Suicide and Voluntary Euthanasia

Julia said:

He has not been deregistered.
He has been suspended, presumably pending further enquiry. Nowhere has it been stated that he has been deregistered, so it would be good if you do not misrepresent the facts.

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Dr Nitschke apparently believes he's been de registered

Dr Nitschke will appeal against the decision, which he said is purely political and a "dirty little midnight assassination".

"It's clear to me that the Medical Board has conducted a trial by media which goes against the rule of law and Australian democracy as we know it," Dr Nitschke said.

"It beggars belief that a government board can act purely because it doesn't agree with the beliefs of its citizens.

"This is a political deregistration brought on by a fundamental difference in beliefs. We will be appealing the decision of the Medical Board and expect the rule of law to correct the factual and legal errors inherent in the board's kneejerk political adjudication."

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-...-not-surprised-by-nitschke-suspension/5621856

And if you watch the video on that link you will hear the word come from his own lips.

Dr Nitschke is understandably emotional and his language presumably reflects that. He is not apologetic and is taking an aggressive stance in response. He probably feels the need to do so, given how little support he seems to be receiving.

Julia said:

Dr Nitschke is understandably emotional and his language presumably reflects that. He is not apologetic and is taking an aggressive stance in response. He probably feels the need to do so, given how little support he seems to be receiving.

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I once held Dr Nitschke in high esteem as a compassionate man fighting for terminally ill people to choose the time and means of their death, but after his increasingly extreme approach to the subject I began to doubt his motives.

Following the case for which he was suspended I began to wonder if he just gets turned on by death and gets some sort of thrill in knowing he has helped to kill people. I just hope that if he is ever to practice again, it's not before he is given a thorough and rigorous psychiatric examination to determine if his motives are really altruistic or are driven by some darker desires.

I hope he doesn't take it too hard. I wouldn't want him to become suicidal. :bricks1:

A subject close to home.

Being with and witnessing my dearly departed wife's death (from lung cancer) and dealing with callous reactions from some doctors in the ER as she approached her final days, well to say they were cold hearted and matter-of-fact would be putting it mildly.
I struggled to understand how these docs acted in the manner they did but over time, I've come to understand that there are many factors to consider (they no doubt are confronted with death almost on a daily basis) and have come to accept that their "bedside" manner wasn't as cold-hearted and couldn't care less as I first thought.

On the opposite end, I must say that all the palliative care staff at RAH were brilliant and very compassionate in helping us to cope with what they knew and helped us to understand, would be the inevitable outcome. My wife knew her time was up and just wanted "...to go to sleep." long before it happened.

From my point of view we do have euthanasia but it's disguised, not openly discussed unless one seeks information regarding the "end stages", and I for one, approve it.

We keep death at arms length and don't want to be confronted with it let alone discuss it until we need to but death is part of life. I know from my experience that my wife hated not only the emotional and financial burden her illness placed on our family, but she despised the fact that she didn't have a "right to die" on her own terms. She knew she was dying, we knew it because we could see it but we were forced to cling to a vain hope. My wife felt forced to go through the motions and to her credit, she put on a very brave face. All the while she became a drug filled shell being kept alive via numerous hospital visits to address pain and dehydration, she felt she was only living waiting for death to arrive.

It has become a taboo subject this voluntary euthanasia but it has many merits and let me be callous, if approved would surely lessen the burden on taxpayers coffers and hospital resources plus making the life of all involved richer, more fulfilling and certainly dignified. Perhaps it would make us all embrace life and value it a little more too. I'm all for getting the heads out of the sand and allowing those that choose to, the right to leave their mortal coil at a time of their choosing.

So from this very personal experience and that of other deaths close to me as well, I understand Nitschke's attitude and fully support his cause.

Craton, an honest and insightful post. I'm so sorry about what your wife endured.

A close friend of mine died just over a year ago. She was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukaemia, had secondaries in various organs and bones.

She and her husband had enjoyed a very good marriage, worked in jobs they liked until retirement, then spent that retirement travelling the world. They had three children, no problems with them, plus loved grandchildren.

She said "I've had the most satisfying and wonderful life, couldn't have asked for better. I'm in no pain and am assured that as the end approaches I can be made comfortable. I'm happy to die here at home with the person who has loved and supported me all my life". She was calm and rational.

