To think that we need to have an honest conversation about euthanasia and care costs

[Noras]

So there are some interesting stats published by the Gov about the cost of cares the end of life and whatever way you look at it, it’s expensive. Obviously the most expensive is hospital care at about £400 to £500 per day but also care in care homes is high.Most of that could be avoided with an injection.

I have watched both my parents die and I have been left traumatised by it. My mother died from starving to death due to dementia in a non nursing bed with no pay relief other than paracetamol. She was clutching the sheets and morning for 14 days. My father died of the most gruesome cancer. We nursed him at home but we still had one 24 hour carer at the end paid for by CHC ( he was plus 2 for eg the commode and washing hence we still did it).

Whilst my parents were dying I could not bear to let them go but now after several years I think ‘What on Earth was that?’ With the benefit of hindsight I regret every mouthful of food that I fed my mother. She did not even know who I was and was in a different World but yet she was my beautiful mother.

I regret every time that I carefully measured morphine for my dad because I did not want to give him an overdose

I am haunted by the prospect of getting dementia. I am scared sick of cancer and dying from it as the pain meds never kept uo with the pain. When we just had the pain patches they were always too weak and we were always behind the race to keep up with the pain. When we got the end of life kit, as a relative I was always too scared to give ( I think ) enough morphine to top up the pain patches so my dad would he in agony. I could not bear to let my dad go - it was so painful,

So this is the question; Do we need to grow up and really think about euthanasia?

Over two years of my life were consumed by the impending death of my parents ( I still visited and cared for my mum in a care home despite it costing my dad several hundred pounds weekly as I wanted to care for her).

Don't be ridiculous. Money cannot keep people alive for ever.

I'm a nurse. I have very conflicting views and experiences. I've cared for people who have had peaceful dignified and pain free deaths but I also hate it when caring for others with end stage dementia, COPD (and Covid) where I know death would be a blessing.
But I also don't believe that there would be a system robust enough to weed out family influences over money, houses and inheritance.
I once looked after a sweet old man who was made homeless by his nephew who he'd signed his home over to years before. Nephew decided he could no longer cope with him and said he couldn't return.
Also (sorry!) Shipman proved that there are unscrupulous HCP out there.
Conversely my own family know I'll be committing suicide when I feel the time is right, my biggest fear is a stroke or similar where my personal choice and independence is taken away.

The trouble is that very rarely do people want to die whilst they still have a good quality of life. Usually people and their loved ones want them to be saved whilst they have quality of life even if they have, for instance, a dementia diagnosis.

If you don't believe me then look at the outcry over the Liverpool care pathway and about DNRs during Covid although both those are pragmatic interventions designed to stop over treatment they were very controversial for reasons it's hard to understand as a Dr. In my experience most families ask for more to be done rather than less.

In my dads case if he does decide that he wants euthanasia in the early stages of dementia whilst he still has capacity and is functioning I will find it very hard to accept despite knowing very well what he wants to avoid. My head knows that this would be the decision he'd want to make but in my heart it's hard to accept.

I’d like to respectfully disagree with this point. I don’t have children.

However, I have relatives who have died young - one is currently terminally ill with dementia at a very young age. I know people who have lost relatives at a young age, in their 40s and 50s.

Suggesting euthanasia for premature babies is something I know they wouldn’t want, premature babies should be given the chance to fight to survive. Like the chances that we've had for lives.

Which is why grown up discussion and debate at parliament level should take place. Put into any legislation fail-safes to stop it being abused. What is happening now clearly doesn't work for some people. If I make a decision aged 50, that should something happen to me and I don't have a reasonable level of cognitive function, that I don't want to live. Why shouldn't I be allowed legally to state if that happens, give me the same stuff as the vet gives the dog and let me go peacefully.

My father dies alone (2020) after 5 years in a care home with dementia. It was bloody horrible - so many of the residents had No quality of life at all. He would have been appalled to have known he would end up others, doubly incontinent. We definitely need to address this issue. I also worked for a few years for the GP surgery that looked after that care home - the lists of medications being doled out to keep these people breathing is insane.

