Suicide and Voluntary Euthanasia

Julia said:

You are ignoring the ironic fact that euthanasia is practised all the time anyway by doctors increasing the dose of life ending drugs. We simply want this to be made legal.

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Do doctors actually do this? Considering euthanasia is currently illegal, how can this be allowed happen? Why are they not held responsible?

Julia, I had just about finished reading this thread and had been putting the dot points on my vitriolic reply to a post in here when i read your redress to it , i must say it put mine to shame and made me proud to know that there are people in the community like yourself willing to stand up for the basic rights of others in dire circumstances.Keep it real , and don't give up the fight , oh and give yourself a pat on the back .

gav said:

Do doctors actually do this? Considering euthanasia is currently illegal, how can this be allowed happen? Why are they not held responsible?

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When you're in pain they sedate you, and they can increase the dose to where you stop breathing, not illegal just a gentle assist.

Whats needed is the right to intervene earlier then that before it gets too bad.

gav said:

Do doctors actually do this? Considering euthanasia is currently illegal, how can this be allowed happen? Why are they not held responsible?

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Its done because that's the reality of life...and death.

Some people have injury's or conditions that make life not viable...think
advanced cancers, massive head injury's and loss of brain function etc.

gav said:

Do doctors actually do this? Considering euthanasia is currently illegal, how can this be allowed happen? Why are they not held responsible?

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My wife died some years ago with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Her life was a misery and she was in and out of hospital all the time. At home we had an oxygen concentrator. Her last four weeks were in hospital where she was on a subcutaneous morphine infusion. She drifted in and out of conscienceness.

Her quality of life was zero. Our doctor and the various specialists who treated her and the nurses were very compassionate people. She probably could have lingered on for another few months, except for the compassion of her pulmonary specialist.

I have no idea whether she died because the morphine was increased or the oxygen was cut off, but I am eternally gratefull to that specialist, for my wife's sake.

I hope that answers your question. I hope you will never be in similar circumstances.

So sorry for you Calliope , very good of you to share it, thanks.

This is a dilemma which i will find my self later in my life.
I lost my Dat and Mom to cancer, fortunately they did not suffer for long (my mom has been given morphine).
Q ?.
What should i do later in my life when there is nobody to look after me when i may be seriously ill with no hope at all or in the age when i cannot look after my self. My brain tell me what is going on and i know that my body is good for nothing and i cannot even make to the toilet.
For any outsider i am vegetable.
If i cold put my hand on a pill i would be happy to us it and go with dignity.

MrBurns said:

So sorry for you Calliope , very good of you to share it, thanks.

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My sentiments exactly , thank you for sharing with us Calliope, i could not for one second imagine how painfull that would be for you .

This is a very modern question - born of the incredible advances in medicine over the last 60 or so years. As we get better at keeping people alive (and that is our default setting - the survival instinct is strong) I am sure that we move past the points in the care where the patient has moved past the instinct to survive to the acceptance that it is time to go. The point being that without our advances in palliative care most people may not have reached this point. They most probably died grasping at life.

For me, if I can reach the point where I decide that it is time to go, and am able to exercise that choice then I will feel truly blessed.

I would bet my last dollar that everyone here has known of people who have died due to cancer - I've known people who have died quickly and slowly. Whichever path they travelled, the phrase that everyone always uses is something like - "I am just taking comfort knowing that they are no longer suffering / in a better place."

A painful death should not be inflicted on anyone, that's called torture.

Datsun Disguise said:

"I am just taking comfort knowing that they are no longer suffering / in a better place."

A painful death should not be inflicted on anyone, that's called torture.

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Nice , and so true , if i have heard it once i have heard it 100 times, thank you for reminding us of that.

A painful death should not be inflicted on anyone, that's called torture.

Thank You Datsun -

Garpal Gumnut said:

I was speaking to a local ambo the other day, sorry a paramedic as they are now known.

I had heard of a doctor who had tattooed on his chest "do not resuscitate" and asked the ambo how he would go with the Queensland Ambulance if they were called to him.

He told me that the doctor is quite famous in ambo circles, but that there is a directive to resuscitate him, as he could have changed his mind a few moments before they were called.

So the compulsory denial of death is another element in this whole debate.

