As a student nurse I worked in elder care, and we had “hospice” beds on site.
I noticed that patients with terminal illnesses don’t want to be killed, they want to die without pain, that they’re comfortable in their final moments and that their families have said their goodbyes.
Now I’m a nurse, I get to see it a little more up front and with a lot more responsibility involved.
There is no such thing as “death with dignity”, however, you can live with dignity whilst dying! There is no such thing as a “right to die”, we’re all going to die, its a stupid play on words to suggest you have a right to do it.
It is, instead, a right for someone else to kill you. There is no dignity in being killed. It is the medical profession in conjunction with family and society or whoever, telling you your life is worth jack and that you’re better off dead.
Its very cheap to kill someone. Its not so cheap to keep them pain free in their final days. Good palliative care is the key.
I have seen people die hideous deaths because they fell through the system and didn’t get good palliative care. Yet, I have seen people with worse conditions die peacefully, naturally, surrounded by friends and family and loved ones.
When a person dies they don’t leave some void. They leave a family, they leave friends, it is those people who will remember that loved one’s death. And beleive you me, people remember a bad death. I’ve noted that patients who have wittnessed other family members die horribly, either due to lack of pallitive care or from some other sudden trauma, often have fears about their own dying process, and so, became rather afraid, they hear the stories on the news about people wanting to “die with dignity” and they end up thinking that it sounds right for them, without understanding that the experience their family member/friend had is not the norm.
People with terminal illnesses, or who are otherwise dying are not morons. They can make their own decisions, and ususally its not “please kill me” its usually “please, I dont’ want it to hurt”.
Generally when people reach the final stages of a terminal illness they are “ready”, they have been, hopefully, given the information about the disease process at this stage, they don’t fear it, what they want is good pain and symptom management.
Its 2010, people, at least in modern societies don’t need to die in pain, wallowing in their own faeces. It would be beneficial to all concerned in end of life decision making if the media STFU about horrible cases where care plans were not followed through, where the patient was obviously neglected and where everyone had the wrong end of the stick.
As the saying goes, hard cases make bad laws. The mess the Netherlands have created for themselves is a prime example of that.
I heard a story of an old woman with no family and very little money who according to doctors “made her end of life choice”, and before her bed in the pricey hospital was cold, the chairman of the hospitals board was admitted.
