Esther Rantzen "too frail" to travel to Switzerland (Dignitas)

[ItWasnaMeGuv]

Hopefully a family member of friend will take her and she can get her wish.

I know someone in the Netherlands whose request for euthanasia on mental grounds was rejected. He then ended up killing himself by taking suicide pills from the internet.

His poor parents then had to deal with a full on police investigation in their home.

Whilst I'm not sure euthanasia would have been appropriate for him in the end the outcome was tragic either way.

Our opinions differ.

I’m not religious. In principle I don’t disagree with the idea

in practice…see my post later…it’s about the “how”…people are simply not talking about that enough and the stats are grim and horrific

But my understanding is that when a patient goes on a morphine “driver” , it’s three days at most.

Weeks and months are not unheard of @Polesinengland . Syringe drivers are used to deliver continuous symptom controlling medications, sometimes that works really well and sometimes it doesn't. If it isn't working well then I would usually seek input from a specialist palliative care consultant to see what else is required for the person, sometimes a stay in the Hospice for symptom management is necessary. I have seen many people go into the Hospice for this reason and go back home with their symptoms well managed.

I’m sure that in the interests of making the patient more comfortable, dosages are exceeded

That may be the case now in the UK where doctors can use their discretion.

But I’m sure you can appreciate that when assisted dying is introduced, that comes it with very fixed limits on what levels of morphine are acceptable; for obvious reasons the state has to define what dose of medication causes death and then tight legislation is drawn up to create stricter lines around what is a dose intended to euthanise the patient and what is a dose for treatment and pain management.

If you assist someone in dying then that automatically requires clarification around the doses necessary to do that. This is so there is a strict division between the team providing help with dying and the team who are treating a patient. And this is necessary because otherwise medication can be abused or in case the procedure didn’t work or something went wrong and there is an enquiry.

Doctors in the country where I lived were upset when they couldn’t give patients they had known for a long time, the pain relief they required to make them comfortable at the end of life, for fear of being prosecuted themselves because it went over the fixed limit for treatment. If it went over the fixed limit then then they could be accused of entering assisted dying territory unlawfully.

In summary, by allowing assisted dying you have to create a detailed legislative pathway for that, that covers all eventualities, and by creating that pathway, it means a separate one is created for those who do not want assisted dying, and the levels of meds needed for both pathways are more tightly regulated.

Tbf, while I haven't experienced NZ's palliative care via the public health (so it could be the one well-funded area), our health system in general at the moment is in a total disaster. Underfunded, overworked, and barely holding together. So I'm not sure we're a good example of a well-oiled public health system!

And what of the trauma of the medical staff who might think they're OK with actively (as opposed to it being a side effect of pain meds that people take when they really do have no chance of living much longer) helping somebody to die when in fact they aren't?

They don't matter I suppose.

People should not ask anybody to take their life or the life of their loved ones.

It they want to do it, fine. I pass no judgement but take the consequences.

Why should other people have to bear the brunt and guilt?

This is a very good point. There has been a reluctance to look seriously at the issues in other countries when the stats or information don’t suit the AD lobby.

And it’s worth remembering that a lot of these countries who offer AD , are operating with health care systems that are not nearly as under-resourced as ours.

Aside from any moral or practical reasons to oppose AD, to introduce it in to the NHS in its current state when so many people nearing the end if their lines can’t even be found a room and are treated in hospital corridors, would be highly irresponsible imho.

@SheilaFentiman
With which admin staff? That of the ambulance charter company?
Yes. Their business office.

the air ambulance is expecting to transfer an ill passenger to medical care of some kind. Won’t they be looking for helipad coordinates next to a hospital or other care facility?

I think you have confused helicopter air ambulances for emergencies that transport patients to hospitals with air ambulances that are planes which are chartered to transport patients internationally that are too frail/sick/disabled/contagious for commercial plane travel. They don’t fly to helipads but to airports. The company also manages the coordination with the destination immigration and customs authorities at the airport.

So where is it you think that the private air ambulance would be dropping off Baroness Rantzen, or any other patient in her situation, without the charter company being aware of the purpose of the transfer?

They’d take her to an airport. They can land at the major ones the same as commercial flights, or they can get permission to land at a smaller airport that is more private that takes private jets of celebrities and such. The air ambulance company services & responsibility end once the flight has landed with all proper immigration and customs clearances done. It is up to the customer to arrange pick up by where-ever the person is going to whether a hospital, clinic or home. (During the Covid years, if you tested positive you would have to charter an air ambulance to get home no matter how healthy you felt or looked, that’s why travel insurance started adding this on.)

There is no way they’d be prosecuted or arrested any more than Stena ferries or Ryanair.

