Euthanasia rare in the UK
This is a surprise, because it is being touted as "common" and the numbers are confusing because of the way we treat people.
If we inject someone with a deliberate overdose until he dies, that is euthanasia...if we do it with the patient asking for it, it is assisted suicide.
BUt somepeople mix this up with pain medicine needed to relieve pain..
If a person is in severe pain, and we keep giving slow frequent morphine shots to relieve his pain, and slow the morphine drip when he is pain free, this is treatment not killing...I once argued with a nurse when the dose to relieve a patient's pain caused his respiration to slow...she wouldn't give any more, but he still kept waking and moaning in pain...so I gave three more doses, and he went to sleep....and died a few hours later without furthur pain medicine..
However, I should observe I have had similar scenerios where the result was that after a few hours, the patient woke up and recovered and was pain free with the adjusted dosage...the highest dose of Morphine I have given is 300 mg an HOUR by iv drip...the patient lived on that dose for several weeks...
Ditto for pain patches. I had a 95 year old who broke her femur but it was held in place by an earlier hip replacement...so we treated her with bedrest...a special bed to prevent bedsores...and since she refused IV's, we used patches...she ended up on Fentanyl 250 mg patches...a huge dose...and later we weaned her off it...she finally died two years later...
Extraordinary treatment is optional...open heart surgery in 80 year olds is optional (although my mother had it and lived 9 more years, driving her car until a year before her death)...Dialysis is optional. Respirators are optional. Even ICU for heart attacks are optional...and I've had older patients refuse all these things and some lived, and some died...
Feeding is more delicate.
However, if a person is dying of cancer, and the IV is uncomfortable, stopping it is optional.
Ditto for antibiotics if they have pneumonia...
If a person has terminal Alzheimer's and won't eat, the treatment is either to feed them slowly with a spoon or a feeding tube...
If a person has terminal Alzheimer's, or PVS, or severe degenerative neurological disease, and they are so bad they are unable to eat when fed correctly, then they can't swallow saliva and are essentially dying...a feeding tube does not significantly prolong their life over spoon feeding...again optional. Morally and ethically you can remove it...
If a person has severe brain damage and can swallow, but the feeding tube is placed for the convenience of the family , and then you remove it, it is essentially murder. But if the person says, as one patient said to me: Look, I want to eat normally with my family, and not be kept alive with tubes, then again this is an option that even Catholics argue about...and he died of pneumonia three days later...
So when you hear of "withdrawing treatment" or "medication" and euthanasia, remember: it is not simple...
And in this day and age, with the dehumanizing hospitals and overuse of technology, many elderly people want the option to end it...while ignoring that there are alternatives...
Indeed, one reason we came back to the Philippines is because my husband has had one stroke, and recovered...but if he has another, he wants to stay here...where family and maids can care for him...
As for me: well, I agree, but have kept my health insurance...because sometimes there ARE reasons to have extraordinary treatment..
If we inject someone with a deliberate overdose until he dies, that is euthanasia...if we do it with the patient asking for it, it is assisted suicide.
BUt somepeople mix this up with pain medicine needed to relieve pain..
If a person is in severe pain, and we keep giving slow frequent morphine shots to relieve his pain, and slow the morphine drip when he is pain free, this is treatment not killing...I once argued with a nurse when the dose to relieve a patient's pain caused his respiration to slow...she wouldn't give any more, but he still kept waking and moaning in pain...so I gave three more doses, and he went to sleep....and died a few hours later without furthur pain medicine..
However, I should observe I have had similar scenerios where the result was that after a few hours, the patient woke up and recovered and was pain free with the adjusted dosage...the highest dose of Morphine I have given is 300 mg an HOUR by iv drip...the patient lived on that dose for several weeks...
Ditto for pain patches. I had a 95 year old who broke her femur but it was held in place by an earlier hip replacement...so we treated her with bedrest...a special bed to prevent bedsores...and since she refused IV's, we used patches...she ended up on Fentanyl 250 mg patches...a huge dose...and later we weaned her off it...she finally died two years later...
Extraordinary treatment is optional...open heart surgery in 80 year olds is optional (although my mother had it and lived 9 more years, driving her car until a year before her death)...Dialysis is optional. Respirators are optional. Even ICU for heart attacks are optional...and I've had older patients refuse all these things and some lived, and some died...
Feeding is more delicate.
However, if a person is dying of cancer, and the IV is uncomfortable, stopping it is optional.
Ditto for antibiotics if they have pneumonia...
If a person has terminal Alzheimer's and won't eat, the treatment is either to feed them slowly with a spoon or a feeding tube...
If a person has terminal Alzheimer's, or PVS, or severe degenerative neurological disease, and they are so bad they are unable to eat when fed correctly, then they can't swallow saliva and are essentially dying...a feeding tube does not significantly prolong their life over spoon feeding...again optional. Morally and ethically you can remove it...
If a person has severe brain damage and can swallow, but the feeding tube is placed for the convenience of the family , and then you remove it, it is essentially murder. But if the person says, as one patient said to me: Look, I want to eat normally with my family, and not be kept alive with tubes, then again this is an option that even Catholics argue about...and he died of pneumonia three days later...
So when you hear of "withdrawing treatment" or "medication" and euthanasia, remember: it is not simple...
And in this day and age, with the dehumanizing hospitals and overuse of technology, many elderly people want the option to end it...while ignoring that there are alternatives...
Indeed, one reason we came back to the Philippines is because my husband has had one stroke, and recovered...but if he has another, he wants to stay here...where family and maids can care for him...
As for me: well, I agree, but have kept my health insurance...because sometimes there ARE reasons to have extraordinary treatment..
posted by Nancy Reyes at
5:12 PM
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