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.

The truth is that people would not indeed 'do anything' to put their relative out of pain.
They would not risk prison, their livelihoods and so on.
Do I blame them? No. We're all selfish to a degree.

Though I would say that IF the relative is screaming in pain begging to die it would be an enormous act of love to put their needs first and to hell with the consequences.

Most don't though, do they?

Just stop trying to shift the responsibility on to some other person.
Some young nurse who's been ordered to get the suicide pills. Doesn't really know the person at all.
Nobody seems to give a toss about the impact on her though.

Sorry I regard it as cowardly.
If people are not prepared to do it for their relative themselves, they shouldn't expect others to do it for them.

Just because it's state-sanctioned doesn't make it right.

Yes some may see this post is harsh but I think it needs saying.

I am so sad about this, sad about all the suffering in this country that could have been avoided. Life may feel precious to most of us but to the many in pain - the opportunity of a release from a life in pain is precious. My great aunt lived for 5 years in extreme pain, every time she heard of someone dying she'd say - they're so lucky hopefully it will be me next time. She died aged 105 after years of torture - so cruel.
@Thegirlwhowent sorry I didn't mean to quote you but I can't delete it now

You comparing two different things - the nurse who brings the pills as part of their job - who may 100% believe that the job they are doing is saving people from pain and suffering and a family member who would face a long prison sentence for administering pills - a prison sentence that is meant to deter people from administering pills. I don't see it as the same thing. Unless you are going all religious on us? I don't understand what needs saying?

@SleepingisanArt- brilliant post. Agree with all of it.

But that was not what the bill was about. You wouldn’t remotely qualify. No one with dementia would.

I think most people don't have clue - why would they? My GPs died a lovely death - click of the fingers and they were gone - in their favourite chair - they both drifted off. But the things I've seen since my mother had a fall in her mid 80s - the way people are "living" in care homes, it's truly shocking and we are living longer but we are not living better, we are hanging on by a thread for years in pain with no quality of life - no ability to control our bodies or minds. If someone wants to bump me off at that stage - I am a willing participant, they can have all my cash - I want to check out!
I think if more people saw the shocking standard of life you may be left with for several years more might feel the same way. It's not about the level of care - it's about the quality of life.

That's a real shame, I can't bare to think of the affect me being like this would have on my children. I don't want them to have to live with seeing me like that and remember me like that.

I hope in future something could be out in place that says if I become ..... I want to die but sounds unlikely this will happen.

Your answer isn’t clear to me.

Besides who is going to put in writing ‘going to Dignitas’? No one. Don’t be ridiculous. All the paperwork is done with admin staff.

With which admin staff? That of the ambulance charter company?

Surely, and it seems you have knowledge of this rather belied by your ludicrous train driver assertions but hey-ho , 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? Or is your thesis that the patient says they are going to Zurich General Hospital and then there’s a separate transfer to Dignitas (covered by Swiss law, perhaps, so no liability on a UK company)

This assumption would seem to be backed up by this phrasing from you:

The baroness is lucky she doesn’t need a hospital to hospital transfer as the air ambulance company usually wants the receiving hospital at destination to confirm a bed is available and have a n ambulance waiting on the tarmac where the air ambulance lands.

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?

That’s part of the reason the bill failed - the concerns about creep. It really beggars belief that people are going on about dementia. It was always clear that that wouldn’t qualify.

We hope for more, the bill wasn't enough but it was better than nothing.

Taking somebody's life is not a trivial issue. Unless that person is a psychopath.
Nobody knows how they'll feel until they do it. Nobody.

It's not part of a nurse's job at all.
It is massively different from administering meds that have a side effect of shortening a person's life, it is actively taking a life.

So sick of people thinking that they can get somebody else to take part in assisted suicide as if it's an easy thing to do.
With respect, it is a wholly unreasonable thing to ask of another person.

My point remains: if a person says they would literally have done 'anything' to ease their relative's pain - and that includes risking prison-but do not in fact do what needs to be done they would logically not in fact be prepared to have done 'anything' after all.

I'm not suggesting for one second that anybody should suffer in agony.
If they want to commit suicide, that's OK by me.
If their relative assists them, fine. I hope the judge is lenient.

Just don't expect anybody else to have it on their conscience. That's not right.

I'm an atheist.

As an aside, It just goes to show that some people see medical professionals as unfeeling robots there to do their bidding.

But with that life expectancy she wouldn't be eligible.

@5MinuteArgumentHow do you know that the passing of the AD bill is what “most” people want?

It seems to me that very elderly people have little to no say in their care sometimes (dying of neglect in hospital) and it’s chilling to think that families could make this decision because they think it’s in their “best interests”

Can you not recognise that there is a significant moral and ethical difference between removing treatment and nourishment from a dying person or failing to make medical interventions to prolong their life and deliberately and premeditatedly ending someone's life through the administration of lethal drugs.

I agree with you but I think it's unlikely that AD will become law in the UK. However many more countries are adopting it: Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, France, Belgium, Canada, Spain, Austria and about a dozen US states. Jersey may adopt it in the next few years.

It doesn't go to show anything - if you want to discuss the impact it may have on a medical professional why don't you discuss that? Instead of making unrelated comparisons and then jumping to conclusions - you have a valid point about medical staff and the impact on them but your initial post is so muddled.

Yes, presumably the impact on staff has already been considered in those countries that have adopted AD into their law. Also for the staff at Dignitas and Pegasos in Switzerland who accept patients from abroad. For myself, I'm glad those two organisations exist.

The impact on medical staff is extremely relevant. Extremely so. They are after all the ones who will have to facilitate this.
The pills won't be available at Tesco.

People who aren't prepared to take their own life, relatives who say they would literally do anything to help that person die (yes that might include going to prison) but don't do so have no right to put that burden onto another human being.

You presume a lot.
Nobody can reasonably know how they'll feel until those pills are in their hands.

Nevertheless I believe it is morally cowardly for a person to put the burden of taking another person's life onto someone else because it's upsetting to them.

Have you considered there are human being who feel that they are doing a good thing helping someone die? Or is that something they shouldn’t be allowed to feel?

Presumably the impact on medical staff has already been considered in the many countries that have adopted AD into their law: Switzerland, France, New Zealand, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Spain, Netherlands. Also they don't seem to have a problem with the impact on staff at the Swiss clinics Dignitas and Pegasos.

However it won't become law in the UK anyway.

Yes. This often happens. My friend lived in a country where assisted dying was available and they died in the time between signing the papers for assisted dying and the mandatory three day gap before the entirely separate team of doctors arrived.

Regarding the impact on staff - my understanding is that doctors can opt out of being involved in Physician Assisted Deaths (I believe the BMA’s position is that doctors should specifically opt in, if legislation ever allows for it in the UK)

Happy to be corrected if not.

Not many people are comfortable at taking another person's life regardless of circumstances.
They just aren't. This has nothing to do with religion.
This is pre- planned killing of another person, it's not somebody snapping and killing somebody in the heat of the moment which people can perhaps grasp.

Cold, pre- planned murder of another human is so abhorrent that the army has to practically brainwash soldiers into it.

My point is simple: I have zero time for people who go on about assisted suicide as if it's a great thing who are not prepared to carry out the unpleasant and dirty job of taking another person's life themselves.

Never have, never will.

Wtf. That's mind boggling. It's state sanctioned murder, and so dystopian it's hard to believe that it actually happened...and yet it did.