⚠️ Suicide pods - warning ‼️

Sad though that was MissA that sounds about as good as it gets.

My grandfather was put on the Liverpool Pathway, he literally drowned as his lungs filled up; it was horrible.
My 14 year old dog was sedated and then lifted onto a table. He had an injection and we waited as he slipped away into oblivion.
I know which I'd have chosen for my end.

The lady I watched, well, it was shocking, and it seemed all too sudden a decision, but she couldn't stand the pain and indignity any longer, poor woman.

They had a name for the choice she made, so it must be a legitimate, medically approved thing.

You can't be that old - you wear denim!

While I am still of sound mind, I really think I should be allowed to go to my doctor with my solicitor and state that should I get terminal cancer or God forbid Alzheimer’s and then I don’t know my own name I should be able to be put to sleep…
I said this to my Doctor and he laughed and said well we can’t do that and I said I know you can’t, but you should be able to

Its already done, to an extent.
Morphine can be given as pain relief, and if the incidental affect may shorten someone's life, well...
I have also seen a doc ask an old guys keyworker in a home, what she wanted for him, and what he himself wanted.

She said (she'd been his keyworker for about 17 years) "I just want his pain and suffering to stop"

Perhaps coincidental, but he died comfortably that night, after the doctor had seen him.

what a terrible thing to expect your GP to be able to do shinamae

the pod thing was in the news over the last 3 weeks. there is even a double one for people who want to go together would you believe! It's in Switzerland of course and costs thousands of pounds.

one swiss 'clinic is on an industrial estate in a concrete block..

I don't think shinamae was actually expecting her doctor to do it, lemsip, although doctors used to 'help' patients quietly slip away in the past. I actually agree with her - we should all have the right to die with dignity, providing there were safeguards in place to protect the more vulnerable in our society.

I don’t know much about the pods but I do believe that those who want it should have the option of deciding when and where they die. Of course, many will decide against this, but it should be an available for option for anyone in this country, without having to travel abroad.

Another consideration is how very adaptable people are, as their minds or bodies, or both deteriorate.

What was unthinkably demeaning when you were of sound mind, may well be acceptable, perhaps, when you have alzheimer's, because your mind has changed.

I have seen a wife fetch the financial times into a home for her husband, and when she had gone he would shred it and eat it, usually dipping it in his tea, although he used to like coffee, years ago.

I just know , having seen both my mum and grandmother die painfully from cancer , that I believe in assisted dying.
Our pets are put out of their misery, so why on earth can’t we expect the same ?

The "suicide pod" has been used in a forest for the first time on Switzerland. As described on Jeremy Vine on Ch5 looking up at a tree canopy and the stars has to be do much better than in a office block at Dignitas. Apparently it's pumped with Nitrogen which just makes you go off to sleep never to wake up again

MissInterpreted

I don't think shinamae was actually expecting her doctor to do it, lemsip, although doctors used to 'help' patients quietly slip away in the past. I actually agree with her - we should all have the right to die with dignity, providing there were safeguards in place to protect the more vulnerable in our society.

Therein lies the problem MissInterpreted who exactly will give the fatal dose

They'll have to include it in the gp recorded option.
"For prescriptions, press 1, for blood test results press 2 if you would like someone to kill you, press 3..."

I feel very much it's my absolute right to end my life if I choose - if I'm seriously ill with no chance of recovery, and suffering beyond what I feel I can cope with. I would not want to be denied the right to end my suffering because someone else who doesn't know me has decided, or legislated, otherwise. Just because I was too disabled to actually do the deed by myself shouldn't mean I'm not allowed to do so, how patronising! The pod, under the stars, sounds pretty good.

Like many - I've believed in voluntary euthanasia for years now. Yep...it's basically because I've spent years watching my mother slowly dying and not wanting to be here and decades in my fathers case. Both of them got a range of physical illnesses and both of them got dementia. For years what they had come the end is not what I (or they) would have called "A Life". We do need to be aware that a determined enough person will find their own way if they're denied an official way and my father had to go into a home come the end and I made sure it was the very best one I could find - but they had an incautious member of staff that replied to my "How is he settling in?" question with "He's throwing himself against the wall". You can imagine what that did for my state of mind - and especially knowing quite a few years earlier (ie pre-dementia) that he'd clearly thought about the possibility of committing suicide and I think probably the only reason he didn't was fear he'd suffer damage in the process and it wouldnt work. My mother near the end refused drugs for the double pneumonia they were giving her in hospital and cue for a member of staff there telling me she took them to start with and then started refusing them and obviously wanted my opinion on that and I duly said "Do whatever she herself wants. If she wants them - give them to her. If she doesn't want them - then don't give them to her. It's her decision either way" and in the end she basically stopped eating and starved herself to death. So yep...both of them "found a way" to do what the medics wouldn't. Having watched that then I have done my own planning for myself and I know exactly what to take/how much/how long it would take to work and can be quite sure that if I had to decide on voluntary euthanasia for myself and my society still wouldnt do it = I'd take what I've decided on for myself and would be gone within the hour and without pain in my own bed and I have what I need "just in case". So - yep...I'm backing the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia for those that need it and decide on it.

