Assisted dying

[ivykaty44]

I have nursed terminally ill relative, it was a case where Im sure that they would have chosen to use he assisted measures and would have more comfortable for them. It would have certainly distressed me, but I would have been keen to follow their wishes

They were diagnosed with a terminal illness that had a 4 months average life sentence and they died 11 weeks after the fatal diagnosis and refused palliative care to give them a few more weeks

I do believe in some cases to be able to have assisted dying, with possibly intervention of a court to ensure the person wishing to dye isn't being pressured by anyone - would indeed be kinder.

Death even a good loving death can be traumatic and cruel by the nature of dying, whereas a controlled process would be kinder in the actual process of dying.

Someone rasping for 3 or 4 days for breath is not a pleasant for anyone (I had a friend that this happened to but actually he went on for 5 days)

With strict control to ensure their isn't pressure or guilt to die surely this is not unreasonable to ask? I do mean literally with a few weeks to dye and allowing the person to choose when they are ready - if ever

Yes, 100% agree. My dad lived for six days without fluids, it was the most horrific week of our lives. My mum and I both have PTSD. To see his suffering protracted like that was a form of torture for all three of us. He would not have chosen that had a swifter end been an option.

It doesn't go far enough for me. I want to be able to decide when I wish to die, and not linger in pain, undignified and useless.

@nameyouwhat Hear hear. The other thread is horrifying.

How do we know it’s not the same as drowning quickly, being unable to breath? Surly that must be horrible!

To add to my comment above - we also have the green moment, shortage of housing, care funding crisis - will people be bumped off early in ordered to help the above?

I absolutely agree. Having lost several loved ones to cancer it was absolutely horrific and not something I think people should have to go through if there is a more human option.

Yes, I am in favour of assisted dying with safeguarding measures in place.
If a person is suffering but of sound.mind, the choice should be theirs.
There should be dignity in death.

I am in support of it, and have campaigned for it.

I've watched too many people linger in conditions I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Seen too many people where there is no hope, facing days and weeks (and months) of slow, often painful, often embarrassing decline, as their body shuts down. All of them were mentally sound until close to the end and hated it.

Two of them eventually died alone, because the process was so protracted and uncertain. One was 91, with an untreatable condition - they absolutely should have had the right to say, 'well, it can't be fixed, I'm old, it's my time, so let's pick a day, say goodbye properly, see my priest, and then I'll just go to sleep.'

Instead, they had weeks in an unfamiliar hospital miles from family, miles from their congregation and clergy they'd known for decades, who struggled to get there, and died alone.

In contrast, my BIL died a few months ago. He wasn't elderly, but he had a progressively disabling disease. He was at the point of it really starting to impact his day to day life - needing help to wash, dress, eat and toilet, no longer safe to drive, struggling to walk... and aware of all of it. He contracted pneumonia and couldn't shake it. The decision not to re-ventilate when he couldn't manage without it and let him go was, honestly, the kindest thing that could have happened. He died in the space of a couple of hours, loved ones with him, in no pain or distress.

I'm very much in favour of it being an option, alongside excellent hospice care and social support/pain relief for those who want to die naturally. I think of three different deaths from cancer: my friend, who was in such pain in her last couple of weeks in spite of great support from the local hospice; the family friend who was terminally ill who had to listen to the agonised cries of a fellow patient on his ward and knowing that this was his future discharged himself, checked into a hotel and killed himself, dying alone and devastating his family; and my grandmother who chose assisted suicide in Switzerland and died around 6 weeks sooner than she otherwise would have, without pain, surrounded by people who loved her and who came to spend her last day appreciating her to the full and making her feel loved and special and supporting each other. I would choose the death my grandmother had every time.

Having watched my mum slowly die of dementia, for me I would like to be supported to die at the point I am struggling to recognise my own children and my care is nothing but a burden to them

I agree and as euthanasia isn’t possible here I would like to go to Dignitas. However I don’t think they will take anyone if there is any hint of dementia in case he/she might have been pressurised by the children.

Yanbu I know my parents who are fit and well have firm plans for many events living wills Dnr etc and also this. Maybe that's why I also have an attitude to this that depending on what I faced would consider it.

Sounds very hard op for you.

@nameyouwhat

The bill in parliament at the moment needs two drs a judge, person needs to be of sound mind and with less than 6 months. yes I can accept that

however when we begin to talk about it as a way to solve the care crisis...that is very worrying and not a road to go down. The choice is based on individual. .not the needs of society.

The timing is a bit coincidental though isn’t it? Suddenly the government is finally waking up to the care crisis and now there is a bill in parliament for assisted dying…

I would be all for it.

My grandad is suffering with cancer currently. He has lived a long life and has spent almost 60 years taking on a primary care role for diferent people in the family. He is terrified. He cared for his brother, before his death by the same cancer, 40years ago now. He watched the excruciating pain his brother was in. He cared for his mother in her end stages and was horrified by it. She begged to die for several months before.

Now he is facing the same and it scares him so much, the thought of his final weeks. It breaks my fucking heart that this wonderful man, a man who gave up his retirement to care for me and love me when there was no one else to do it, who has moved the street himeless into his home, who has put himself last in every circumstance to care for others, faces a death that he has had literal nightmares about for decades. It causes me actual, physical pain to think of it.

With his favourite dog, he slept with him on the floor, in his final weeks. Cradled him when he siezed and fed him by hand, carried him to the garden to toilet. When it was time, he carried him for 3 miles to the vet and held him as he died. I can't do that for my rescuer; for my one defender; the only adult who has ever really loved me. I can't do what he did for a beloved dog and it makes me rage with a fury I cannot put into words.

Dementia is the one that worries me so much.

