assisted suicide

[Katzenjammer]

^ +1 ^ Well put Kwaka

[wastrel]

I think it`s already happening, my poor mum was dying of bone cancer & was in extreme discomfort, we were told a particular doctor was en-route any time to give some kind of injection with something only he carried, as hours went by my aunts & sisters grew frustrated & the McMillan nurses told us if he didn`t appear pronto they`d go get the whatever the jab was themselves under the circumstances, the doctor then arrived & we were told to stay close after it was administrated, we all knew what the outcome was going to be, about an hour later, mum left us in her sleep.
I swear if them scummy MP`s ever want to see people who actually deserve a pay rise, they should spend a day with McMillan nurses, saints every one of them!

[Raj]

Good point here, Kwaka
"There are also additional complications: For example a person has pre-determined that they way someone to end their life for them when their condition reaches a certain point, the individual has now reached that point but is no longer able to communicate that they no longer want to go on with their pre-determined plan. How do we confirm that the individual wants to continue? If we do proceed have we now committed murder?"

I practiced with the North Staffs Ambulance service for a few years. I have seen my (small) share of DNRs and DOAs. It is a difficult line you tread as an ambulance man. There were cases where the patient was clearly dead ... to the point where getting an ET tube in was impossible because the jaw was clenched shut in a deathly rictus. And yet the pleading family desperately wanted us to 'do something' to bring mummy back. So we did and pretended to try.

There were other times where the look in the patient's eyes, the tiredness on the near and dear ones' faces, the length and breadth of the medical history and the obvious prognosis all pointed towards a cry for deliverance. What do you do? Protocol and training said save the life. Common sense told us we were only prolonging suffering. A very difficult situation but we had no choice. We followed protocols.