However, her two sons protested. "No, mum, there's always hope", they said. "You owe it to us to try the chemo".
She has been informed that it was highly unlikely the very aggressive chemo would save her life but the medical advisers were prepared to make it available if that was what she wanted. They warned her it would make her very sick.

She reluctantly agreed to go into hospital, in a capital city, away from everything that was familiar to her, and have the treatment.

She quickly became really ill, non-stop vomiting, diarrhoea, hair all fell out, infections everywhere, constant transfusions, until finally two weeks later she had a massive haemorrhage, vomiting blood all over her husband who was at her bedside. He continues to relive her death in this horrible way.

So, I think one discussion that should be held just as much as euthanasia is whether or not to be treated.
To say "there's always hope", is just another platitude, and - given the sophistication of medical diagnostics these days - surely it's better not to push someone into a painful, dreadful death just to satisfy the reluctance of some family members to let go.

Another example is the many people, often in their 90s, in nursing homes, who are demented or otherwise rendered unable to function, whose families insist on their admission to hospital for acute treatment if, e,g.
pneumonia occurs.

Terrible story, Julia.

I have come around due to this thread to be for euthanasia though I still believe that there should be checks to ensure that the person is doing it for the right reasons and not being coerced.

Craton, just wondering, would your wife have undertaken euthanasia?...and if so, how far down the track of the illness and did you explore options? I understand if you don't want to respond.

@Julia, thank you and so sorry for what you've been through with your Dad and your own experiences.

@Knobby22. Cheers, hard to discuss but welcome the chance to share with and perhaps inform others.

Disclaimer.

• Sorry for the long post, I feel it's necessary for the context of this discussion.
• There are some graphic descriptions contained in it and I make no apology for that.

Note that my wife of nearly 30 years had small cell lung cancer, discovered in her right lung. It was caused by the environment and not her smoking cigarettes (she quit as soon as she was diagnosed), anyhow the oncologists/specialists were all very adamant about this fact.

When she was first diagnosed in late '07 the lung cancer was already the size of a tennis ball, long story but essentially her doc was chasing Reflux or a gastric cause for her periodic vomiting. Once the cancer was found she was told to "...get your affairs in order." Man, that was a real shock let me tell you. We researched and became informed and was distressed to find the the low percentage of survival and the stats are not very good for this type of cancer, even less so for surviving past five years.

On the way back from Adelaide out on the open highway, she discussed how easy it would be to "...just head for the front of a truck." Very depressing to hear her talk like this but as she said, the chance of survival and the 2~3yrs death sentence coupled with the end stages wasn't something to look forward to. This was the first time we discussed "euthanasia" openly and in depth. Even so, she did her best to stay positive and go through the prescribed treatments of radiation then chemo.

As RAH said surgery was not an option because the tumour was near/in the trachea, the first treatment was to be radiation, this didn't do much. She didn't want or liked the thought of chemo and the side affects. Then we heard of the Peter Mac clinic in Melbourne with the mission statement of being the clinic par excellence for cancer patient treatment, so we sort a second opinion. Angels from heaven is how I'd describe them.

After a look see the surgeon there said pity we didn't come to them first but they could remove the right lung and then follow up with chemo. The chemo was supposed to knock out any remaining cancer cells. So in late April '08 the operation was done. The follow up chemo treatment was done in our home town so that helped but the chemo just knocked her about so much it was worse than the disease. Lots and lots of vomiting to the point of dehydration on several occasions and making her virtually bed ridden so a renewed but less effective cocktail was formulated. Finally that finished around Oct '08 and she went back to work by Feb of '09.

Follow ups throughout '09 and '10 showed no signs of cancer so she was officially in remission. Then, around Sept 2010 a spot showed up in her remaining lung and by late July 2011 it was down to Royal Melb. to perform a "wedge resection" to remove the spot. Unfortunately it was too late, the cancer had spread and was into her organs, liver, kidneys, spleen, the other lung, she was literally riddled with it.

She was given "...six months to (a long pause) many years." That was another shock. "How in the hell couldn't they find it or do something earlier?" my wife asked. An even more depressing drive home that one. She was already too weak, on O2 regularly by then, endless pain killers and I finally put my foot down and bought her the wheelchair she never wanted.

