To think Gill Pharaoh had the ideal end of life

It’s not just about finding the money somehow, it’s finding people who want to be carers, nurses, doctors etc. It’s very hard work and people have more complex health needs than ever before.

Indeed.

The talk about money and resources regarding caring for the elderly is centred on the current system we have where decent care is hard to fund and ascertain as an individual. At the moment AD doesn't exist so nobody is trying to coerce anyone into anything. This is just how society has structured themselves and the financial reality we find ourselves in where nobody's healthcare is fantastic unless you can privately fund it. The old are suffering undignified and painful deaths.

It's all very well pretending we can magic up loads of money and this won't be the case but we have no evidence this will happen, either here or overseas. Care can be incredibly expensive and few of us are paying enough tax over our lifetimes to cover all our costs to the state and then gold standard care in our old age that could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds each year. At some point we have to be realistic and stop blaming governments and politicians for everything. We don't have indefinite resource.

NO ONE is telling elderly people to die. But if other people want to die (assisted dying) let them. It seems to me that people don’t like thinking about their mortality. We are ALL going to die, let people choose how and when they do it.

The Netherlands policy is very strict. It’s for people who have unbearable suffering. There was the case of the young Dutch woman ( Zoraya ter Beek) who was granted euthanasia for mental suffering.

All the comments about old people being a drain and no one to care for them are a bit disturbing. it sounds like blaming a person for aging gracefully and they should just die for the good of society. The problem is the government and no planning or foresight or care and typically turning people against each other. ‘There’s no money’ is such a load of sht. Why don’t people hold politicians accountable? because THEY are the problem. Not old people.

Doesn’t the Netherlands have a euthanasia policy? I think even in such cases there is a serious application process that must be ‘approved’ to ensure a person is making the decision themselves.
‘Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are legal in the Netherlands under strict statutory due care criteria: unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement, a voluntary and well-considered request, and independent physician consultation.’

I am not against it; the concerns are always around a policy being misused.

I don’t think it just depends on health. Some healthy people want to die (maybe preempting a decline in health like Gill Pharaoh.). Some people reached a point of just no longer wanting to live.

(“Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain.”)

Unfortunately, plenty of people on Mumsnet seem to think they are. Someone posted a thread on here a year or so ago, suggesting that certain treatments and medicines on the NHS be limited to people below a certain age on the basis of cost to benefit ratio.

No one is “writing off” old people. But just because some elderly people are full of life, doesn’t mean that other people shouldn’t be able to die if they’ve had enough of living.

I guess it depends on your health. My dad was very ill last 2 years of his life, he died at 82. I know he was miserable and in pain. I think he would have done this if it was available to him. My mum is the same age, still alive and active. Totally mobile and has no serious health issues.

How did they write everyone over 75 off?

No, but to write them all off as the OP has is just as disingenuous.

I agree with this too. I’ve already said it on this thread, we have a massive shortage of doctors, nurses, midwives and carers in the UK and it’s getting worse. If people want to die, they should be able to in a safe way (assisted dying.) This shortage of medical personnel isn’t going to magically change.

@MistressoftheDarkSide I do think that an apparent disparity in care due to economics is a very sad thing; I am probably hopelessly naive but I don't see why the last few weeks or months of a persons life in such circumstances should be so heavily influenced by number crunching. We are most vulnerable at the beginning and end of our lives, and care and compassion should be of a gold standard for all
Very few people in this country receive gold standard healthcare at any point in their lives unless they pay an awful lot of money to access private healthcare. I have recently waited for 4 hours in A&E with people who were visibly in a lot of pain and have struggled to get a GP appointment for an issue that is going to obviously worsen without timely attention. I have family members that have been on waiting lists for years whilst their quality of life has been impacted. People are routinely denied expensive life saving treatment and drugs because they are too expensive.

In this context, I would suggest you are hopelessly naive. It's hard to justify money being pumped into keeping someone alive that doesn't want to be alive at the end of their life whilst we are unable to meet the basic needs of those that desperately want to live and remain healthy. There is an opportunity cost to everything. We also can't focus resources heavily on the already dying and ignore treating everyone else. We need to have mature conversations as a society about how resources should be apportioned and what this means for all age groups.

