Legalising assisted dying option, do you support it?

[ForTheSakeOfThePenguin]

Hi,

I just realised there is a group advocating for the option of assisted dying for the terminally ill in the UK.

I am not a member of the group but this is an option I would like to have if I ever come to the point of having an illness that has taken away my quality of life (and that of the people around me) with no hope for improvement.

I've just added my name to Dignity in Dying's public record of support for legalising assisted dying. If you agree, add your name - it only takes ten seconds: action.dignityindying.org.uk/page/107124/petition/1?utm_source=em_share

Thank you

Some stats here about Canada:

The treatment my mum had was very good, during this time for her, they gave water initially and then constant small sponges to wet her mouth, teeth cleaning too.
Also a lot of medication, she was on an end of life plan.

I really hope your mum didn't suffer un duly.

However, my DD (district hospital) has told me of some shocking decisions made to keep people alive for just a few days longer and in huge discomfort, nursing staff shocked at what some Doc's have requested.

How are all these awful stories not arguments for better care not assisted dying? Why is that the reaction? If we can’t do care well why should we have any confidence we would do assisted dying safely?

I’m also a health professional but can’t support it. Many people say they want assisted dying due to dementia but who decides when that day has come and the person no longer has capacity? The family? Medical staff? That’s a huge burden.
There was a doctor in the Netherlands investigated for putting a sedative in a lady with dementias drink but she woke up and tried to get away so her family held her down while they administered the euthanasia injection because 5 years before she had said she wanted euthanasia “when the time was right”.

I also have many patients who although they still have good quality of life would choose assisted dying because they want their house to go to their children and are worried about care home fees and inheritances. Others who would clearly say they want to die when acutely unwell however a few years down the line are thriving. I would be worried that because it’s an option people would feel obliged to end their life even though they weren’t really ready for this due to silent pressure from society. I can really see some of my patients feeling that it would be the morally correct thing to do to avoid causing any burden to others or society in the future. I saw a report outlining the savings that could be made by assisted dying as at approximately just £15 for the drugs the NHS could make a huge saving per person having euthanasia and although ideally it’s the person’s choice there would be an unspoken pressure that you were being selfish or a burden by living l, particularly if you need care which is awful.

I would however support improved palliative care and more discussion about appropriate medical care instead of trying to treat everything just because we can. I see far too many very elderly people that naturally should have passed away a long time ago but because they are being pumped full of drugs they linger on without much quality of life. We often have families are aghast that we would even consider a DNACPR for their 95 year old mother and insist on investigations and treatments when it’s really not in their best interests.

I'm so sorry you had to go through that. It is totally avoidable, but GPs just aren't up to the job and won't take responsibility.

Because the issues are too complicated and need to be addressed at ground level in doctors training. Doctors are risk averse and avoiding taking responsibility and managing someone's decline appropriately. Someone just above described how doctors frequently prescribe inappropriate tests and interventions. Doctors need to get away from this 'every death is a disaster' model and understand that a well managed palliative care situation can bring amazing rewards in the midst of death. The patient doesn't suffer unnecessarily, the family don't have to witness traumatising things, the nursing/care staff aren't subjected repeatedly to morally injurious practises and the doctor can gain professional satisfaction from a job well done.

Two days before my 90 year old mil died, the hospital registrar was trying to prescribe invasive tests. He glared at me when I explained to him that she was dying. I knew she was dying because that was my line of work and had been for over 25 years. The consultant luckily recognised it and discharged her to her care home on syringe driver meds. She died the next day. The registrar was an idiot and idiots like this are in charge of all our declines and serious illnesses. God help us. There is no hope of improving palliative care. No money, no staff, no resources, no education, no wit or intelligence. It is literally as bad as that.

I also worked with nurses who were too lazy to get off their backsides to administer pain meds. And yes, I did report it......to the manager who also didn't care.

So it is cheaper to kill folks off.

forums like mumsnet are being seeded with assisted dying questions to drive public opinion towards the cheaper option, feels like someone (who knows who) is just checking every so often whether we have the stomach for it, what the stumbling blocks are. (Not normally a conspiracy theorist)

I work in palliative care.
With resources and education of all staff not just pall medicine staff, it can be better.
The public also need educating. For every story like yours we have families begging for more time and accusing us of not trying or fighting hard enough to keep alive their clearly dying relative.

