Assisted Dying (Continued)

[Nordione1]

Follow on from the previous thread which is nearly full.

All I have done is sought clarity. It's not my fault if, having thought through the consequences of your opinions, you are disgusted by them.

FWIW I don't think most people in favour of the bill have disgusting opinions.

Well, my clarity has been made up even if there is a tiny percentage of people being coerced, which we don't actually know. Quite frankly with the bill that it is written you only have six months to live, so for me truth of it is, you're not really gonna be coerced that much.It's not like you're going to gain a lot out of trying to get somebody to die four months quicker.
Maybe you could argue that if it was expanded to longer than six months, but at the minute, it's not going to be

And i'm sorry for typing too much, but even more clarity for myself is that it doesn't go far enough.We are forgetting that there are people with multiple sclerosis, and motor neuron disease who really do suffer. Plus all the other diseases that I don't know the names of etc.
I don't think they will change it because they've got to appease people that are arguing on this thread. Fook knows why, but it's a shame because there are definitely people out there who don't want to live the way they are

Lack of joined up health and social care is a huge issue. Trust me, I know.
It is lack of funding, pitiful pay for care workers, lack of respect for the key role carers play and much more.
To suggest people are being discharged from hospital to kill is unreasonable. Are there cases of negligence and horror? Absolutely. On an individual level, those cases should be raised to the highest level and I wish the complaints were investigated.

Who is “we”? Why are you talking on behalf of other people? The number of people eligible for this - and who want it and will go through with it - is minuscule.

I think it’s an anti AD echo chamber actually. On the previous thread, someone had the audacity to comment on my medical condition even though I was clear I knew it will kill me one day.

Whatever your views, I really hope people here know they’re communicating with humans. Some of us are young-ish humans who know we won’t be alive forever. We are terrified. This is our reality.

I would never ever terminate a pregnancy. I am pro choice and have zero judgment for those who need to have one. I would like the possible option of AD if my symptoms become so terrifying. Yet, people on the last thread were judging me directly including a poster who thinks bloody pulmonary rehab will help a progressive fibrotic lung disease. 🤷🏻‍♀️

@JenniferBooth I really am sorry for your loss and the trauma, especially this time of year. Of course it impacts your views and there is negligence (overall) when we don’t ensure adequate services for people. Your dad deserved peace and so did your family. People deserve to be discharged home or wherever with care - both social and health care

I just don’t think it’s useful to say discharges from hospital are AD. It will terrify the life out of people. In many cases, the best outcome is someone goes to a rehab bed, home or hospice - with care - as they tend to pick up more infections and issues in hospital. The risk of pressure ulcers increases as does chest infections. Sending people home isn’t assisting death. It should be sending them to comfort and care.

I admire your honesty i agree with u

I wish everyone approached debates in this way

The whole premise is based on that anyway just not in such a crude way- if you’re given less than 6 months to live or expected to die within 6 months then it allows you the choice as to whether you want to take the risk of what those 6 months may look like.

My mums final 6 months were a crumbling spine, double nephrostomy drains, several sepsis infections, several blood transfusions, several emergency hospital admissions, brain tumours and rounds of radiotherapy for them, severe cataracts that couldn’t be operated on, no interest in food, limited mobility, hallucinations, personality changes, rotting teeth, lymphoedema in both legs with severe tight swelling, complications from the ovarian cancer and lots more.

Had we been able to have a frank discussion around how bad things could get and then how utterly horrific they got even after that then I think assisted dying would have been the best option and avoided living certainly the last 2 months if not the 6 months as a shell of a person petrified of what else could go wrong.

Now whether she would have opted for it is another thing, she was afraid of death. But having witnessed what I did with her, I know that if I were ever in that situation I would take the opportunity to leave before the party is over because it was hideous and no way for anyone to have to die.

I am sorry to hear that happened to your mum and I agree with what you are saying. You articulated it better than me.
I do not believe in longevity of life if it's an existence not living but that individual person must make that decision

More than half. If the law is benefitting more people than it is harming then that's a good thing surely. And of course absolutely no one is suggesting that the figure that might have been coerced is any like that. In fact I'm not sure it's been proven that anyone at all was coerced.

Okay so if I get dementia, like some of my family have done, I want to die.

But this doesn't help as: 1. I won't have mental capacity to be able to have that option and 2. With my relieves, no one knew when the were in the last 6 months of their life. But mainly because I wouldn't have capacity it's not an option anyway.

No help whatsoever in this situation. So I would still have to go to Switzerland.

You would be OK with anything up to 50% of all assisted deaths being non-consensual in some way? Blimey.

If the law is benefitting more people than it is harming then that's a good thing surely.

Not necessarily, no. It depends on the degree of benefit versus the degree of harm. In this case, each of the people harmed will have been unlawfully killed by the state. That's a massive deal, it's about as high a degree of harm as you can get.

I do understand how much suffering can be involved at the end of life, I have attended traumatic deaths. If the law was there and the circumstances were right I would probably consider using it myself. But still, the balance can be nowhere near the halfway mark.

Coercion is very difficult to prove but we know it happens. You've only got to read the relationships board on here to get a sense of how common coercive relationships are, between couples and wider families. But I'm not just talking about that. There will also be people who have been incorrectly assessed as having mental capacity when they don't, people who are quite reasonably terrified of receiving inadequate care, people who have absorbed the slow drip, drip of societal attitudes and have come to believe that they ought to accept AD so they are not a burden on others ...

I’d agree with you. I’d much prefer a system that allowed people to choose death due to unbearable suffering like the Dutch. It is subjective to the individual but it should be up to an individual to decide what they can bear.

It’s worth noting that although Euthanasia has been possible in the Netherlands for over 20 years and there have been expansions it still makes up less than 5% of all deaths. The vast majority of which are people with terminal cancer or other terminal illnesses.

I don’t think that demonstrates a slippery slope. Most people do not choose to end their own lives and choose to live out their natural lifespan even when suffering terminal illness. There are some who would choose to die though. I don’t believe respecting the right to choose to die for one person diminishes another persons right to life. I find the implication quite disturbing like we are all just desperately waiting to have granny euthanised so we can inherit. I think it’s very unlikely.

My father died of the same cancer as a PP and at one point went on chemo which I was against because he was so ill and I knew it'd be rough. According to some posters I could've coerced him into declining the chemo so he'd die a few months earlier. But no that didn't happen because it was his decision not mine and he had the chemo until he could no longer tolerate it and the doctor stopped it. If coercion was such a problem then all these medical decisions have the same risk but no one is saying anything about that?

On the opposite end my grandmother at 97 decided on a DNR and refused anymore hospital treatment. No amount of "coercion" by her doctor or my mother could convince her to go into hospital (even though it was for her own good) people are really underestimating the ability of "vulnerable" people to know their own minds.

It's a strange world where words are more offensive to some than people literally suffering unbearable pain isn't it?

Can you explain how people with impaired, limited or no ability to communicate can demonstrate that they ‘know their own minds’?

I have seen the inside of far too many care homes and residential facilities for both my Mum and Dad. Hospitals too run by a lot of medical professionals who seem to have lost of the plot. A few examples, nurses changing Mum and Mum asking what they were doing and they carried on chattering in their own language.

Visitors being allowed to do what they like, bring stinky take aways and treating the visit like a bloody family day out with one child trying to play peek a boo with me when my Father was dying.

Doctors on strike with a stroppy consultant saying she would get to me after her ward rounds 8 hours later just because she wanted to show the power she had. I only wanted 5 mins with her…

With this current shower of a Labour government who are flaying around making crap decisions giving more and more money to the state. NHS will waste and waste it. Nothing will change. I am ashamed to be British with the state of our NHS and social care. Immigration looks like it will get worse and worse. Some towns are no go areas.

I have seen my Mum in such pain and very elderly, incontinent, not able to get out of bed and wanting to die. It was her time. Instead I had a stupid relative from 100’s of miles away thinking they just needed to find the right medication for her and she would then pop out of bed, start eating and all will be well.

In the end I found a lovely lady in the GP surgery who talked through a good death and end of life. The day before Mum died I asked whether she was in pain and she said no…. I knew it wouldn’t be long.

There is a definite place for AD but please let’s not make it some old saga with this current government.One has a right to have a good death.

I highly doubt they'd be eligible for this bill as they wouldn't even be able to ask for it in the first place.

What part of the bill sets out guidance around this issue?
Can you explain more about how communication issues might impact outcomes? What happens if the ability to communicate changes after somebody goes to through the process of requesting assisted dying? Am thinking of those whose ability to communicate is impacted by advancing disease, neurological issues such as stroke, the use of opiods and sedatives etc.

How will that be managed if somebody changes their mind and isn’t able to communicate that they have done so?

They won’t be eligible if they lack capacity - and this includes if they cannot communicate. That is one of the key tests.

I would never ever be supporting an AD bill for those who lack capacity - even if they have made an advanced decision. It removes the ability to change their mind.

@MichaelandKirk

-Surely you can't turn EVERY discussion to a racist rant.
-Hold my beer.

Signed:
An immigrant, sometimes chatters in her own language

@Firefly1987
@BigManLittleDignity

The problem is that sometimes people are assessed as having capacity, when they don't. Respectfully, this has been explained a million times. It's not an exact science, the assessors aren't infallible robots, and people do regularly get assessed as having capacity when they in fact do not. And it's a harrowing outcome when this assessment leads to something as final as death.

I think that at some point you have to trust medical/ legal bods to make a decision concerning capacity. It’s not entirely infallible but Dignitas have been running an assisted suicide clinic for a long time and check that every patient has capacity and wishes to proceed.

It possibly leads to a situation where patients die earlier than necessary as they need to be able to pass the capacity and consent tests on the day as well as administer the drugs. I’ve never heard a complaint that a dignitas suicide was coerced. I’m willing to be told I’m wrong though?

I do mental capacity assessments regularly. I am a BIA also. It is neither black nor white and sometimes the shades of grey appear purple! This is why 2 independent doctors and a high court judge are making the decisions.

Edit to add: “by making the decisions”, I mean to say they ones undertaking and confirming the capacity assessments.