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Prue Leith and Assisted Dying.

181 replies

Jaichangecentfoisdenom · 16/02/2023 23:37

I happened on this discussion earlier today, on LBC:www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/david-lammy/prue-leith-makes-case-for-assisted-dying/ I've made it clear to my family that when the time comes, if I'm suffering from a terminal illness, I'm off to Dignitas in Switzerland - but I'm lucky, we can afford it. Religious reasons aside, what would you want for family and yourself?

OP posts:
BordoisAgain · 18/02/2023 19:04

OutofEverything · 18/02/2023 18:57

That has happened. A case with a woman with dementia who had signed an advanced directive beforehand. She told Drs she was not ready to be killed and they geld her down and killed her.
People talk about killing people with certain conditions in a very niave way. It really is not that straightforward.

Oh wow, when was this? That's murder!

OutofEverything · 18/02/2023 19:08

"But the fact is that a few years prior, she had requested to be euthanized if her dementia worsened — a wish her family felt obligated to honor over and against her more recent protests. In order to inject the lethal drug, the doctor had to secretly sedate her, and her family had to hold her down."

eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2019/09/25/physician-assisted-suicide-euthanasia-dementia-doctors-column/2426908001/

neverendinglauaundry · 18/02/2023 19:09

CaponeOnTax · 16/02/2023 23:42

For my family and myself, I would want a comfortable end. I begged the doctor to speed my mum’s end, it was awful.

But what I want for the health service/the law is not assisted dying. I think it is highly risky and definitely a slippery slope to people feeling they ‘should’ end their lives. It works across the Hippocratic oath. Hard cases make bad law and all that.

This

OutofEverything · 18/02/2023 19:10

And given how the Liverpool Pathway was enacted, it would not be enacted well. It would simply lead to a number of awful cases.

ArianahX · 18/02/2023 20:44

All 4 of my grandparents had dementia.

My Grandad & Nan were extremely forgetful for years before dying of pneumonia / heart failure and needed carers but were generally quite happy in themselves.

They both had good quality lives despite having vascular dementia.

My other Nan had vascular dementia but also had psychosis with it and had to be sectioned and covertly medicated with anti psychotics. She did suffer during her psychosis but once she was medicated she was happy to see her family & didn't even realise that she had dementia! Sadly she also died suddenly of aspiration pneumonia before she had chance to get home from the EMI unit.

But my other grandfather suffered badly with Alzheimer's type dementia & I think he would have preferred assisted dying.

I think with dementia you have to remember there are many types of dementia which affect many people in many different ways.
Some people can live quite contented lives and some are very distressed.

I do think that many older people with dementia get depression and anti depressants are not used enough in that age group.

Personally I already have a serious mental illness (Schizoaffective disorder) and I understand I may get dementia if I live long enough!

But I just don't like the idea of (let's be blunt) being killed by a doctor.

Plitvice · 18/02/2023 20:49

Look, it doesn't matter which side is taken. It is going to happen anyway because they have already admitted that they will never be able to meet the needs of the ageing population.
Only five years ago, they would not even easily concede that the NHS and social care were in crisis. We don't have the same tolerance to either the thought or reality of the pain and suffering of ourselves or others or the efforts and authority of professionals to deal with it.. The religious veto has become irrelevant as well.

Plitvice · 18/02/2023 20:52

I meant to add that I do not think it will become compulsory but it will be pushed whenever possible (just like DNR forms) and if you choose life then the message will be to put-up-and-shut-up with less precise accountability.

Caramelsmadfuzzytail · 18/02/2023 21:53

I believe that assisted dying should happen. I watched my mother die over 5 years from motor neurone disease. Life limiting illnesses should be the remit.

Cuppasoupmonster · 18/02/2023 22:02

Plitvice · 18/02/2023 20:49

Look, it doesn't matter which side is taken. It is going to happen anyway because they have already admitted that they will never be able to meet the needs of the ageing population.
Only five years ago, they would not even easily concede that the NHS and social care were in crisis. We don't have the same tolerance to either the thought or reality of the pain and suffering of ourselves or others or the efforts and authority of professionals to deal with it.. The religious veto has become irrelevant as well.

