Why do we put animals out of their misery but let humans suffer?

Yes. I watched my mum suffer and wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Horrific. The sooner we get assisted dying passed the better.

It’s so hard to ‘police’ though- I always say in the days coming up to my dad dying he had some dark dark days and for two days in a row he said ‘this isn’t living, I wish god would just take me’- then the day before he went into a two day coma and then died, they upped more of his morphine and was sitting up and said ‘I didn’t realise how bad I was before yesterday, but today feels like a blessing.’

He appreciated the flowers in the window, he was talking a bit, held our hands a bit etc etc, not bounced back but you could tell he was content and he was telling us he was going to fight on, life was for living and you didn’t just want to suddenly go etc etc. On that day had anyone told him death was coming or he had any options he would have been horrified.

I had so many friends who said similar, some w parents with dementia who had good days when people thought they were gone, and I have nurse relatives that have said there’s marked improvements then dips in patients then up again.

'Death is an aspect of life and like life itself can be rather unpredictable, uncertain, uncomfortable and messy. We need to know this'

This.

We don't put people to sleep as people aren't pets.

Death is distressing and never convenient. We all need to step up, accept that, do what we can to make sure hcps are doing what they can to ease suffering and show some resilience. Yes we'd all like to go quickly in our sleep but sadly it rarely works out like that.

I’ve worked in Hospices for 20 yrs and have a reasonable insight into death and dying . In numerous instances I have been taught by patients that their life has been worth living, despite being in enormous pain and discomfort. A life that I , personally thought was not worth continuing. So I am not in favour of assisted dying- there are numerous ways of doing this and those that say they will rarely do.
There is a problem with this country wanting to sanitise death and put it into its box . Death is an aspect of life and like life itself can be rather unpredictable, uncertain, uncomfortable and messy. We need to know this

I really can’t see why it’s anyone else’s damn business how my life ends. And I would 100% be off to Switzerland if I became so ill that the pain was too much.

I am fortunate I have the 10k or so it costs, what happens to the poor souls who can’t afford it.

I've never heard anything negative about assisted dying in any country. There will always be the selfish types who scour the world to find the exception that proves their rule. Usually one example that in their mind justifies their stance whilst totally disregarding the hundreds or thousands of safe and appropriate outcomes.

I 100% disagree with you. Drugs and care do not exist that can totally eradicate the pain and trauma some face when given a terminal diagnosis. This is not about how it's funded. It simply doesn't exist and never will.

So I ask you again - why do you get to choose how I die?

The comparison between my dog’s last day and my dad and grandmother’s last days is stark.

I knew it was time to have my old boy put to sleep, he was in pain and miserable, we’d exhausted all the options the vet had to offer and it was awful watching him struggle. Me and my ex-husband put our lovely fella in the car, took him to his favourite park for a mooch around, bought him a burger and ice cream then went to the vets where he died in my arms.

My dad was on a trolley in A&E for almost 3 days, no privacy or dignity. When he finally got to a ward he was extremely distressed and confused. He died 4 days later, suffocating to death from end stage COPD. This is the man who had berated me the previous week for not checking my tyre pressure that month! He’d been lucid and his usual self at that point. My mum had to watch her husband of 56 years die, gasping for air.

My nan had a fall resulting in a bleed on the brain. She seemed to be making a good recovery, sat up in bed talking, complaining about missing her beloved sport on tv. The care she received was poor, she wasn’t given her levothyroxine which was vital as she didn’t have a thyroid gland, she was put in incontinence pants despite being fully capable of using the toilet at home, the food was dreadful and unsuitable for her dietary needs. However she was doing well and we thought she’d be home reasonably quickly.

Then the call came, another bleed and this one was unrecoverable. We were told a couple of days at most. Unfortunately Nan clung to life for another 12 days, no food or water, unable to move, often left on a soiled pad for hours where she developed bed sores, tears streaming down her face.

You can’t tell me that euthanasia wouldn’t have been kinder for them both.

I don’t think my DF would have asked to end his life when he had a short prognosis as he really didn’t want to leave us. Luckily, at the end, the A&E doctor was very kind and gave him legally prescribed drugs which helped him have a pain free and settled end.

Had my Df illness not been terminal he couldn't cope with his body and breathing he was was bed bound by the end

I spent time on a ward with old men dying it was awful and at least two went whilst I was there they died on a full ward of mixed patients some with dementia no one was by their side and their relatives came in after ie no one to support them.at all.

Luckily I was there my Df and I was able to get him a side room alone when the time came , sponged his mouth and helped as much as I could he had been begging for death weeks before. The whole exercise was heartbreaking and yes my cat will get better treatment.
Like anything else some nurses were amazing and some were utterly desensitized and shouldn't be allowed near patients at all.
It was traumatic all around and he had a terminal illness not cancer...
A friend had cancer and had it cut out , she said the worst part was dying inn the UK a slow and painful death.
The problem is unless you have these experiences you don't know how beyond barbaric it is

Love this.

I live in Canada and honestly we rarely hear anything about it, and if we do it's positive. Only on MN is it a horror show!