Yes, I don't know much about it admittedly, but I have heard that. I really don't think it should make a difference once people are in hospice care and actively dying, but I understand it can't be a simple thing to try to safeguard patients from murder, while also allowing other patients to be given enough pain relief that they might potentially die of it.

Harold Fucking Shipman screwed that up, aided & abetted by later healthcare murderers putting older patients (mainly women) 'out of their misery' on the sly.

I totally agree that pain relief should be available as needed. I imagine the safety protocols are under review; have no idea how that's going.

This is bullshit. We're lucky (very lucky) to live in a society that doesn't abandon its older citizens. I'm over 70, not well off, and live in a housing association flat with the rent and council tax paid by the council. Medical treatment courtesy of the NHS.

Living on the state pension isn't exactly luxurious but it's definitely life!

One thing you don't realise until you get older & sicker is that your mindset changes as well. Most of my life was very exciting - good and bad - and I used to view 'contentment' as a kind of third prize, the best you could hope for if you couldn't be 'happy' or living life to the max. Turns out I am contented and this is what I want!

There's a bit of an odd transition, well documented on here - and then you take a look around and think 'Yes, I like this. I feel safe. It's all okay.'

Thank you for your kind words - and likewise solidarity on the loss of your grandmother - I am glad such a tough experience was made more bearable due to the care and attention from the staff.

I do think that an apparent disparity in care due to economics is a very sad thing; I am probably hopelessly naive but I don't see why the last few weeks or months of a persons life in such circumstances should be so heavily influenced by number crunching. We are most vulnerable at the beginning and end of our lives, and care and compassion should be of a gold standard for all.

And yes, the relaxing of restriction of pain relief in such circumstances should be a good starting point for how we facilitate a "good" death as far as we can.

I'm so sorry about your mother. That sounds absolutely horrendous. I was with my grandmother every day through her final eight weeks in private hospice while dying of breast cancer, and they were amazing at making her comfortable, but most people don't get the benefit of private hospice care and it must be awful.

I absolutely agree it makes no sense to restrict pain relief in terminal patients - in my opinion, when someone is actively dying they should be given (the option to have) enough pain relief to completely eliminate the pain - and if the side effect is an overdose that kills them more swiftly, it makes little difference at that point. The aim shouldn't be to kill them, but there should be priority placed on pain relief regardless of the risk of overdose.

If my surname was Pharoah, I’d definitely ensure I was expensively mummified. Missing a trick otherwise.

I don’t think suicide is a negative thing. It’s devastating for the family and friends left behind, but for the actual person it means an end to their suffering. It would be worse to be “forced to live” so other people don’t suffer.

It's not a push, it's a pull from people who want it. Nobody needs to change their own point of view.

I nursed my mother for the last month of her life during lockdown; she had ovarian cancer and it was as brutal and harrowing as you describe. Bar district nurses there was little support and an added layer of pandemic induced obstructiveness from other branches of the NHS, but conditions were extreme so I'm not going to whinge about that, although it still rankles.

On the subject of restrictions around pain relief, this should definitely be addressed. When someone is actively dying and consciousness is elastic at best, I see little point in prolonging the agony to avoid perceived complicity in the process.

Alright. The same logic would apply to many suicides from incurable depression, or trauma, etc. I think it's interesting to see the push to turn suicide into something that is positive more often than not, and to be facilitated, rather than something generally negative, and to be avoided.

Hospice care is not poor. It's absolutely exceptional, especially the one I worked in.

It simply isn't possible to control pain completely without causing loss of consciousness and risk of premature death and that isn't allowed.

There is no way to preserve your dignity if you are unable to leave your bed to use a toilet or have lost control of bodily functions and you can't bath or shower yourself.

With the best will in the world, death from serious illness is often unavoidably painful and degrading.

You won't hear many people involved in end of life care who will talk about this, though. They know it would upset people to hear it. Especially not hospice workers as it would affect their donations.