If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Read the community guidelines before posting ✨
Options
'Nearly 3,000 euthanasia cases in UK last year'
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,7890,1688609,00.htmlDoctors in the UK were responsible for the deaths, through euthanasia, of nearly 3,000 people last year, it was revealed yesterday in the first authoritative study of the decisions they take when faced with terminally-ill patients. More than 170,000 patients, almost a third of all deaths, had treatment withdrawn or withheld which would have hastened their demise.
The figures, extrapolated from the study, show rates of euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide which are significantly lower than anywhere else in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, where similar studies have been done. The numbers immediately provoked controversy.
This contrasts with a story on the BBC, which state that euthanasia is 'extremely rare in the UK'.
Well the first article confirms what I've been saying all along- and what I have experienced in my family. Doctors will hasten the death of a terminally ill patient by removing treatment- or in many other cases including my grandmother- by administering a large dose of morphine when the end is near.
I completely and unreservedly agree with such action. So long as doctors are allowed to continue to do it...
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
0
Comments
Rather than having all this secrecy surrounding it, wouldn't it be better for it to be legal? Or would it?
But what is the difference between 'removing treatment' (starving them to death) or giving them a large dose of morphine?
It would definitely be much better if it was all legalised. I don't know if we would see that happen within our lifetimes though. Not with much of the Lords including the bishops lobbying furiously against it (why oh why do members of the clergy get seats in the Lords by default?).
Silly, I know. It is in fact far more humane to administer a morphine o.d.
I'd rather have them than the crap Tony has filled the Lords with.
Harold Shipman certainly thought so.
Unless you put extreme controls in place then it would be abused, guaranteed. It also diverts attention from other options. Death is cheap, investment in research and development is expensive. Why look at a cure when you can just inject morphine?
I have a fundamental issue too with the sanctity of human life argument and the contradictions between abortion, execution and euthanasia...
All I'm saying (and I hope as many people as possible agree) is that there is nothing wrong with doctors withdrawing treatment or providing a morphine overdose to someone who is 100% certain to die within a few hours/couple of days.
As far as I'm aware that's been going on in hospitals all across Europe (and elsewhere I'd imagine) for decades. I doubt you can even call that euthanasia.
Withdrawing treatment has many facets, be it a total withdrawl of all nutrition and hydration or simply witholding antibiotics. Sometimes it is better to let the patient slip away.
Medical experts say that if what happened to Ariel Sharon, had happended to any other Israeli or to any other person, he would be kept comfortable and be allowed to die. Rather than surgery, tracheostomy etc. What is his quality of life going to be? Would you want him to suffer?
But it isn't about morality. It is about that there may have been 3,000 cases. This is shocking... that we didin't know! Wow... seems the doctors are practacing well, despite laws.
I am like you, I am wary of abuses of a euthanasia system, but with appropriate controls I think it may work.
Turning a life support machine off or indirectly helping someone die through legally giving pain-relieving treatment hastening someone’s death is a different thing to directly and deliberately ending someone’s life. The effect might be the same but the latter has a very different motive and would have a damaging effect on society imo.
I have so many concerns about it, the abuse, the contradictions but also why should doctors be expected to assist death so deliberately? Then there's the research.funding aspect. Why should the NHS invest in long term care when it is cheaper to administer morphine etc? It's an ethical minefield and I really don't think that it is necessary...