Dosages aren’t exceeded, though. There are rules. I’ve known people beg the nurse for more pain relief for their end of life relative on a syringe driver and the nurse saying there’s nothing more they can do. And My friend who died last year, her husband complained to the hospice about the amount of pain his wife was in at the end.

True, they euthanise people with chronic depression who are physically no where near dying.

Sorry but I think people who want to commit suicide don’t really want to die and we should be trying to help them beat the depression, not pushing them off a building. Having AD as an option instead of mental health treatment is abhorrent.

I completely get this and I’m sad for her she won’t be able to travel, but often there is a time that comes where simply people wanting to travel say from hospital to home or hospice, are too frail and run the risk of dying in transit. This is strongly advised against in healthcare usually and if people do have capacity to decide they want to make that journey they do so if they understand they may never arrive at their chosen destination and could die in an ambulance. I imagine it’s much stricter criteria if flying is involved, even with capacity people won’t have the same right to decide if it’s worth the risk

Really? Do you honestly think that someone with only a short while left to live who is having to sleep in their sitting room with a commode that they don't always manage to get to even while being helped by their child(ren), and who is a skeletal version of their former self, so wracked with pain that they can hardly speak, and whose body gives off a horrible odour that their child(ren) are pretending not to notice and whose grandchildren don't want to visit anymore because they find their dying grandparent frightening - do you honestly think that in those days and possibly weeks, that person is thinking thank goodness there isn't a law which would make this easier for me and my beautiful children and grandchildren?

Have you ever lived through the long drawn out and awful death of a loved one? Where they went into 'terminal agitation' on a Friday night but no help could be given until a Monday? Where the family had to watch that horror ALL weekend?

You are so fixed on the law being 'open to abuse' that you cannot see the abuse we are already committing.

It “beggars belief” that competent, educated, articulate people would want AD rather than “living” with dementia? I’m not sure how it can be unbelievable. And “going on about it”? How rude. Having watched many relatives die horrible, distressed deaths with it, having not “lived” at all for many years, I think “going on about it” is bloody relevant. None of them wanted to live or die like that, and, whilst they still had capacity, made that abundantly clear.
It might not have been in this current bill, but I absolutely would want it for myself. And I’d also want someone like you, who doesn’t want it, to not have it. What’s wrong with that?

Nobody is advocating AD for people with depression or other mental health issues. AD is not a suitable choice for mental health issues.

Absolutely 100%. Thank you for posting this. The abuse is already happening.

Unfortunately people with cancer tend to deteriorate very quickly in the last 6 months, so they are often very active and appear well for a long time and then suddenly decline. I can imagine that she thought she was doing fine until she wasn't and by then it was too late. Very sad for her. I hope she finds peace in the circumstances she's in.

Yes, I feel exactly the same way. I know the current AD bill only included terminal illness with less than 6 months to live. But I know that I don't want to live with a degenerative illness like dementia.

If other people do, that's great. I don't want to impose my views on them and I would like them not to impose their views on me.

I feel such sympathy for Esther and fully support her re. the Assisted Dying Bill. But it seems she has had a not uncommon experience with terminal cancer in that it is actually quite livable-with sometimes, until very suddenly everything changes. I am so happy for her that she has had several good years of life after receiving her terminal diagnosis.

My father died of lung cancer at 81. I visited him at his home one week before he died. He was still eating and drinking although tired and thin. He spent some time resting upstairs then came downstairs and we all went outside to the garden in the garden in the sunshine and he laid back on his sun lounger and was truly happy. We talked about my next visit and how he was having radiotherapy for the tumour on his hip within a week or two and how he was looking forward to that.

Two days later he couldn't get up the stairs any more and his GP suggested a hospice stay "to adjust his medication". He was in the hospice for about 4 days and passed away peacefully under expert care. None of us were expecting it, infact two of my brothers missed his death as they were abroad.

I think what I'm saying is we do have assisted dying in some ways in this country. If Esther is lucky enough to have hospice care then I am sure she will go well.

David Bowie died of lung cancer and we've all seen that photo of him taken two or three days before.

Oh I am truly sorry for her. My mum died of cancer in a hospice. Her symptoms turned from manageable to horrendous very quickly. I am so angry with people who oppose assisted dying.

Incorrect. I've witnessed it a few times and I'm so glad the bill hasn't gone through.

@Cloverroll What you describe sounds horrific and I do definitely think there should be options for potentially fatal doses of morphine/other drugs to be administered when someone is this close to death.
I also think it is disgraceful that there is no care over the weekend ( and I’ve experienced this too with my father who was just “left” in pain for 72 hours
But I am still very very uncomfortable with the idea of a legislative AD

I think you’re right. Drugs like morphine are much more highly controlled now whereas Pre Shipman I believe dosages helped some people quickly reach the end. Where they were headed anyway.

I certainly will not vote for any politician who voted it down. My MP did so she can get fkd.