These predictions aren't 100% accurate. By definition, a predicted life expectancy of six months is uncertain, because it means a doctor definitively thinks you are too well right now to die, thus why they're giving you six months, not six weeks. The six months is being suggested because they expect based on the average progression of your condition, that you will deteriorate and be unwell enough to die within six.

It's educated guesswork. Some people die much sooner than that. Some people... don't. Esther Rantzen thought she was going to die by June 2023. She's still with us.

In my own personal experience, I was a carer for a lady who was hospitalised with an acute illness. She was discharged as end of life.

After a year or so, the staff caring for her suggested that her GP reassess the hospital doctors' conclusion, please. She's not exactly mouldering away, either. Since then, her physical health and mobility has improved and she likes going to gigs. It's now been more than two years since that hospital discharge.

I am heavily involved in the strategic delivery of services within a niche area of cancer care, and much of that work is charity funded. The problem is that charity funding and taxpayer funding are fundamentally different. A charity’s first responsibility is ultimately its own survival, and in difficult financial periods — like now — that means frontline services are often reduced or withdrawn in order to protect the organisation itself.

The danger of relying on charitable funding for essential clinical services is that it allows commissioners and government to step back from adequately funding those services directly. Over time, systems begin to depend on charities to fill gaps that should never have existed in the first place. We are seeing the consequences of that now: charities are tightening their belts, scaling back services that the government has relied upon for years without properly funding, and patients are left facing the shortfall.

Hospices are perhaps the clearest example of this. It is shameful that such fundamental end-of-life care remains so dependent on charitable fundraising rather than secure public funding.

Until we have properly government-funded palliative and hospice services that can guarantee reliability, equity, and genuine choice, I do not believe assisted dying should be introduced.

I was in a psychiatric hospital, and one of the patients was there after a suicide attempt. She had terminal cancer. She had a tribunal, and was allowed to go home with her family. She should have never been there to start with.

I can't see how it could be abused if there were strict rules about terminal illness and death within 6 months, as it was proposed.
The person will be dead in 6 months anyway. That is not really going to impact inheritance.
The only difference is that they get to die with dignity.

Agree. This is the problem. It can and will be abused. You only have to look at Canada to see the issues. It's unfortunate because I understand where OP is coming from and it would be lovely if it were possible to do it without the danger of it being abused but I can't see how it can.

If you have terminal cancer, or MND, or dementia or one of a host of other ending illnesses then wanting to die painlessly and with dignity at the time of your choosing is hardly a sign of mental illness.

I am all for AD. It is criminal that someone could be bedbound and in immense pain, and suffering all sorts of indignity, and their request for that all to stop is left on deaf ears.

Pets are PTS, and under the premise of 'better a week too early, than a day to late'. We let them go on a day that is nicer for them. We spare them the mercy of spending their last moments suffering. And we do that for them.
But we are not allowed to do that for people who are asking for it for themselves. It makes no sense to me.

Wow that is horrendous.

Agree 100%

I don't think assisted dying will ever come in in the UK as there are too many vested interests in maintaining life long after any quality has gone. Its a tragedy.

It’s horrible. My mum has dementia and for the last year of her life she was bed bound, couldn’t eat by herself. couldn’t talk, didn’t recognise anyone, slept loads. Her body was for some crazy reason just being kept alive. I fully support assisted dying. My dad told us (after she eventually passed) that if he had first signs of dementia he would take his own life. In the end he had stage 4 lung cancer which went go brain so no cure and after 18 months of chemo and relatively normal life he started to feel very unwell, got a horrible infection was in hospital. He told the doctors after 3 days he didn’t want any further treatment and passed 2 days later. He was so brave and a man of his word. He wanted to die on his own terms.

The current system isn't fit for purpose. People should have the choice to have an assisted death.

I really hope it becomes law in the UK. But I fear it won't because of vested interests like the huge 'care' industry and politicians sucking up to sections of their voters who are against it.

Unpleasant?! Fucking hell. What a distasteful and brainless thing to say about death. How dare you speak about death as 'unpleasant'! A bird shitting on your head is unpleasant. Overcooked pasta is unpleasant. You are unpleasant. Death is so much more than unpleasant!

'Adequate' treatment?!? Where do I start with that?

And it's not about you and your fucking privilege! Jesus, how selfish?! It's about the person who is in mental and/or physical pain who sees no way out other than it being over with through death.

Have you done it? Because if you had, I think you would know that what you've just said is, in many cases, utterly bollox. No treatment or drugs can control the mental torment of knowing you are dying. No drugs can take away the indignity of losing control of your bowels, the indignity of losing your ability to dress yourself or feed yourself, the indignity of losing the ability to get out of bed or to communicate. Drugs cannot get you to the beach or for a walk in the woods or out to your favourite restaurant.

This is up there with one of the most thoughtless posts I've ever read on here.

Yes, I agree. Most people support choice. I support Dignity In Dying's campaign to bring in assisted dying as a choice with appropriate safeguards.

I want to have that choice for myself. And if it saves money for my family or for the taxpayer, that's a bonus.