Euthanasia

delft

Brigadier
A short while ago I saw the announcement of an article in Washington Post (?) about a man shouting his wife in an intensive care unit in a hospital in Ohio (?) It said that it was probably a case of euthanasia and it sent me thinking of my own experience with this.

My mother and sister went in the 1990's in very good time to their General Practitioner to ask whether he was prepared to help in case of need. He was not. When he retired they visited his successor with the same question and he said he would. Some two years later I accompanied my mother to a cancer specialist in a hospital nearby ( but far for me ) because my sister didn't have time. The specialist said my mother had breast cancer. My mother then said that now she wouldn't get to be eighty ( she was 77 ) and she asked whether he would assist with euthanasia. He said it was done in that hospital but that he didn't do it.
More than half a year later my mother said she wanted euthanasia, she told the GP and he asked a colleague in a neighboring village to talk with my mother for confirmation as per the protocol established by the Dutch medical profession. He then came with the necessities on the day before she would have become 78 and that afternoon she died in the presence of her children and grandchildren.
At that time euthanasia was illegal in the Netherlands but was not being prosecuted if done responsibly. It was legalize a few years later and the protocol became part of the law.

Things can still go wrong. My sister thought she was well prepared when my brother-in-law had mesothelioma a few years ago. But he got suddenly worse on a Friday and the GP couldn't arrange to have the necessities before Monday or Tuesday. So there was no alternative but to continue to give morphine to reduce the pain until my brother-in-law died.

I just read about the Englishman Tony Richardson who demanded euthanasia in a country were the judges are not prepared to act sensibly. That was another reason to write this piece now.

I wonder what other members think or have experienced.
 
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