... dying in dignity ...
I visited a relative on Sunday, who was looking after her aunt. Both had lived through the Russian invasion of Latvia, the German invasion and had fled as refugees and ended up in a displacement camp in the middle of Germany.
The aunt is now very frail. Once her husband died she deteriorated her role in life seemed to have gone. Medically her sight and hearing have declined rapidly. The last few years her strength has declined.
In the past two years she has become negative. She has managed to ruin Christmas by going on and on about dying and concentrating on negative things that have happened to her and her family. She also has given up trying to communicate with most people.
Just recently she had a slight stroke. Sometimes she is quite coherent - other times she is very confused. Often she is in pain and sometimes she cannot mange her bodily functions. Mostly she is very depressed. Often she just hopes for death. She has instructed a lawyer and her doctor to demand that she is not given treatment to prolong her life after a short spell in hospital.
In the Northern Territories of Australia they tried to introduce a law to allow people to organise their own euthanasia. After proper consultation over a period of time could elect to have a machine strapped to their arm and when the person felt ready they could press a button which would introduce a sedative that would first of all send them to sleep and then allow them to pass away peacefully. This seems to be a very civilised way of going.
I know there are problems. Mathew Wright, journalist and presenter of the 'The Wrightstuff', Channel Five, talked about his own father dying painfully of cancer. His father would have preferred to have died a few months earlier than he did, but was unable to, as the various insurances would not have paid up. As a consequence the father had to suffer months of pain and increasing incapacity.
I feel that as my generation, those who went through the sixties, start hitting old age, that there will be more suicides as a positive way of ending ones days.
The aunt is now very frail. Once her husband died she deteriorated her role in life seemed to have gone. Medically her sight and hearing have declined rapidly. The last few years her strength has declined.
In the past two years she has become negative. She has managed to ruin Christmas by going on and on about dying and concentrating on negative things that have happened to her and her family. She also has given up trying to communicate with most people.
Just recently she had a slight stroke. Sometimes she is quite coherent - other times she is very confused. Often she is in pain and sometimes she cannot mange her bodily functions. Mostly she is very depressed. Often she just hopes for death. She has instructed a lawyer and her doctor to demand that she is not given treatment to prolong her life after a short spell in hospital.
In the Northern Territories of Australia they tried to introduce a law to allow people to organise their own euthanasia. After proper consultation over a period of time could elect to have a machine strapped to their arm and when the person felt ready they could press a button which would introduce a sedative that would first of all send them to sleep and then allow them to pass away peacefully. This seems to be a very civilised way of going.
I know there are problems. Mathew Wright, journalist and presenter of the 'The Wrightstuff', Channel Five, talked about his own father dying painfully of cancer. His father would have preferred to have died a few months earlier than he did, but was unable to, as the various insurances would not have paid up. As a consequence the father had to suffer months of pain and increasing incapacity.
I feel that as my generation, those who went through the sixties, start hitting old age, that there will be more suicides as a positive way of ending ones days.
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