Do you think Euthanasia will ever be legal in Ireland?

Ubbquittious · 27-10-2017 2:47pm

corner of hells wrote: »

It's a lesser of two evils , do you leave elderly infirm people in thier own homes or look to admit them to a nursing home.

You don't necessarily have to pay yourself out of your funds to pay for care in a nursing home.Both Fair Deal and subvention don't touch the children's or spouses assets , both are means tested and if you are wealthy enough private care is available.

Nursing homes provide care and support for people unable to care for themselves and also for a family if they are unable to look after their loved one in their own homes.

No nursing home will take some who needs extensive medical care , most won't admit a patient with bedsores nevermind some needing daily attention off a doctor.

Still there is a % of people in there who would opt for euthanasia. So they stand to lose and those in the industry will lobby the politicians to prevent it from coming in.

corner of hells · 27-10-2017 3:10pm

Ubbquittious wrote: »

corner of hells wrote: »

It's a lesser of two evils , do you leave elderly infirm people in thier own homes or look to admit them to a nursing home.

You don't necessarily have to pay yourself out of your funds to pay for care in a nursing home.Both Fair Deal and subvention don't touch the children's or spouses assets , both are means tested and if you are wealthy enough private care is available.

Nursing homes provide care and support for people unable to care for themselves and also for a family if they are unable to look after their loved one in their own homes.

No nursing home will take some who needs extensive medical care , most won't admit a patient with bedsores nevermind some needing daily attention off a doctor.

Still there is a % of people in there who would opt for euthanasia. So they stand to lose and those in the industry will lobby the politicians to prevent it from coming in.

What percentage?

granturismo · 27-10-2017 3:57pm

Gwynplaine wrote: »

Waiting on Ali G quote.

Is that 'I've nothing against the youth in asia'? I think those english language schools are just a scam.

The third level colleges are raking in foreign national fees from all those asian students.

Cunning Stunt · 29-10-2017 8:51am

I dont know which hospices other posters have insight into, but I wish i knew!
My mother has been in one for a few weeks with advanced cancer, is bedridden and pleading with us on a daily basis to help with pain and to 'kill her or cure her'. Hospice is adjusting meds the whole time to see what works while actively trying to avoid giving her too much - they have actually reduced the amount of morphine in the driver as they thought her system might be getting full up.with meds and 'toxic'. We have put it to them that at least when toxic shes not in pain but were told flat out that they will not do that! So shes lingering on and its shocking for her and family. They are also putting IV drips on her now which I dont understand as she doesnt want to eat or drink fluids anymore and that should surely be a part of the dying process.... We are completely disillusioned with the hospice care at this stage. I am not sure if makes a difference that its a Catholic hospice?

In stark contrast my father died at home from cancer and he had nurses coming to the house, was only on morphine pump, no IV or anything else and the pump was adjusted - and we reckon increased- until he went into a long sleep and he died peacefully after a day or so.

Wanderer78 · 29-10-2017 9:07am

Cunning Stunt wrote:

I dont know which hospices other posters have insight into, but I wish i knew!

I wish you and your family the very best of luck.

Great documentary about euthanasia on radio one yesterday. I 'll post link in a bit.

edit:http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/2017/1012/911818-do-no-harm/

JupiterKid · 29-10-2017 9:10am

Yes it will. It will be maybe 20 or 30 years but it will happen at some stage.

It is already legal in Switzerland and Belgium. But Ireland is not, and never has been a proactive country when it comes to personal choice, freedoms and responsibilities so we will wait for most Western European countries to change their laws before we do the same ourselves.

The same-sex marriage referendum made us fool ourselves into thinking we are a progressive society. We are most certainly not.

uck51js9zml2yt · 29-10-2017 9:12am

RobbingBandit wrote: »

That's pretty much a Do Not Resuscitate order, it's a tricky subject is possible to set one up but not an open topic in most cases.

A DNR is very different. It's where the person has has died and is not ressucitated.
Euthanasia is self murder/ killing ( whatever you want to call it)

GritBiscuit · 29-10-2017 10:10am

Self-murder/killing is suicide. Self murder ceased to be a criminal offence in Ireland from 1993.

Euthanasia is often also referred to as "assisted suicide" as they generally require third party involvement, most usually a medical practitioner but sometimes a partner or friend. It is a criminal offence to partake in either euthanasia (from the Greek for "good death" ie to relieve suffering) or assisted suicide (bringing the unnatural end to valid life).

JupiterKid wrote: »

Yes it will. It will be maybe 20 or 30 years but it will happen at some stage.

We'll probably wait for it to become legal in the UK then change legislation so that we can, literally and metaphorically, ship the issue over there while still claiming the moral high ground. Tis the wonderfully cowardly Irish way.

myshirt · 29-10-2017 10:12am

Did anyone watch the Vice special on this? It's on YouTube.