What’s the alternative? Even with the best care in the world, dementia can’t be made less scary or distressing.

Cuppasoupmonster · 18/02/2023 22:04

MrsMcisaCt · 18/02/2023 18:36

My aunt has dementia. She is also bedridden after a fall she had 5 years ago. She spends a lot of her days screaming and shouting about the demons in the room - she hallucinates a lot. She has to be changed like a baby, has no quality of life and can only lie in bed. The only way she can sit up is if they put the end of the bed up. It is utterly heartbreaking for my uncle, who is her 24 hour carer.

I mean can you even imagine how terrifying that is? Believing there are demons surrounding you? It’s unbelievably cruel that some people want her to live through that because they’re indulgently ‘uncomfortable’ with the idea of euthanasia.

Cuppasoupmonster · 18/02/2023 22:05

Twentywisteria · 18/02/2023 18:32

And if you sign that document, but the version of you with dementia wants to live - what then? Do you want doctors to hold you down and kill you?

There would have to be an assessment. If it was clear the patient was generally distressed then yes.

Andante57 · 18/02/2023 22:25

Dh and I have signed Living Wills, but as pps have pointed out, people can live with dementia for years without needing antibiotics or resuscitation. If I was diagnosed with dementia then I’d like to go to Dignitas (if I was diagnosed early enough) but I don’t think they will take you if there’s any suggestion of mental disorder as they fear coercion.
I hope and pray assisted dying is brought in to this country.

Flowersintheattic57 · 18/02/2023 22:55

Personally I intend to have a supply of Fentanyl so that if unbearable pain or dementia gets me I will quietly dose myself into oblivion.

OutofEverything · 18/02/2023 23:05

Cuppasoupmonster · 18/02/2023 22:05

There would have to be an assessment. If it was clear the patient was generally distressed then yes.

Which is why I would never agree to anything like this. If you change your mind you could be over ruled and murdered.

Badbudgeter · 18/02/2023 23:17

OutofEverything · 18/02/2023 23:05

Which is why I would never agree to anything like this. If you change your mind you could be over ruled and murdered.

Which is fine and is your choice to make. It’s also reasonable that some of us would make different decisions if given the opportunity.

Cheeriochoc · 18/02/2023 23:21

i would support assisted dying in your home / a hospice with loved ones around. I don’t think there’s any dignity for people having to travel abroad to die far from home and loved ones. It sounds horrible and sterile.

However id only support it for certain limited cases and I think it would have to be so heavily regulated that it’ll never happen. Imagine all the poor oldies who have fallen out with their children, suddenly being given a little pill by their estranged child to pop them off so they can get their inheritance a little earlier!

Andante57 · 19/02/2023 08:45

However id only support it for certain limited cases and I think it would have to be so heavily regulated that it’ll never happen.

Cheerio You said you’d support it in ‘limited cases’ so what’s the point of that since you go in to say it would be so heavily regulated that it will never happen?

Jaichangecentfoisdenom · 19/02/2023 16:53

If there were a way to assess "quality of life" for every individual who might contemplate assisted dying? I don't know, I just remember how unhappy and in mental and physical pain each of my parents was, and I would happily have slipped them a pill to stop it. Not with an eye on my inheritance. Oddly, in both cases, they wouldn't have had long to live anyway between when I thought it was unbearable for them, and was unable to watch their suffering, and when they actually died. Sorry, rambling now. Every single case is different.

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ReleaseTheDucksOfWar · 19/02/2023 17:00

Bimbleberries · 18/02/2023 10:07

I support it too.

But the problem with things like dementia (which also runs in my family) is that we wouldn't be allowed to opt for it if we were in that situation, because we'd never be considered capable enough to make that decision if it got to the point where we didn't have much quality of life. And then you're faced with having to make the decision much, much earlier than you might otherwise have wanted to, just so that you're considered capable. I wish there were a way to specify in advance that if you got to a certain point, unable to do various things or meet certain criteria, it could happen. But that's unworkable I think.

Haven't rtft so perhaps these points have been made already but ...