I’m all for assisted dying. I would want it for myself and don’t really understand the slippery slope argument.

But dementia - which in no way would be covered by this assisted dying act, is the thing I dread. I rarely see dementia patients who aren’t distressed to some extent. I can’t think how you could offer euthanasia to them - but if I get it I hope to god I die quickly. I also don’t understand why so many of them seem to be so aggressively treated for infections - and some don’t even have DNACPR orders

If you wouldn’t let your dog suffer and you’re of sound mind, you should be allowed to choose.

I have opposite experience to yours OP. My DF went into hospital ill and it came about that he needed dialysis for his kidneys but because of his age (76), the doctors decided not to do it, to simply let him die a horrible death from kidney failure and put a DNR on him without his consent and without telling us, his family, until after he had passed.

So I do think assisted dying would be abused by medical professionals in the U.K., as it is elsewhere in the world where it is available. You have mentally ill twenty something year olds manipulated into thinking assisted dying is only way to cure their psychological pain, I read an article about a 24yr old Swiss woman with EUPD who was coerced into it. Which is a real travesty because EUPD has a suicide rate of 1 in 10 as it is, and we should be helping mentally ill people to live better lives, not letting them kill them selves to avoid caring for them. It cuts close for me as I have schizophrenia and I wonder if I went into a psychotic break and the doctors decided, nah too much trouble, let’s just put this faulty human to sleep. Then it will be people with disabilities, or bad injuries, doctors saying that the ‘quality of life’ would be too poor...so put a DNR on them and then fast track them to be put to sleep.

Then you have elderly being withheld lifesaving treatments just because they are old and given DNRs without their knowledge, consent or informing the family, which DID actually happen during the Covid pandemic in the U.K. With assisted dying, this would happen more often for any reason as happened with my DF.

@thewhatsit

I find it odd and barbaric that we don’t have the right to end our own lives in a dignified manner. I suppose it comes from old religious ideas that all life belongs to god and he chooses when you are born and when you die etc… ?

I am a Christian and I refute the argument that assisted dying is playing God. I think it is playing God to keep someone alive who should really be dead. Or to prolong someone’s suffering. I 100% support assisted dying.

@Herja

I have no words. Except so sorry for what you and your beloved grandad are going through.

I'm sorry for your loss, and I agree with everything you've said.

I lost my Dad in April 2020, he went into a hospice in the March and I would say died peacefully (after a very rough few weeks)

I'd like to know more about the 'pathway' people talk about, what they gave my Dad for 'his breathing' which made him take his last breath a couple of hours later. Do we have assisted dying (eventually) in palliative care? It's all a bit of a blur and I've never really considered asking or researching. It's not something that bothers me, I just curious.

Completely agree. If anyone's on the fence I suggest they go spend a week in a severe dementia ward. There's no dignity or quality of life. The only good thing, is that the patients aren't there mentally anymore.

@ivykaty44

With proper safeguarding

Indeed

I wouldn't want a Dutch system, where death is offered with many diseases near the end of life - I would be against it being "offered" but something a patient should ask, enquire for if they so felt.

My cousin works as a nurse delivering pallitive care in the Netherlands. Euthanasia or PAS isn't offered it has to be requested. Then there is a duty of care to be fulfilled fail to do so and individuals would be liable for prosecution.

I'd much rather be given a means to end my life which had become unbearable than to have everyone gather around me whilst my fluids are withdrawn and linger for a couple of weeks. If you treated an animal like that you'd probably be prosecuted.

@ChorizoJacketPotato

If you wouldn’t let your dog suffer and you’re of sound mind, you should be allowed to choose.

When someone who is gravely ill says to you 'I want to die' I'm pretty sure they mean it. Noone says that more than once in their lives do they?

100% unequivocally in favour of assisted dying. My 88 year old mother had a dense stroke a few weeks ago and will not recover. She is bed bound, helpless and immobile, unable to talk (with a huge effort of will can say a couple of words), aware and utterly miserable. She would choose to go if she could

@Herja

I would be all for it.

My grandad is suffering with cancer currently. He has lived a long life and has spent almost 60 years taking on a primary care role for diferent people in the family. He is terrified. He cared for his brother, before his death by the same cancer, 40years ago now. He watched the excruciating pain his brother was in. He cared for his mother in her end stages and was horrified by it. She begged to die for several months before.

Now he is facing the same and it scares him so much, the thought of his final weeks. It breaks my fucking heart that this wonderful man, a man who gave up his retirement to care for me and love me when there was no one else to do it, who has moved the street himeless into his home, who has put himself last in every circumstance to care for others, faces a death that he has had literal nightmares about for decades. It causes me actual, physical pain to think of it.

With his favourite dog, he slept with him on the floor, in his final weeks. Cradled him when he siezed and fed him by hand, carried him to the garden to toilet. When it was time, he carried him for 3 miles to the vet and held him as he died. I can't do that for my rescuer; for my one defender; the only adult who has ever really loved me. I can't do what he did for a beloved dog and it makes me rage with a fury I cannot put into words.

This the loveliest tribute I have ever seen, bless you and your Grandad x

Why are you so angry at me @MatildaIThink?

First of all, i haven’t said anywhere that it should be banned just because it makes me comfortable. I dont really give a shit what other people do with their life when they’re alive or in death. The bill has only passed the first hurdle here in the U.K., so I don’t even know what the hell you’re talking about.

Second, I’ve seen both my parents die. You’re not the only one who’s suffered seeing someone they love die. My parents would never have asked for assisted death, so your experience of death isn’t the same for everyone.

It’s a slippery slope. Can see it being offered to lonely old people to help curb the housing and care crisis. Guilty old people who feel they’re a burden on the NHS or their families may feel like they need to do this…And that’s just the start.