Terry Pratchett – Choosing to Die (BBC2)
Tuesday 14th June 2011, 6:20AM BST.
This moving programme took us to the Dignitas death house near Zurich where the author, himself suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, accompanied a brave man on his final journey.
In an isolated blue house on an industrial estate, guests are greeted with smiles and a hot drink. “Tea, darling?” asked Christine, the wife of Peter Smedley, a 71-year-old millionaire businessman tortured with motor neurone disease.
It was all terribly British and stiff upper-lipped.
After his last cup of tea on this earth, Smedley calmly drank the fatal cocktail of drugs and told his wife: “Be strong, my darling.”
His death seemed fairly painless, although Smedley was clearly in some discomfort for a brief moment, gasping for water, before slipping into oblivion.
In the studio debate that followed, a bishop protested at the “coercion” at the clinic and spoke up for the hospice movement.
No-one doubts that hospices do a fine job.
But in an age of choice, not everyone will choose to die inch by inch, day by day, with nurses struggling to keep the pain in check.
For Peter Smedley and others like him who are steadily losing control of their lives to terrible diseases, taking the Dignitas route is one last act of personal control.
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A very emotive subject without doubt, and one that is clearly divided into two camps, for, and against.
Personally, were I to be unfortunate enough to fall victim to such an illness as Mr. Smedley, I would choose his way out, IF I had the option. I would not like to spend my last years being unable to do the basics for myself, and having to rely on someone to do everything for me.
If we have a pet that is in discomfort, or immobile for some reason, we do the right thing and euthanise it, why do we treat ourselves differently?
We should be allowed the option to end our lives if we choose to if we are not in a position to function properly, or, in constant pain.
I see the church has already protested, only to be expected, and best ignored.
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The bishop spoke up for the hospice movement?
It’s not euthanasia v hospice.
Both offer supported and end of life care and those still with mental capacity often know when they have had enough of living.
The problem I see getting more and more relevent in the future is that the costs of keeping alive will influence individuals or families and that could lead to coercion.
Back in the days of matrons and consultants running the NHS the decisions regarding treatment of the elderly were left to those in charge, so those who hark back to the halcyon and better days of hospital care should bear that in mind!
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