News Doctor-Assisted Death For Those Living With Ptsd

[Justmehere]

I think the solution there would be to improve palliative care, not increasing societal support for assisted suicide of those with mental illness.

The British Geriatrics Society position on Physician Assisted Suicide (2015) also speaks directly to the impact assisted suicide will have on medicine when it states that “crossing the boundary between acknowledging that death is inevitable and taking active steps to assist the patient to die changes fundamentally the role of the physician, changes the doctor-patient relationship and changes the role of medicine in society … [and] will lead to a change in attitude to death in society and also within the medical profession.
Euthanasia, Assisted suicide and the Medical Profession: ‘Keep Doctors Out of It’. - The Nathaniel Centre

ASCO's survey also revealed that 56 percent of doctors have trouble obtaining nurses and care-givers for the terminally ill. Doctors said lack of insurance coverage for unskilled home care was the biggest obstacle in obtaining palliative care.

"The less access physicians have to such services, the more likely they are to grant requests for physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia," ASCO's President Dr. Robert Mayer said. "We must continue to improve palliative care in order to render euthanasia and assisted suicide unnecessary."
Fewer Doctors Support Assisted Suicide Poll Says

The physician is centrally involved in PAS and euthanasia, and the emotional and psychological effects on the participating physician can be substantial.
Emotional and psychological effects of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia on participating physicians. - PubMed - NCBI

Let’s talk about that change in attitude in death of the mentally ill in society that would occur if the health care industry supported it.

I am physically disabled. I have had people come up and say they could never live my life. There is a movement within the disability community against physician assisted suicide. Not Dead Yet is one such organization. Because it’s a real problem already that people too easily would like those who are disabled to die.

I would fear the day a doctor would actually consider it an option to help me die rather than help me live a better life. Insurance companies would have a financial gain to choose to kill off the disabled or mentally ill than treat them. It’s much cheaper to do a one time dose. It is not factually accurate to view it as either one has to have legal and medical support to die or else one is being forced to live. Suicide can be chosen without legal or medical support. No one is forcing someone with a mental illness to live. Hundreds of thousands manage to kill themselves around the world every year. It doesn’t need to be supported by medical providers and the law for one to end one’s life.

Legal and medical support doesn’t reduce the impact on those left behind. It simply doesn’t work that way.

Wanting medical and legal support for suicide strikes me as wanting something else than just to require others to support death by suicide. I’m not sure what it is, but it just strikes me as there wanting to be something more than just to ends one’s life. Perhaps validation of pain and self-determination? There are other ways to fight for validation and choice than to pour it all into doctor-assisted suicide.

I can not agree there is such a thing as a life that is not worthy to be lived, and I really fear the day the insurance companies and doctors would ever go around thinking that some lives are not worth living.

 

[shimmerz]

So then, as my friends mother was left in the last days of her life to, as it was described to us, puke up her own shit.... She had been in care for 10 years, with varying amounts of emergencies that they had resuscitated her from, operated on her and as she came too would hallucinate about bugs crawling on her and her believing that she was being engulfed in flames. She was 98 years old when she died.

Really? That is doing no harm? She couldn't eat;piss;shit; breathe on her own for 8 years. Nor was she allowed to make a decision as to when enough was enough. I won't even get into my father who suffered for 7 years prior to his death.

A well known and renowned old age hospital/home - if you were to walk into the lobby has 60+ patrons strapped into their wheelchairs, drooling onto themselves, with nobody attending to them. Others in the wards are pleading and screaming all day and all night. It's real and has been happening for decades.

That is not doing no harm. Rather I think it is more about keeping people employed, the pharmaceuticals fed, not to mention the facilities running. Twisted shit and have no idea how anyone can debate that we are doing these people any favours by keeping them alive. If there is a hell on earth I would say it is in those old age facilities - um no, warehouses.

There are states that are well worse than death.

 

[Ronin]

Should we kill these oncologic children too?

Or all those with a body deformity?
Or all those amputees of war?

I mean why even bother with all that rescue and charity nonsense for anyone, the world is full of expendables in states worse than death.

 

[shimmerz]

Sure. If they fall within the standards of what is deemed suffering enough that assisted suicide was a viable option. Bad enough a 98 year old going through what she did. I can't imagine watching a 5 year old going through that.

 

[Ronin]

suffering enough

That is a motivation to find a relief for that, and fix the treatments, not end life.

Besides, the hallucinations you described? Are pretty standard. Horrific, but effects of drugs pass. Hell, even those that are a result of tumor and the like can be lessened.

Just because quality of life may suck does not make for a reason to end that life.
... And it sounds like you have no idea what the hell it does with someone actually doing those mercy killings, with the idea it is somehow clean, somehow lesser traumatic, somehow less painful or absent of suffering.