The law won't allow any of us to say what plans any of us might have for ourselves if......but I do have plans for myself if I need them ever.

This is a very difficult issue and frankly while I can accept that someone who is hopelessly ill might well want to end their life, there is to me a very great difference between that person him.- or herself being able to commit suicide, which in slightly old-fashioned terms is what we are talking about here, and assisted suicide, which morally and ethically is making someone else into a murderer.

We have to face the fact that euthenasia can potentially be misused by relatives or nursing staff talking someone into that option, or in the case of someone who is no longer able to express their wishes being used against the patient's own views.

Any law that contenances euthenasia has to take all these things into consideration.

As I do not live in the UK I cannot possibly know whether those of you who say that palliative care frequently is a matter of denying people food and drink, so they basically die of dehydration are correct ,or not. To me it sounds highly unlikely, as the risk for whoever actually made that decision or carried it out of being prosecuted is very high.

Personally, I have no desire to live in a state where euthanasia is legal. I feel we can and all should make our wishes regarding terminal care known to our family and our doctors upon receipt of a serious diagnosis, or in advance of any such thing.

The difficulty here is, that we may well think one thing while we are hale and hearty and the opposite if the day comes when we are dying slowly.

I posted a while back about a physically fit, but mentally suffering being granted the right to die at 28, or thereabouts.

It wasn't a popular thread, strangely, and faded away quickly, but I think it's worth exploring what legalising suicide means, and for whom.

crazyH

Yes, I read about it. And saw something about it on TV. I dont know why anyone would want to die like that. Palliative care is so good, no one needs a ‘suicide pod’ - it’s illegal anyway and the last I heard, the police has swooped down on the forest and the inventor.

Palliative care may well be good in some places but personal experience of it shows me the opposite - prolonged suffering, lack of communication, mis communication, inept nursing staff, laissez faire doctors.
I should like to die at a time of my choosing and with some dignity without fear of anybody being prosecuted for helping me.

sodapop

MissInterpreted

I don't think shinamae was actually expecting her doctor to do it, lemsip, although doctors used to 'help' patients quietly slip away in the past. I actually agree with her - we should all have the right to die with dignity, providing there were safeguards in place to protect the more vulnerable in our society.

Therein lies the problem MissInterpreted who exactly will give the fatal dose

There will be ways round that, I am sure. It's not an insurmountable problem. We don't let our beloved pets suffer when there's no hope left, and having had to watch both my mother and mother-in-law go through long drawn-out deaths from dementia, I would happily have helped to put them out of their misery - for that is what it was - if I could have done.

I do hope that if I ever found myself in this situation that this method of choosing to end one’s own life is decriminalised. Palliative care isn’t always good CrazyH. We had to fight for pain relief when my mum was EoL and she was so diminished at the end. It was just fight fight fight and she kept on “living” when she could have been at peace.
I might start saving a stash of meds so I can take my own life if the need arises and that’s what I want.
I think it’s inhuman that someone with mental capacity can’t choose when and how to die. How we never question putting our pets to sleep but deny humans this right.
Being cocooned in one of these pods, going to sleep never to wake is a good way to end a life filled with pain and hopelessness.
Hopefully government eventually responds to the public mood and stops playing God.

when has anybody had a good death? I keep hearing about how good palliative care is but yet to actually witness it. My mother had an awful death as the Dr refused to increase pain relief . she would have loved a good end .

ordinarygirl

when has anybody had a good death? I keep hearing about how good palliative care is but yet to actually witness it. My mother had an awful death as the Dr refused to increase pain relief . she would have loved a good end .

I've known a couple of people who have said "Oh, I've had such a lovely day/afternoon" then just died.
They weren't young people.

A shock for those left behind though.

I was just about to say, the quick,unexpected deaths seem the "best".

People just going about their business one minute, and gone the next.

My neighbour woke up next to her dead husband. I don't think it's uncommon but extremely traumatic.

Oh that's awful!!
Maybe not a bad way to go, though?
Snugged up with your love, warm and cosy.