoses. This is done with the use of a team approach; Doctor, Nurse, Social Worker, Spiritual, Hospice Aides, and volunteers.
If I have done my job correctly, the death is peaceful and the family well prepared and all provided by the hospice benefit.
Are you infected with prion?
My wife nursed a mutual friend for six months in our local general hospital as an out patient. He was a six foot, fifteen stone fireman, who enjoyed playing rugby. He had been diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer, he was admitted several months later for palliative care . He died weighing something like eight and a half stone. The cocktail of drugs prescribed including morphine were not able to control his pain for the last two weeks of his life! Quite frankly I think that is a disgusting way to treat a human being!
Whilst I know there have to be safeguards to prevent, relatives and/or others from making financial gain, or family who just don't want to look after them any more and just want to rush death along! But the decision should be made in the best interests of the sufferer and their quality of life! This could be done quite simply by two or three doctors and a coroner. I certainly want to be able to go when I choose and whilst I am able to make that decision!