There was one last hope in that if she had a receptor to a new drug that was successful in over 30% of patients but the tests in Sept '11. down in Melbourne again for that receptor proved negative. The oncologist still prescribed the medication but to no avail. This treatment caused huge reactions so that treatment was stopped after six weeks. From then on it was to continue the palliative care via Adelaide and our local hospital with O2 and pain killers, anti vomiting medications etc., basically we were just trying to make the most of whatever time we had together and sharing her with her family and our kids down in Adelaide. Travelling was very stressful and tiring for her so Adelaide become her home for the last couple of months.

Seeing her always in pain, not being able to have a decent sleep, not eating, not drinking, being barely able to wash and toilet herself was demeaning not only for her but to all of us to say the least. A go-getter woman who loved her family above all else, to see her forced to prolong the inevitable truly frustrated her. She just wanted "...to go to sleep." Christmas '11 she tried her best to again go on as normal but sadly we could see she was a spent force. Two days later she was in the palliative care unit of RAH.

After another three days of limbo but finally on that fateful evening, those long drawn out hours of seeing her trashing in her hospital bed, hearing her speaking of coins, grabbing at sheets, doubled up in pain, trying to get comfortable, oxygen going flat out, bleeding frothy blood from her mouth and nose, terrible images that will haunt me to my dying day I wondered why is this allowed to happen. No amount of medication was helping to lessen her suffering. One even thinks of placing a pillow...

Thankfully due to the late hour no-one else in our family saw the pain and the agony she was going through nor hear her last lucid words to me, "Tell them I just want to go to sleep!" Finally, not long after the main doc started his shift, at around 8 am the automated little box loaded with morphine, the legal euthanasia went in. She past away with all of us present just after midday on the 30th Dec 2011. R.I.P my love. See you on the flipside babe.

As she and I had discussed "euthanasia" on many, many occasions and with family members too, I know that if she had the option she would have liked to have died at a place and time of her choosing in an orderly and dignified fashion. She contemplated a few places that would've appealed like a favourite and private lookout or down on her sister's farm, of which her sister was more than happy with, anywhere in nature appealed to her greatly. She hated the fact that she was a burden financially and that she could see the anguish her illness created, she wanted to lessen not only her pain but our pain too but how could she?

For our part, we gave/made no demands. How can you of a dying person?
We did all we could to make her time as comfortable and loving as possible and tons of it (so lucky to have that within our family) and making her understand that we are there for her wants and needs, not ours. We weren't the ones with the terminal cancer.
I can tell you though, it is very distressing seeing your wife eating, only to throw it all up within an hour or so. Day after day, night after night not being able to sleep, not being able to keep even water down, day in, day out, week after week, month after month as we all know the outcome of this scenario. What quality of life is that I ask.

Her last months, weeks, especially her last days and hours were terrible to say the least and no one should die this way. I know this is often used but we really do have far more sympathy towards our pets than to our own kind. Shame on us for doing so.

Craton, it's just a terrible indictment on the medical profession that your wife was allowed to suffer like that.
There is no need for it.

This is where an Advance Health Directive can be so useful. At least in Qld it's a legally binding document and allows you to set out - in conjunction with your GP who has to attest to your competence when making the document - what treatment you do want and what you wish to reject. You can also put in writing that, if a return to health is impossible, you want all available medication to be made available to you to ensure you do not suffer.

In your wife's case it sounds as though such ultimate palliative care was far too late in being instituted.

My mother had an AHD, and was also absolutely lucid when her death was inevitable, so as to be able to make her wishes completely clear. She had a gangrenous ulcer and only an amputation of lower leg would have saved her life. This was not acceptable to her and she chose instead to die. From the time of making that decision clear to the medical staff she was well managed with morphine, then when the level of that drug induced hallucinations, the addition of sedatives to ease her into a semi comatose state until she died.
If there is such a thing as a good death, that is what she experienced.

It's immensely sad that similar management wasn't offered to your wife. The suffering she and your whole family endured should simply never happen. I'm so sorry.

Thanks Craton. You must be a strong person as was your wife.