In the NL you can specify ahead of time that you receive the final injections at a certain point in your life. They won't, iirc, let you go to the End of Life clinic unless you are ill - there is always a medical assessment of this.

Being the Netherlands, once the assessment is made the end of life team can arrive very quickly. I've known a few take this choice. One marvellous man I knew was in end stage cancer and he decided after one terrible night that it was his time. His wife respected his choice and by the mid-afternoon the assessment had been made and the end of life team had come and administered the injection.

There was a case here as @OutofEverything said where someone with dementia, who had left instructions for the end-of-life team to come at a certain stage, actively fought it when the set conditions were fulfilled as she had lost all awareness of her 'own' will. The family, who sounded loving, said for the team to go ahead because the woman had been very clear when in her right mind that it was what she wanted. Her earlier stated wishes were respected. It went to court and in this very difficult area, the judgement of the team to go ahead was upheld.

Each doctor can refuse to recommend a patient for the End of Life clinic. You can refer yourself if your doctor won't. I'm told that the end of life team are generally a very compassionate bunch (friend of a friend works on one team).

I did hear a debate once in the UK between an informed person and a pro-life person. The pro-life person clearly had some extreme ... issues. He was claiming that in the NL the 'death wagons go round estates drumming up business'. Im not sure what fantasy land he was living it, but it certainly wasn't the NL.

Having said that there are some real and valid concerns about people being pressurized. This is a very difficult area where there are very often no easy answers and people who are looking for them need to acknowledge that. No assissted suicide = condemning people to live in sometimes extreme pain and distress. Assisted suicide = condemning a number of people to relations' pressure to die.

Either way the religious view of 'give your suffering to God' makes me sick, even though I have a belief. It's just cruel. On the other hand there are some rather difficult implications here; in the NL a mother can ask for and receive assisted dying for long established mental health issues even though she has young children. That sits ill with me.

I prefer the pragmatic, sensible approach in the NL where the whole issue is seen as your own choice and giving you the power to decide when to die with dignity, while you still have your own mind. It's not problem free, but it does seem to me like it's the best of an incredibly difficult situation.

I have to ask @NutellaEllaElla
People can live with Dementia for many years before it is those awful things. You're writing off years of good living
what happens when it does get to those awful things? What happens if someone actively wishes to bring their life to a close before it gets to those awful things?

What a disgusting way to speak about humans with an illness.
I don't think this sentimentality has any place in the face of someone in extreme agony who wants to die.

ReleaseTheDucksOfWar · 19/02/2023 17:08

Another point in favour of end-of-life services is that sometimes people who try to commit suicide and fail hurt themselves so badly that they live mildly or heavily disabled for the rest of their lives, often wanting to die and unable to. End of life services tend to prevent this. Some people do still commit suicide, perhaps because (iirc) you do have to be ill physically or mentally in order to access the service. I think.

heidiquill · 19/02/2023 18:01

don't think this sentimentality has any place in the face of someone in extreme agony who wants to die.

I was on the other thread about assisted death/suicide so have name changed. I think those who have witnessed somebody dying (over weeks) in extreme agony can understand this. It was the end stage of ovarian cancer in my case. Without going into detail it was awful.

OutofEverything · 19/02/2023 18:38

Nobody should be in extreme agony when dying. That is very poor palliative care.
I have seen several relatives die with cancer. With one she was very frail and the Drs were clear if they had to top up her morphine over and above what the morphine driver gave it would probably kill her. They were also clear they were prepared to do that. It was unnecessary as the driver kept her pain at bay and she died peacefully.

Yeoken · 19/02/2023 19:32

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Jaichangecentfoisdenom · 19/02/2023 19:56

heidiquill · 19/02/2023 18:01

don't think this sentimentality has any place in the face of someone in extreme agony who wants to die.

I was on the other thread about assisted death/suicide so have name changed. I think those who have witnessed somebody dying (over weeks) in extreme agony can understand this. It was the end stage of ovarian cancer in my case. Without going into detail it was awful.

Why did the health care professionals not stop the pain by giving knock out doses of morphine? (Same applies for people suffering from bowel cancer, as mentioned earlier.)

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