Nobody is allowed to die. What a farce.

gg

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Well, gg, you can tell those paramedics that they are actually breaking the law. It is a criminal offence to resuscitate a person against their wishes, if there is no hope of a recovery. Obviously this last phrase is important, and possibly the paramedics could claim they lacked sufficient knowledge to determine whether the person could recover.

The people who care about me know that if ever I'm in such a situation, they are to make it clear to any attending medical personnel that they will be sued to hell and high water if they ignore my legal instructions.

gav said:

Do doctors actually do this? Considering euthanasia is currently illegal, how can this be allowed happen? Why are they not held responsible?

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Gav, the notion that they should be 'held responsible' is quite wrong.
We are talking about dying people here. Doctors commonly are humane enough to - within the bounds of their ethical responsibilities - use medication to a level where death occurs sooner rather than later.
All they are doing is limiting the already considerable degree of suffering the patient has been experiencing.

Calliope's post illustrates this perfectly.

This is a very serious subject but it does have its lighter side. To that end, I'll relate here the circumstances of my mother's death.

She had a gangrenous leg as a complication of diabetes. She was 100% aware and rational and had previously completed an Advance Health Directive saying she did not wish any life saving measures to be undertaken.
This was in New Zealand. I was phoned by the hospital specialist and asked to come on the basis that she had probably four or five days to live.

When I arrived her pain was well controlled and she was able to rationally discuss her situation. She was just short of 80 and considered that she had enjoyed a great life. She had done all she wanted to and made a considerable contribution to her community. She was completely happy to die.

(One thing I thought wrong and very peculiar was that I was told by the medical staff that I could override her decision if I thought she should have her life saved. Obviously I declined to do anything so presumptuous.)

That established, she was not treated for the now systemic infection, but given enough morphine to cope with the pain.

After we'd talked for a while and I'd received all her 'instructions' about what to do re the funeral etc., she smiled brightly and said "well, that's all. You can go and tell the nurses I'm ready to die now." I laughed and suggested perhaps it wasn't quite that straightforward.

But in order to honour her wishes I did convey that wish to the nursing staff who took it quite seriously and said that I needed to explain to her that when they next came into the room and asked if she was in any pain, she was to say yes, and they were then justified in increasing the dose of morphine. OK, I explained this to her. Fine with her.

A little later the nurse came in and asked the question. Mother looked quite surprised and said, no, she wasn't in any pain at all. The morphine had affected her memory. So we went through it again, and the next time the nurse came in and asked the same question she remembered to say 'yes'.

So by this gentle means which left the staff completely covered, the morphine was increased to the necessary level.

If a death can ever be described as 'good', then I consider that my mother experienced such a death. When I remember it, I smile, and that's what she would have wanted.

So when we say that euthanasia is currently practised, it's on the basis of the therapeutic level of drugs being whatever is needed to control pain, and if the side effect of that pain control is death, then so be it.
So perhaps not exactly as you may have imagined, Gav.

MrBurns said:

When you're in pain they sedate you, and they can increase the dose to where you stop breathing, not illegal just a gentle assist.

Whats needed is the right to intervene earlier then that before it gets too bad.

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Yes, exactly right, Mr Burns.
The difficulty lies not so much in the acute and semi-acute situations where drugs for pain control are routinely used, but the more chronic illnesses such as the last stages of multiple sclerosis, injury causing quadriplegia etc where there is no clinical indication for morphine to be used.

Calliope said:

My wife died some years ago with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Her life was a misery and she was in and out of hospital all the time. At home we had an oxygen concentrator. Her last four weeks were in hospital where she was on a subcutaneous morphine infusion. She drifted in and out of conscienceness.

Her quality of life was zero. Our doctor and the various specialists who treated her and the nurses were very compassionate people. She probably could have lingered on for another few months, except for the compassion of her pulmonary specialist.

I have no idea whether she died because the morphine was increased or the oxygen was cut off, but I am eternally gratefull to that specialist, for my wife's sake.

I hope that answers your question. I hope you will never be in similar circumstances.

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Thank you, Calliope, for such a contribution to the discussion. Much appreciated.

