To wonder if assisted dying will ever be legal here?

[Jadefeather7]

Are there any efforts to legalise it and do you think it will ever happen?

When I visit my grandmother and see the people that she lives with who have terrible dementia and also see the state that social care is in, I wonder whether assisted dying will ever be legal here? Even if somehow social care had improved I just wouldn’t want to live in that sort of state and would want to have the choice to end my life.

Easy to say, harder to do (although I have an Advance Decision for if I lose capacity). Yes I do think it will be, but not for some time yet.

I dont think it will ever be legal but I definitely think it should be!

I hope it will.

I really don’t want to end up in a home like this.

I’m not sure it’s necessarily needed if advanced directives were used more routinely. I plan to have a DNR after 75 and to refuse life extending treatments and antibiotics. You’ve got to die of something and I don’t plan to twist on 18, put it that way.

As a society we need to have a big conversation about death.

I really hope it does. I personally have something I know I’m going to die from and I’m really going to suffer. I know I don’t want to live for 10+ years knowing what’s going on around me but not having the physical ability to do anything about. I would choose this option if it’s a possibility here and I simply cannot understand why it isn’t. Of course that person needs to be of sound mind to understand what they are doing, just as they have to be in Switzerland but done in the correct way I don’t see why it can’t be done sooner rather than later

I have a family member in her nineties. She is blind, deaf and can't walk. She has mild dementia and is constantly scared. She has zero quality of life, she is constantly asking to die. She has been like this for nearly two years. My heart breaks for her. We would not treat an animal like this.

I hope so.

I really hope so. My grandad had a brain haemorrhage followed by many TIAs and subsequently agreed to a DNR while he was still able to have this explained to him. I watched him cry as he confirmed he was of sound mind to agree to it. As a family we were informed there was no hope for him, all of his medication was withdrawn and he was placed on palliative care. For almost 8 years I watched him deteriorate slowly, not quickly as the doctors anticipated. He became a skeleton due to being tube fed, his mind slowly escaped so eventually he was just a shell, unable to speak. Yet his emotions were still there, trapped in a body he had no control over. He would cry often. It was awful. His body contorted into the foetal position so was covered in sores, despite our best efforts to keep him comfortable. It makes me sad to think they had to straighten him out to put him in his coffin 😓. I know my grandad and no way would he have wanted that life for so long. This law in my opinion is needed, so people can make informed choices.

It kind of is.

I worked in elderly/dementia care for many years. Often our resident's relatives had POA over their health (forget the actual term) and often instructed us to give no further medication, for example; not giving antibiotics for a chest infection and letting nature take it's course. Or occassionally say no further medication or not to encourage eating.

When I was much younger I was working in a home and remember the manager making the decision to reduce a resident's food.

And they were given a choice whether or not to sign a DNAR.

It goes on. But under the radar.