 

[shimmerz]

That is a motivation to find a relief for that, and fix the treatments, not end life.

Obviously. I assume that is and has been happening for a very long time. And in the meantime we allow people to puke up their own shit for three days when we know in the end they are going to die? We are going to force people to suffer like that just to die because you are all uncomfortable with other people's coming to terms with their own death? Come on....

Just because quality of life may suck does not make for a reason to end that life.

With all due respect, that's a decision you have no right to be making for someone else.

It seems like the prevalent thought here is that people are too stupid to know what is in their best interests. Has anyone ever considered at least thinking about how it would feel to get out of the current societal group think of we can't be trusted to know on what terms we care to leave this world when death is inevitable and unavoidable?

 

[Friday]

Has anyone ever considered at least thinking about how it would feel to get out of the current societal group think of we can't be trusted to know on what terms we care to leave this world when death is inevitable and unavoidable?

Ever considered some of us come from cultures where suicide is considered honorable?
Or that some of us have actually given mercy?

The motivations you’re assuming (other people are stupid, it’s judeochristian culture that’s informing opinions, no one has direct experience, etc.) are largely incorrect.

 

[Neverthesame]

I think we're talking about applying the same morality to two different situations.

1. Sparing a terminally ill person a few weeks or months of agony, from something that is unlikely to be found a cure for within that time.
2. Ending the life of someone who is (as far as anyone can reasonably tell) not going to die, except by their own hand anytime soon.

In the province of Canada that I live in, Medical Assistance in Dying is legal, and has physician's that carry out these procedures for the terminally ill. My aunt was one of the first people to be approved and euthanized here.
I'll tell you all a bit about her.

Several years ago she was diagnosed with cancer of the liver. It was incurable, though she tried hard to live as long as possible for her family. Brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, son, daughter and grandchildren. Plus a myriad of friends.
She was a published author, she was a victim of abuse.
She wrote about her abuse in a book she published under a pseudonym. I've never been able to finish it. The things she experienced are so awful I can't fathom it. The idea that I grew up knowing the person that perpetrated this against her, makes it all the more horrific. Being able to put a face to both the man who did this, and the little girl who he did it too... I can't put words to the feeling that provokes.

She had PTSD. It cost her alot. She lost her position as an professor of literature, when her memories surfaced. She struggled with work and money for the remainder of her life.
I could go on and on, but I should get to the point sometime today I think.

Eventually the cancer had grown and spread to the point that it was causing her a great amount of pain. The amount of pain control she needed by the end, had left her delirious and unable to function on any level. Finally the side effects of opiate pain meds left her trading one agony for another. Either the cancer hurt, or her digestive system hurt. She couldn't win.
She applied to be evaluated for medical euthanisation and after a thorough psychiatric screening, was approved to die.

I was there when they did it. I supported her then, still do now. After a couple years to reflect back on it, I still think it was a good thing for her.

For her.
That's important to consider. She shaved a few weeks (best guess) of misery off the end. The odds of someone coming up with a cure, or a painkiller that would work better was pretty unlikely.
Trying to compare that to suicidality from mental illness... Just isn't the same thing.

My position on this topic hasn't changed since the post I made here a long time ago. I don't know what I think is right.

I do think we should not compare apples to oranges.
There's a huge difference between the terminally ill and the mentally ill. Maybe the mentally ill should have such an option as to end their own life in such a way, however it still doesn't make mental illness into cancer or dementia.

 

[shimmerz]

The motivations you’re assuming (other people are stupid, it’s judeochristian culture that’s informing opinions, no one has direct experience, etc.) are largely incorrect.

Nope, didn't call anyone stupid. Please don't put words in my mouth. This is what I said.

is that people are too stupid to know what is in their best interests.

We all should have rights over our personal selves. A government who refuses to allow assisted suicide because we need to be 'saved from ourselves' is ridiculous. Many adults, whether mentally ill or not, are very capable of knowing what their beliefs are. They aren't too stupid to figure out when enough is enough.

After a couple years to reflect back on it, I still think it was a good thing for her.For her.

^^^ And this is exactly the point that I am making. And it is true, that this isn't about what the title of the thread is. But if we can't get through our minds that physical suffering can be too much and that people have the right to be spared of it, then how the hell are we going to get to the point where we acknowledge psychological suffering is too much.

And here in Canada and many parts of the USA it is winter. People on our streets will freeze to death because they have no supports' no money' no shelter and no health care because (and only because) they are considered 'homeless' and therefore by default considered 'mentally ill'. If the country refuses to support these people in a humane way, then yes, give them the right to choose NOT to freeze to death in a ditch somewhere. Let them say enough is enough and look at death on their own terms.

There's a huge difference between the terminally ill and the mentally ill.

