To be very anxious about the assisted dying bill?

[bipbopdo]

I’m surprised by how anxious I am about it. I don’t agree with it at all and I’m not sure there will ever be enough safeguards to justify making it legal. As it currently stands, it’s theoretically possible for someone with anorexia to qualify.

It took less than ten years for Canada to expand eligibility well beyond the original criteria. Assisted dying now accounts for one in twenty deaths there. I’m scared that could happen here.

It's unfortunate that neither side of the discussion really acknowledges that you have to accept some sort of collateral no matter what you do.

However I do think this legislation is very overdue now. Ultimately on the one hand the problem of people dying agonising and undignified deaths over weeks and months is very real and the risk of coercion is hypothetical and its scale is poorly evidenced.

The principle of the Bill is also entirely consistent with being able to move a patient from curative care to palliative care or provision of abortion, both of which involve some risk of coercion but would be unthinkable to criminalise.

I do also think that the safeguards are exceptionally strong, certainly compared to other jurisdictions and I really don't know what could feasibly be added which wouldn't make it a nightmare of red tape for people already going through one of the worst experiences of their lives.

TheFinePrintess What a horrible thing to say. Please remember that people suffering from the cruel disease of dementia are human beings who deserve to be treated with kindness and respect. My parents both suffered from Alzheimer’s and they were never “physically & mentally abusive” to their loved ones. Saying “shit & piss dealt with by strangers because I’m in nappies” is such a disrespectful and awful thing to say. Please think carefully before you post in future.

@bipbopdo so your big worry is a slippery slope

I do understand that and I respect your view.

For me, I have known people who would have wanted to do it and died in terrible pain. I don't think they should be prevented because government can take any power to extremes.

You've given the figure of one in 20. In terms of people who might want to benefit, I don't find that too high.

I do see the issues with Canada, but I think we've got to work hard to make sure that doesn't happen

The current state of things isn't particularly desirable either. I do agree that palliative care needs to be improved but some people suffering spreads beyond that.

Then you get the blurred morality of perhaps giving them a higher dose of something that might kill them.

and of course, some people will say that medical professionals can't be exempt from blame in those cases because then you might get a random murderer around. I don't think we should be measuring everything in terms of Harold Shipman. There's a balanced way to learn the lesson.

It’s a different perspective when one of your children has a learning disability, and you see time and time again in A & E that many HCPs have the tacit attitude that NHS resources are wasted on people with learning disabilities, as it is.

DD1’s GP sent us a DNACPR form to sign for her every year, during Covid. She was in her 20s and apart from epilepsy, she is as strong as an ox. She’s never had flu, and is immune to the norovirus. The form also said, if she did get ill; did we want her to go to hospital or stay at the care home for “comfort care”! Nobody sent us a form like that for her twin sister or either of us! The Parliamentary Human Rights Committee discussed this form in July 22. They said a DNACPR should never be conflated with decisions about care. Inadequate medication can be regarded as a form of torture.

So, it’s quite clear when push comes to shove, what doctors’ thinking is.

Yes, I didn’t see it myself; but my mother told me my father died a horrendous death from cancer. I felt sick just hearing about it, and was in a state of shock for days. They were promised hospice care at home; but got no such thing.

IMO, everybody should have the option of dying in a hospice with proper palliative care - and this act gives the NHS the cheap way out. How much is a hospice bed per day? AD is bound to be much cheaper!

The UK doesn’t have to go down that route if it doesn’t want to.

People talk about the slippery slope as if any far fetched proposal is inevitable. When the prospect of gay marriage was being discussed there were viewpoints that this was the top of the slippery slope where the end point was it being legal to marry your pets. Has this happened?

There’s absolutely no need to be ‘assessed for months ’. If someone is ready to die, one can rest assured they’ve been thinking about it for more than ‘months’.

There’s no need for state control over such an individual decision.

I am anxious about getting dementia. My granddad had dementia and it was awful to witness. This law wouldn't cover dementia.

I am not sure it is clear what doctors are thinking my daughter currently in palliative has not made up her minds. The option peoole should be given is dying in their own home surrounded by loved ones. This rest on us all being able to accept we and our loved ones will dye and may mean choosing quality over quantity.

Sone doctors struggle to say we cannot recommend further treatment or if we resuscitate you you would be unlikely to recover enough to ever leave intensive care.

Often she cannot send people home as they might die in the transport the answer is not to take them in in the first place. Sometimes families for the best of reasons insist on procedures which cause the patient pain and distress. That extra round of chemo may gain a extra month but the treatment makes that and the proceeding months awful.

That actually reads more like a threat to me- you don't have to choose assisted death, but don't expect the NHS to make an effort to help you to have a comfortable death if you don't.

It's obvious to me that when it's brought in palliative care and disability support - such as they are now - will get funding cut and cut. Why waste money on these things when the responsible thing to do is die now and avoid being more of a burden on the state?

Same.

My lovely Dad died in absolute agony despite an amazing hospice team trying to bring his pain under control. He was begging to die.

An assisted death/medical aid in dying just 7 days prior would have saved him and us such a terrible trauma.

It can’t come soon enough and I truly believe that anyone who had witnessed what I did would feel the same.

Unfortunately some diseases mean that there is no comfort in death. My Dad died in excruciating agony, no amount of morphine could touch it. The NHS support he received was incredible but they just couldn’t get his pain managed despite their best efforts. He had bone cancer.

I watched my DSis die last year. For a lot of the time she was in agony, despite expert palliative care in a hospice, the pain killers were just not enough. One night a few days before she died, she pleaded with me to do something. There was nothing I could do bar request more meds for her. I believe that if she had been at home she would have instructed us to make her a cocktail to end it ( we are all HCP) and I probably would have “assisted” her.

This is what it means, to make it possible for someone to end their life when there is nothing else that can be done and they are overwhelmed by the pain.

At one point she was having serious levels of painkillers but the effect was wearing off within 10mins or having no effect. It is difficult to describe watching a loved one in so much pain. Every breath was agony. And it is a myth that they can give big doses of painkillers thanks to Shipman. It is the cancer that kills them not the medication.

Finally she slipped into unconsciousness and passed away peacefully, but the previous 3 weeks were brutal.

Unfortunately for my DSis the assisted dying bill would have been useless, she was diagnosed and died in under 2 months. But having witnessed my DM death so me years ago I am certain that she would have been keen to die a little while before things deteriorated. She made our other DSis and me promise to be there to support her DH who had not experienced a loss due to cancer at such close quarters. She relied on us heavily to advocate for her and everytime I bullied the staff into giving her more painkillers she hugged me. It was heartbreaking hearing her so upset and crying out for me when I had slipped out of her room to use the loo. She was a very independent person both physically and emotionally and it was so difficult to see her frightened and in pain.

So no, my biggest anxiety is that my DS may have to go through this experience with me.

Can't get over the naivety of the majority of posters on this thread

Exactly! You just worry about your own body and your own life @CorneliaCupp and let people who are in great pain and suffering with no chance of getting better end their life if they so wish.

Can you really not see how this law has consequences for everyone? Regardless of their feelings about it?
If everyone just thought about themselves, as you suggest, who would look after those who need help? And for whom this bill has made life more dangerous?

You absolutely have that choice. And have had that choice ever since suicide was decriminalised. That’s not what you’re asking for or what “assisted dying” is about, is it? The “assisted” bit is crucial.

@CorneliaCupp

its good it has consequences for everyone. Everyone has the choice to end their suffering if they want to. If they don’t want to, fine. It’s good to have that choice for everyone. Ffs, we don’t let animals suffer on why should humans have to endure?? Let’s have some empathy and compassion.

I am so sorry you feel anxious, but I welcome the right for people to end their lives when they wish to, without causing others or themselves to be implicated in a crime.

Isn't it only going to apply to terminally ill people with 6 months or less left to live?

If so, I am not sure what anyone outside of that specific criteria is worried about.

By the way, being in your last weeks of a terminal illness is not just pain for some. It is things like hallucinating, or vomiting faeces. The best palliative care in the world can not deal with all the pain and all the symptoms. Unless you just want anyone that is near the end to just be sedated until they pass... in which case, who are you doing it for? Them, or you?

THIS! END OF. It really is that simple.

It’s up to people to take out an LPA and make their wishes clear. Afaik, they can also set out their wishes in an advance directive or living will.

When MIL was in hospital for her last few days, the consultant took me off for a talk, because I was the oldest adult from the family there at the time. I had taken DC to say goodbye to her. He said MIL needed dialysis but was too frail; she was getting IV fluids and nutrition, but couldn’t stay there forever. He asked what her wishes were and I said to die at home. He told me to ask her children, the blood relatives either to take her home to die; or he was going to withdraw treatment and she’d die in the hospital.

I suspected MIL had mild cognitive deterioration; but she was never diagnosed with dementia nor failed a test of mental capacity.

It’s up to doctors to be frank with the family about not putting patients through pointless treatment. It’s not a justification for AD.

This. I really really wish my family hadn’t had to suffer like they did, for what? They had no pleasure, just pain in the last months. This way people can say goodbye and they can go peacefully.
My friends have relatives with mnd and dementia and it’s just a slow cruel death.
In many cases family cling on to hope of an improvement so I can see that stopping someone getting it.. my sister was desperate to die, I was desperate to see her free, but everyone else was still hoping for a miracle while her body was riddled with cancer and she couldn’t breathe

Absolutely agree the “but Canada” mumble mumble “slippery slope” argument doesn’t hold any weight whatsoever.

It really is quite simple, if you don’t agree with the bill then don’t choose assisted dying should you ever need it.

People are talking about the amount of people who may be coerced in to it but judging by this thread, I think the opposite is more likely. That the individual patient will want to have the option but their family, who aren’t even the ones suffering, will lay on the guilt and talk them out of it.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of Physicians, the Association for Palliative Medicine and most disability campaigners and organisations do not support this bill. It does not sufficiently protect the vulnerable.
Anyone dying in pain, any suffering is always a tragedy, of course. But the risks of this particular bill are too high.
It is possible to think that dying in pain is horrendous, and also not support this bill. There is enough compassion and empathy to go around.

There is no obligation for next of kin to be informed that a patient has made this decision. They could have put that in the bill, they didn't.