I've just finished reading Sir David Haslam's 'side effects' which is all about the choices we make in healthcare and where the money goes.

One thing that stayed with me that he was talking to a Consultant specialist in end of life care, who said that he spent his time going onto wards and taking patients off medications/treatment and trying to convince others to allow them die.

He also said that dying is not the worst thing for people - that living in pain, lonely and struggling for many years is.

I agree with him and whilst people say it's not about the money - it is. We don't have endless cash for the NHS and wasting it with ineffective and unnecessary treatments/healthcare should not be happening.

That's not my experience. You should have increased your father's morphine. He wanted to live, you wanted him alive, that was the problem. If there had gave been assisted dying, neither of you would have opted for it.

They still errr on the side pf caution as my father’s meds were always behind the pain and not on top of it. To be frank to remove all pain from a broken back etc would have been a crazy dose would it not?

A conversation about euthanasia, yes. Bringing the cost of care in to it, a very hard no. There shouldn't be a price on a life. How far does that go considering the cost. A person born with a disability euthanized because they will need lifelong care? No treatment to prolong the life of a cancer patient because it's expensive and they eventually die anyway? Euthanize children brought into the care system as young children because of the cost of the state to accommodate them till 18? Forced termination for pregnancies to unemployed parents?

If we want to have a grown up discussion it absolutely has to include costs. It’s total avoidance to pretend that it has no bearing on things or that you can take it out of the equation. It is not an infinite resource and it is one of the things that people worry about the most when it comes to old age and dying.

Personally I hope that I have the courage to do something other than use up all of the money I have saved and not be able to give it to my children who will need it to live the lives I want them to have. It should be my choice.

Over the last 18 months or so I’ve watched my dad, my nan and my dog die. The only one afforded any dignity and compassion was my dog. That surely can’t be right.

Of course it doesn't. And shouldn't.

There was a CHC carer there towards the end not just me and my brothers. They were also administering the morphine.

I felt too scared, confused and distressed and was almost grieving before he was dying. It’s a terrible thing to have to nurse whilst grieving.

Nearly everyone I know who's family have been affected by an older person's dementia have said they never ever want to get that way.
I do think there's something quite cynical about these care homes etc taking profit for keeping people 'alive' for way longer than seems decent or compassionate.
I do think that someone should be able to fairly easily, when still in mental capacity, to write a kind of 'will to die' once dementia/terminal illness reaches a certain level. If they still have capacity then they can renege on it at any time.
Nobody should have to suffer longer than necessary.
It used to be that people passed from other illnesses much younger, so this is only going to get more pressing as people live longer.

Yes, but it's something that we have to do sometimes.

I think the cost is an issue. If I’m paying, which I’m very likely to be able to, I don’t want to fund my living death. Kill me off! I’d rather give the money to charity if my DC don’t want it.

I'm in my 70s and fully agree with assisted dying. However, when a proposal for assisted dying starts with a a cost benefit analysis, I worry.

If I choose death over life, that's ok. It's not ok when society decides I'm too expensive to keep alive.

I know that people with dementia cannot advocate for themselves, but we don't know, cannot know, what they are experiencing and what the quality of their lives may mean to them.

I have sympathy with the argument that if we had the right palliative care, there would be less urgency about the need for some form of assisted dying. But we don't have good palliative care for everyone who needs it. That's a big problem and I wonder if we shouldn't get that right before we look to assisted dying

This is why euthanasia must not be brought in. The money will be too big a factor in too many cases. A right to die will become a duty to die. The whole thing reeks.

Many many more people will benefit from it than abuse it. We can’t justify the near torture of people just because some MIGHT break the law

Fine, that’s your opinion. It’s wishful thinking though.

I do think there's something quite cynical about these care homes etc taking profit for keeping people 'alive' for way longer than seems decent or compassionate

Care homes don't keep people alive. What are you talking about?

Totally disagree. The current system is inhumane.

No. It isn't. Assisted dying is being debated and discussed widely at the moment and all agree costs are never to be a factor.

I know this is mumsnet, where everyone is resentful that old people own houses and have money, but listen to yourselves.

It’s incredible when you put it like that isn’t it.