No, not really. And perhaps you have to live my situation to see that. Government cloaks this stuff so well. Because these days, being labelled mentally ill is considered a terminal state. Some of you say that you wouldn't want government to be involved in the euthanasia process? They already are. It is called homelessness. Or the abuses that take place in hospitals for us.

This is a very complicated subject and most are big on black and white answers for it. And those who haven't had the pleasure of being homeless for any length of time I am going to tell you that you don't know what the hell you are talking about nor do you know the insane amount of suffering these people go through every single minute of the day.

Get the Facts: Bill C-14 and Assisted Dying Law in Canada

In the province of Canada that I live in, Medical Assistance in Dying is legal, and has physician's that carry out these procedures for the terminally ill. My aunt was one of the first people to be approved and euthanized here.

I appreciate your giving your personal experience. Much respect to your Aunt and very happy that her experience in dying was peaceful and kind.

Having said that, I am out. I seem to be saying the same things and it is falling on deaf ears.

 

[Justmehere]

A well known and renowned old age hospital/home - if you were to walk into the lobby has 60+ patrons strapped into their wheelchairs, drooling onto themselves, with nobody attending to them. Others in the wards are pleading and screaming all day and all night. It's real and has been happening for decades.

The solution to sh*tty healthcare for the elderly is not to kill off the patients. The solution for the hell the homeless live in is not to give them assistance to die. How would we even know if the person drooling wants to die? That’s a big deadly assumption to make. Would we then give assistance to those suffering of famine in other nations to off themselves? Or how about that teenager who is realizing they are gay or trans, and they have mental pain about it. Or how about that child born without legs, should they be given help to die too?

How high of quality of life must one have to be deemed good enough to live?

This isn’t about one’s right to choose death. It’s not about legalizing suicide. It’s about legalizing doctor-assisted suicide. It’s not an individual act.

I believe one’s rights end when it harms another, and studies have been clear doctor-assisted suicide hurts health care providers, the culture and quality of health care for others, and there is cause to be gravely concerned it would cause harm to the vulnerable in society as a whole.

Life involves pain. It just does. It doesn’t mean life has to end so badly that others must help end that life. The fact that others push back on helping to kill people in pain is a good thing.

Right now, the numbers of suicides is increasing where it is legal to get assisted suicide. Even backers of the legalization of the law are beginning to think it’s gone too far.

“Supply has created demand,” said Professor Theo Boer, who supported the 2002 legislation but resigned from a regulatory body in 2014 amid concern about rising numbers. “We’re getting used to euthanasia, that is exactly what should not happen. We’re no longer speaking about the exceptional situations that the law was created for, but a gradual process towards organised death.” A woman’s final Facebook message before euthanasia: ‘I’m ready for my trip now...’

The article goes on to describe cases where mistakes are made... including one case where family members held down someone with dementia so the doctor could give the lethal injection. Doctors make mistakes all the time.

The article also describes the social media outpouring to see suicide as the brave solution for one woman who had doctor assisted suicide for mental health reasons. There is deep harm in that message. Normalizing and even idealizing the act of assisting in suicide, and the act of suicide itself, is a dangerous path to go down. It cripples society’s ability to deal with and solve pain.

 

[DharmaGirl]

it’s just an excuse to fall back on religion

I'm not Christian, I don't adhere to their beliefs. I worked in a ward where many people died. We would give them IV ativan and IV morphine to help the passage. It left them with little pain and calm. One family asked me if I could speed it up, since they had waited to long for their "loved" one to die. I told her I didn't do that. I stayed with one woman while she passed and stroked her head, since her daughter was just sitting there. It was a good passing for her. So no, I didn't let people die puking up their own shit. These people for the most part were not conscious to begin with, so why feed them artificially when they were A. dying, and B. unconscious?

but some people take their commitments seriously

Thank you, I do, which includes not seeing people suffer, and encouraging them to get the help they need.

 

[Deleted member 47099]

I'm not Christian, I don't adhere to their beliefs. I worked in a ward where many people died. We would give them IV ativan and IV morphine to help the passage. It left them with little pain and calm. One family asked me if I could speed it up, since they had waited to long for their "loved" one to die. I told her I didn't do that. I stayed with one woman while she passed and stroked her head, since her daughter was just sitting there. It was a good passing for her. So no, I didn't let people die puking up their own shit. These people for the most part were not conscious to begin with, so why feed them artificially when they were A. dying, and B. unconscious?

Thank you, I do, which includes not seeing people suffer, and encouraging them to get the help they need.

Yeah. With physical illnesses, this is the "reality" a lot of the time. People being helped to die peacefully.

And that often applies, whether or not it's officially "legal" in a given country. There's one thing that's the official version, but often, in practise, there are dedicated professionals making sure to minimise suffering and pain and maximise quality of life in the last days.

:hug: