They don't want us to have a choice over death do they?

[Hunnymonster1]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2lyl8jrvlo.amp

This is so bloody annoying why are we so backward compared to other countries? Other countries have this sorted like america.In some states, belgium, holland, Switzerland.
They are not gonna allow this to happen are they? Which means the rich will go and pay dignitas and the poor will suffer. I am starting to get so annoyed by the mps of this country
Am I being unreasonable into thinking that they are backwards and should have given maybe the British public a referendum on a subject matter so important to individual people. If not a ref why is our country so backwards

I presume the anticipation of death would be similar to when we assess patients for fast track - or for All care end of life pathway - no one can be 100% accurate but you have to feel the patient is in the last days of life to start ICP, usually within seven days, and similarly estimate 6-12 weeks for fast track.

But this new bill won't apply to people with dementia because the doctors cannot say that the person only has 6 months left

My mil lived for 2 years with end stage dementia.

@sashh
Giving liquid through a straw to patients who are incapable of swallowing properly can lead to aspirarion( inhaling liquid).
This is why they may have not wanted you do give your mum liquid.
If you have ever accidentally inhaled a drink you know what that feels like.
It really wasn't about depriving your mum.

Sorry that should have been @craftysue

You are an animal. We all are. Hate to break it to you...

You can't think of anything less dignified than using your free will to decide how and when you want to die, really? How about, for example, regularly shitting yourself and smearing faeces everywhere, like many people with advanced dementia do...? Seems quite a bit less dignified to me...

People should be able to make an advance directive: kill me with nitrous oxide if I get diagnosed with dementia or if the dementia reaches a certain stage. I'd make it now if I could.

And plenty of people in the earliest stages of dementia would have the capacity to decide.

What certain stage is that then? And who would you trust to know you've reached it? A doctor who's just met you?

People can live up to 26 years with dementia.

My gran had dementia. She had no idea who any of her family was, and she could be violent at times... but she wanted to live. She was happy in her own little world. Whatever directive she could have signed whilst lucid would not have mattered.
Or would people who would advocate for some sort of advance directive in regards to euthanasia be willing to see people held down against their will when the time actually came.

I'm so sorry about your gran.

We have been through this with parents on both sides. Until the very absolute end there was a protracted period where life was far from how one would wish it to be, but people expressing contentment and sometimes experiencing genuine joy, whether about winning at Scrabble because we all let them even though the words they played were nonsense, or about seeing a great-grandchild for the first time (ten times, with each time the first!) Who is anyone to say that another person's life be ended because of a wish written in ignorance and optimism 20 years previously?

That is the thing. You can have dementia and be happy.

I think the issue here is when it comes to when a dementia patient is bed ridden and is not playing games in the lounge, or engaging in anything meaningful etc. They are just existing and getting nothing from life.

Ime that's very near the end though. There's a much longer stage where it looks like not much is happening but there are very real brief glimmers of happiness. I wouldn't want to deny anyone that.

“When a country or a state legalises assisted suicide or euthanasia, it can no longer call itself anti-suicide, because it specifically approves some suicides ... It’s a very dangerous movement that is normalising this kind of approach to dying as opposed to natural death,”

The bill’s sponsors claim that they are acting on behalf of patients who are dying and suffering and likely to die within six months.
The wording of the bill means that two doctors and a judge will be able to enable “mentally competent terminally ill adults” to commit suicide with the help of a health care specialist. I think this is a rubbishy bill which is badly worded and enormously dangerous. I think the bill’s sponsors and supporters are badly advised.
First, who is going to decide who is or is not mentally competent?
And, second, who is going to decide who is or is not terminally ill?
The definition of “mental competence” is absurdly woolly. I have stood in a hospital ward as so-called experts tried to assess the mental competence of patients. A particularly stupid “expert” labelled my mother as mentally competent even though she didn’t recognise me or my father and had no idea what either of us did for a living. At one point my mother guessed that both my father and I were teachers. “That’s close enough,” said the “expert” who then declared my mother “mentally competent.” If the euthanasia bill had been law, they’d have let my mother (suffering from dementia associated with Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus) sign up for death.
The definition of “terminally ill” is also nonsensical.
When I was a general practitioner, I knew at least two patients who were labelled as terminally ill (or, in the modern parlance, as terminally terminally ill).
Both patients lived for years after they had been labelled terminally ill. Both went on to have full lives. I suspect that both would have agreed to commit suicide if the option had been available. And what about misdiagnoses - something that is happening more and more now that doctors try to diagnose remotely? And for the record, I was diagnosed with a terminal illness 40 years ago.
It is impossible ever to say that a patient has less than six months to live. In my professional judgement (founded on real experience), any doctor who makes such a prediction is a dangerous fool.
The argument against allowing euthanasia is the same as the argument against capital punishment: you can never be sure that you aren’t making a mistake. If this euthanasia bill is passed many mistakes will be made.
And there’s another problem.
Britain is currently a member of the European Convention of Human Rights (a misnamed body if ever there was one).
If the proposed UK bill is passed it will almost certainly breach European law by denying access to other people. Judges in Strasburg will probably widen the law to allow anyone to take advantage of the “please kill me” legislation.
Euthanasia in Britain (and indeed the rest of Europe) will then be as free as it is in Canada where people with mental or physical health issues can sign up for euthanasia or doctor assisted suicide at the drop of a hat.
The British Government has paved the way for euthanasia by putting up national insurance taxes on hospices so that a good number will have to close - leaving genuinely terminally ill patients with nowhere to go for help, except to the official death camps.
If the House of Commons votes to legalise euthanasia in Britain it won’t be long before children, depressed people, the poor and the unemployed will be put to death (It’s already happening in other countries where euthanasia has been legalised). Children will be allowed to have themselves killed without their parents’ knowledge or consent.
And once euthanasia is widely available in Britain and the EU the killing spree will spread. Within five years there won’t be a country anywhere in the world where euthanasia isn’t legal. Please help us fight this bad legislation

I think your right. Personally I’ve got no interest in being kept alive with dementia. I think you should be able to say once you reach a predetermined stage to be euthanised.

Shazam2 · Today 12:32

“When a country or a state legalises assisted suicide or euthanasia, it can no longer call itself anti-suicide, because it specifically approves some suicides ... It’s a very dangerous movement that is normalising this kind of approach to dying as opposed to natural death,”
I don't recall this country ever claiming to be anti-suicide in any big way. We are a country that legally allows our water and air to be poisoned and we sell weapons to a whole bunch of dodgy people, and we trade with countries that kill people on a regular basis. We're hardly a moral country in that way.
Also we intervene thousands of times every day to oppose natural death, we take measures to prolong life for the sheer sake of it.

I'm a GP. I've cared for patients dying with dementia and with cancer, and for relatives dying of both.
I really hope I die of dementia. Most patients die peacefully with no pain.
If you want to ensure you don't linger too long, make an advance directive saying you don't want to be given any antibiotics.