Julia said:

Craton, it's just a terrible indictment on the medical profession that your wife was allowed to suffer like that.
There is no need for it.

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I/we don't hold any grudges. To be fair the palliative services all round were brilliant and they, of course, can only work within the framework of our laws and clearly, these laws need changing and upgrading.

Further, I would say its an indictment on our society that allows this type of suffering to occur but the more evidence of the cruel way people are allowed to die, like my wife, the more pressure is placed on the moral consciousness. Premier Baird in NSW is now advocating medical use marijuana after experiencing first hand the trauma people go through.

Speaking strictly within the topic of this thread; we need to stop taking this extreme religious stance that life is so sacred (and this spills into the abortion debate) that we exclude sensible, rational, moral even financial grounds to a persons right or wish to die.

Knobby22 said:

Thanks Craton. You must be a strong person as was your wife.

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Thanks mate and yes she was but I've not mentioned that at and around the time my wife was diagnosed, I was also ferrying my Dad down to Adelaide for treatment of his "normal pressure hydrocephalus". Couple with his dementia ("...my brain went bang."), juggling my wife's illness, trying to keep my business afloat (doors still open), being the eldest son, being a dad, grandad myself and having to put down my dog, yeah.

All leading to eventually burying my wife then in Aug, 12, doing the same with Dad and his in another story of playing the waiting game. He knew he was a spent shell and wanted to end his suffering long before he ended up in the severe dementia ward of a nursing home. It was the last place he wanted to go to, to die.

What can one do? Be strong? Maybe.

Simply one has to put one foot in front of the other and take whatever comes on-the-chin and deal with it as it happens all for the other person and all within the constraints of our medical and legal systems. Oh, and don't get me started on the travel, accommodation, parking costs that were incurred, coupled with the stress of not being in ones hometown. Us remote/regional dwellers are chronically disadvantaged. IPTAAS? ITCRAP!

Funny how typing these posts has made me realise just how much my life has been in limbo since '07 because no doubt, I'm still dealing and coming to terms with all these tragic events.

In the short term I really do wish we get our shyte together and respect the wishes of those that know they can no longer contribute in a meaning full way, like Dad (he used to watch a blank TV screen), or have no chance of having any quality of life as per my wife. Its the most humane thing we can do giving people the option of saying, yep, I want to go now.

Hmm, I wouldn't place too much truthfulness on a newspaper, but this is interesting...


Nearly quarter of suicide cases at Dignitas are Brits

One Briton a fortnight is choosing suicide at Dignitas, as campaigners say it is unethical to force terminally ill people abroad to die

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Terminally ill Britons now make up a nearly one quarter of users of suicide clinics like Dignitas in Switzerland, new figures have shown.
Only Germany has a higher numbers of ‘suicide tourists’ visiting institutions to end their own lives.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/11046232/Nearly-quarter-of-suicide-cases-at-Dignitas-are-Brits.html

Right-to-die: Grandmother starves herself to death after UK's assisted suicide laws left her with 'no alternative'

An elderly woman has starved herself to death to get around the UK’s tight and restrictive laws on assisted suicide.

Octogenarian Jean Davies, who is also a right-to-die campaigner, spent five weeks attempting to end her life and succeeded in doing so on 1 October.

The former maths teacher, 86, did not have a terminal illness, but suffered a range of conditions that made her life uncomfortable including chronic back pain and fainting episodes.

She told the Sunday Times: “It is hell. I can’t tell you how hard it is. You wouldn’t decide this unless you thought your life was going to be so bad. It is intolerable.”

It is understood that she stopped drinking water on 16 September and was frustrated that her death wasn’t days after, but two weeks.

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/grandmother-starves-herself-to-death-after-uks-assisted-suicide-laws-left-her-with-no-alternative-9804411.html

A little girl allowed to die

A mother in the U.K. has made legal history after winning a High Court case, that allowed her to make the heart-wrenching decision to end the life of her severely disabled 12-year-old daughter Nancy.

When Nancy Fitzmaurice was born blind and suffering from hydrocphalus, meningitis and septicaemia the outcome for her was a life in which she would be unable to talk, walk, eat or even drink.

That life was to be spent at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital where she would receive round-the-clock care, while being fed, watered and medicated through a tube. Not a quality of life that any parent dreams of for their child.