Medici said:

This is a dilemma which i will find my self later in my life.
I lost my Dat and Mom to cancer, fortunately they did not suffer for long (my mom has been given morphine).
Q ?.
What should i do later in my life when there is nobody to look after me when i may be seriously ill with no hope at all or in the age when i cannot look after my self. My brain tell me what is going on and i know that my body is good for nothing and i cannot even make to the toilet.
For any outsider i am vegetable.
If i cold put my hand on a pill i would be happy to us it and go with dignity.

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Medici, you have summed up the reasons for voluntary euthanasia. This is what we all fear.

For some years I was a volunteer visitor in nursing homes, spending time with people who had no family. Eventually I had to stop it because I found it so distressing.

People are left in their own waste for hours, often more than a day, not because the staff don't care, but because there are simply not enough of them, so lacking is the federal government's funding to the nursing home sector.

Recently in this area patients in a nursing home suffered multiple mice bites to their faces, hands and neck because of an unchecked mice plague in the nursing home. The old people concerned were unable to move, or brush off the mice, neither could they call for help.

Five years ago my father suffered a serious medical event and was subsequently unable to care for himself, and required constant nursing attention. His mind was unaffected, other than he was utterly distressed at finding himself dependent and in a nursing home which he hated.
For weeks he begged me to help him end his life. He wanted me to take him back to his house where his rifle was stored, to leave him there for half an hour, and then come back, at which stage he would have shot himself.
I had to explain that I couldn't do this because I would be deemed guilty of assisting a suicide and would go to jail.

Eventually, on the coldest night of the year, when he had figured that the tide was highest, he told the nursing staff not to disturb him, and made his way out a back door, somehow got the 100metres down to the beach, and drowned himself. When I was asked the next morning to identify his body, he was covered in lacerations from the rocks and coral.

I would simply ask those who are so determined that their God should decide the time of death for everyone, not just the believers, what right you have to say that people should have to go to such levels to end their desperation and misery.

Julia .

I have nothing to say , but after reading your post , and wiping tears from my eyes , no reasonable decent person could ever dispute your reasoning or actions.
I hope everyone who has contributed to this thread has another good hard look at themselves and what they believe is right and wrong before they decide that they would begrudge someone a dignified and clinical exit.

Oh Julia what can I say.

I'm sad and angry.

That encapsulates what this thread is all about.

I would simply ask those who are so determined that their God should decide the time of death for everyone, not just the believers, what right you have to say that people should have to go to such levels to end their desperation and misery.

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It's a harrowing story Julia. I just hope I am never in the situation your father was in. I have a reliable final exit kit. My only hope is that when the time comes I have the capability of using it. The law makes sure that we can never ask anyone to assist us.

I know someone who plans to open a place where you can take dope when you get to that stage, friends and trusted friends of friends only, marijuana is a great pain reliever I'm told.

Touching Julia. Thx for the insight into yourself.

Thank you Julia for sharing your beautiful story. The strength of your mother and your repect of her wishes.

I can understand that. My Nana died so unexpectedly and fast from colon cancer which had spread to a malignant stage by the time they operated and said there was nothing they could do, but "close her up again".

So the next 3 weeks she wanted to be with all her family. There were 30 of us camped in the house taking turns to read to her, feed her, I loved giving Nana massages of the hand and feet if made her so happy. Then like your mum, she said one day "I want to go, I love you all so much" she closed her eyes, and her breathing stopped, she passed away when she wanted with alot of love. 27 of us were there at the time and we all placed a hand on her body when she left. We were grief stricken but also happy she had the final days as she wished.

My children were there, my son 4 with autism went up to her when we left and patted her on the head saying "love nana be happy, bye bye" and gave her a kiss on the cheek. I don't fear death from seeing this.

Sad to read the story's , E.G. terrible Julia that this happened in our so called civilized society .

I'd like a bottle of Nembutal ready for when the time comes , I will decide my exit .
Not to keen to go to Mexico to get any , but would consider paying top dollar for getting some in the near future .

Stupid stupid stupid ''' when you can take your old dog thats suffering incurable pain down to the local vet for a shot of Nembutal but Can't ask your Doc for same !

Notice the price was only $30 US a bottle in Mexico back in 07 , check it out now .

Yes rather sad to reach the ripe old age of 80 and decide to give it away. Oh well.