With complaints and litigation spiralling staff are also terrified not to be seen to throw all medicine can offer sometimes. The balance is hard to find until society accepts dying is sometimes the reality and cannot be reversed.

Maybe so. This question does seem to keep coming back quite regularly.

Honestly, have you watched someone with MND die?

It's fucking atrocious, no amount of care can compensate for your body failing muscle by muscle to the point where even your own saliva can make you aspirate because you can't swallow, forcing fluid into your lungs.

And whilst this slow suffocating, terrifying death is happening your brain is perfectly alive and alert to every single fucking thing that's happening to you, every conversation but you're trapped there, in your own brain utterly dependent on the patience of your carers for you to carefully type out a message using just your eye muscles because they're the last ones left that work.

Honestly, how does better palliative care fix that? Does that sound like the kind of death that anyone would contemplate as humane or reasonable?

That's not living. No amount of care makes that better short of drugging someone to the point where even their last bastion of life - their ability to think is completely overridden in favour of them being calm. Again that's not living in any sense of the word.

I really think it's barbaric to force people to 'live' in that way. An easier, medically managed route to dying should be available for patients who want it and are already under palliative care with a clear route involving medical professionals and family.

This is nothing to do with money. This is everything to do with humanity.

There have been a lot of these threads lately but I'm not inclined to conspiracy theories.

I think it's because there is a current public inquiry into assisted dying and Dignity in Dying are therefore campaigning quite hard at the moment.

I am heartened that the threads seem to be getting more thoughtful over time. Some of the early threads, when the public survey was open, got incredibly nasty and a lot of people's thinking was IMO simplistic. That seems to be changing slowly.

They're onto oral evidence sessions now, you can watch the first of these here:

https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/0bbebe52-0deb-4ee5-b770-33302ad64dc7

There's also a useful briefing here which includes an overview of different countries' approaches:

https://post.parliament.uk/research-briefings/post-pb-0047/

@heldinadream I have just had a good friend die of prostate cancer too young. He couldn't be moved to a hospice since they did not have the staff to keep the flushing going to remove clots from his bladder and the chances were he would have been moved to a hospice and then back to hospital. He was in extensive pain despite meds until they upped the dose considerably which meant he was out of it most of the time until he died after 4 days of increased meds. Palliative care - though I agree it should be increased but where the nurses and doctors? where the funding? IMHO it is mostly charity - isn't the whole answer.

@AlexisR While there are a number of people who might want to die and then change their minds, there are also a large number of people who would be happier knowing they had the option which gave them peace of mind. It would have helped my GM to relax and feel more in control (neurological disease). What about the ones who now have to travel to Zurich or wherever and are committed? At £30000 a pop it's hard to change your mind, whereas if you fulfilled the criteria (sound mind, fatal disease, less than x months estimated to live, two GPs in agreement) and could have it done in the UK, family around, it would be so much easier.

No, I don't. I don't trust the reasons of those who are most in favour and politically active.

@BeyondMyWits I think that too.

"While there are a number of people who might want to die and then change their minds...."

i.e. "whilst a number of people would be mistakenly killed..."

Think about what you're saying. People NOT being mistakenly killed against their wishes takes priority here.

(And god know, there are plenty of conspiracy theories promoted, but not by us! )

Yes!
The way we keep some people "alive" is absolutely inhumane
Not allowed to give pain killers in case they "overdose " so let's starve em to death instead

Yes.

If you don't approve of assisted dying then don't have it. There is very little chance of it being legalised here anyway. They'd struggle to find someone to prescribe the medication.

I do hope it will be possible.

I have a friend who has an extreme medical condition , I can’t describe it as it is very rare and would be outing. At the moment , it is stable and can be managed at home by the sufferer. If they become worse, or very unwell with some other condition, no hospice or hospital would accept their care, because it requires specialist expertise.

Being hospitalised overnight , having ( they thought) made all suitable arrangements for the extra care, demonstrated that the situation would be impossible. They have said to me that if they were diagnosed with a terminal condition, they would have to find a way to end their life because they could not be cared for with dignity or even practicality.