In a landmark case, Charlotte and Great Ormond Street fought on behalf of Nancy, to give her the right to die.

Charlotte’s presented a 324-word statement to the court, pleading for mercy and begging the system to understand that her daughter should no longer suffer. Charlotte explained that her daughter longed for peace.

Justice Eleanor King at the High Court of Justice agreed.

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http://www.kidspot.com.au/a-little-girl-allowed-to-die/

With all the focus of late on terrorism, Ebola, tax, GST, the Medibank Private float, our economy, Subs, rogue fighters and Islam et al, no wonder with so many distractions there's been little discussion in the public arena on the OP title.

I guess our rights mean little in todays maelstrom of existence. *sigh*

Brittany Maynard ends her own life

Brittany Maynard, the terminally ill American woman who planned to end her life voluntarily, has died.

The 29-year-old brain cancer sufferer, who was diagnosed with a stage 4 malignant brain tumour in April and given six months to live, passed away over the weekend at her home in Oregon using drugs made legal to her by the state's Death with Dignity Act.

"Goodbye to all my dear friends and family that I love. Today is the day I have chosen to pass away with dignity in the face of my terminal illness, this terrible brain cancer that has taken so much from me ... but would have taken so much more," she published on Facebook.

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http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/brittany-maynard-ends-her-own-life-20141103-11g21q.html

Assisted dying will be made legal in UK ‘within two years’

A change in the law that will allow terminally ill people to be helped to end their lives is inevitable and will happen within as little as a couple of years, according to the deputy chair of the British Medical Association (BMA).

Speaking in a personal capacity, Dr Kailash Chand has thrown his weight behind Lord Falconer’s private member’s bill, which would offer assisted dying to terminally ill patients who are deemed mentally capable and are likely to have less than six months to live.

On Friday, the House of Lords voted unanimously to accept an amendment to the assisted dying bill, tabled by Lord Pannick and supported by Falconer, that would see all applications for assisted death subject to judicial oversight.

The move was welcomed by campaigners as a major step in changing the law. Chand said it was clear that momentum was now swinging behind those pushing for reform.

“No change is not an option,” he told the Observer. “The present law definitely needs changing. It discriminates and is very bad law. We currently have a two-tier system – one for the people who have the resources and money to go to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland and another for the majority of people who don’t have the resources or money.”

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http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/08/assisted-dying-will-be-legal-within-two-years-bma-deputy

Canada's Supreme Court overturns ban on euthanasia

The Supreme Court of Canada has overturned a ban on physician-assisted suicide, unanimously reversing a decision it made in 1993.

The decision puts Canada in the company of a handful of Western countries where the practice will be legal.

The top court said it would be allowed in the case of consenting adults who are suffering intolerably from a severe and incurable medical condition, though the illness does not have to be terminal.

"We do not agree that the existential formulation of the right to life requires an absolute prohibition on assistance in dying, or that individuals cannot 'waive' their right to life," the court said.

The decision was suspended for 12 months to allow politicians an opportunity to enact new rules surrounding the issue.

A legal challenge to the existing law was brought by the families of two women in British Columbia who have since died, and was supported by civil liberties groups.

One of the women, Gloria Taylor, who had motor neuron disease, died of an infection in 2012. She joined the right to die lawsuit in 2011.

The other, Kay Carter, travelled to Switzerland to end her life, saying before she died that she was terrified at age 89 of "dying inch by inch."

Her family were also plaintiffs.

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http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0206/678369-canada-euthanasia/

Quite a nice article I thought. I have a feeling it might already be on this thread somewhere, sorry for the double up.

Have you got 'hurry sickness'? - February 27, 2015
http://www.smh.com.au/small-busines...e-you-got-hurry-sickness-20150226-13q7vv.html

James Adonis is one of Australia's best-known people-management thinkers

....This has been front of mind lately, ever since I read The Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware. The author worked in palliative care for a decade around Australia and, in this insightful book, she chronicles the most common confessions she heard from patients on their deathbed. They were:

· I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

· I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

· I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.

· I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

· I wish I had let myself be happier.

You can probably see how hurry sickness is the antithesis of each of those regrets....

Follow James Adonis on Twitter: @jamesadonis

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