Wesser · 29-10-2017 10:17am

I never understand why abortion is top of list if urgent issues and hets debated so much and euthanasia is not.
Surely if we end up , as a country, citing pro choice.... we should also be euthanasia.

One offer no choice to.its victim who is not able to voice it's wishes and has never had the opportunity to live a life.

The other is expressedly longed for a d chosen by an individual.who has lived life......

tomwaterford · 29-10-2017 10:33am

I support it.....if I was dying of an incurable and horrible degenerative disease

Would rather check out on my terms than wait around to die in pain

erica74 · 29-10-2017 11:32am

I doubt it will be legal here in my lifetime. I would imagine it will only become legal here if the EU makes it so.

I have made my wishes very clear, if I ever become incapacitated to the extent that I am a "vegetable", I want to be secreted out of the country and brought somewhere to be put to sleep.

I have had 2 events happen in my life that could have ended in my death. The likelihood of me coming out the other side of a third event and being relatively "okay" is low so I don't want to be kept alive and trapped inside my own body.

nozzferrahhtoo · 29-10-2017 11:45am

Wesser wrote: »

One offer no choice to.its victim who is not able to voice it's wishes

A sentence seemingly deliberately written to imply that it HAS wishes to voice.

The near totality of choice based abortion occurs in or before week 16. At this point there is ZERO biological basis to expect to find ANY level of consciousness or sentience in the fetus in any form.

It it not unable to voice it's wishes. It HAS none to voice in the first place.

Hotblack Desiato · 29-10-2017 1:59pm

erica74 wrote: »

I doubt it will be legal here in my lifetime. I would imagine it will only become legal here if the EU makes it so.

I don't know why people keep saying things like this, the EU can't make a member state do anything like this. The European Court of Human Rights is nothing to do with the EU and can't force us to change our laws either.

mahamageehad · 29-10-2017 3:47pm

I do think it will be legal at some stage, but similarly to abortion we'll start the Irish way by allowing travel abroad first. Keeping people alive and in pain is terrible. If I got to that stage, I'd like the option to be available to me so I'm not in a position to judge anyone who would choose it for themselves.

scamalert · 29-10-2017 4:13pm

why do always people blame youthinasia

on a serious note, yes it should be an option, seen someone mention people in coma, these things if they last for years are a major burden and sometimes plug off is the option they would take for families sake, there are many illnesses disorders where people would take that route, since reaching stage in life where you become living vegetable or burden without any prospects but more like a pet breath and crap is sort of self explanatory.

the OPs mistake was to word it like burden on hse, rather general outlook and situation that some people face.

CrabRevolution · 29-10-2017 5:11pm

I find it hard to believe doctors would deliberately murder terminally ill patients to begin with. But....

Doctors tend to be incredibly careful with what they do in case they get sued. The courts tend to always side with the patient in malpractice/negligence suits. We've seen it in a few abortion cases where doctors have done nothing because the law is unclear and they aren't willing to take what seems to be the right, obvious choice in case it leaves them open to litigation.

Because of this, I really find it a huge stretch of the imagination that a doctor would leave a documented trail of a deliberate overdose/poisoning they administered to a patient, for all to see and to be recorded for all time.

He's literally signing his career death warrant by prescribing whatever he did. A prescription so glaringly obvious that all it took was another nurse to read it to point it out? And despite being so obvious, nothing ever came of it: the patient just recovered, was discharged and everyone got on with their lives?

It just doesn't make sense to me.

seamus · 31-10-2017 10:06am

CrabRevolution wrote: »

Because of this, I really find it a huge stretch of the imagination that a doctor would leave a documented trail of a deliberate overdose/poisoning they administered to a patient, for all to see and to be recorded for all time.

Medical records have the benefit of hindsight.

What a doctor records/prescribes as palliative care, someone else may see as deliberate poisoning. Especially in a freak case where a patient survives a seemingly terminal illness.

This is why medical inquests always have to be very careful about ensuring they have the context right - that the doctor made good decisions based on the knowledge they had at the time, and not based on hindsight. And is also why people get really annoyed when inquests make no finding of wrongdoing, even when in hindsight the doctor didn't make the correct decision.

Outside of that, it would be very common, bordering on standard practice for doctors to make terminal patients more comfortable, at the expense of a short improvement in life. Where a person is lying in a bed, weak and in pain, and the doctor has the option of a drug which may help keep them alive for a couple of extra weeks (but just alive, not "improved"), or strong painkillers which will make them more comfortable but reduce their lifespan by a couple of weeks, they will go for the latter.

A lot of people (including some doctors) are under the mistaken belief that a doctor's duty is to extend the lifespan at all costs. When in reality it's not. Where a drug or course of treatment will provide no appreciable improvement in the patient's condition, the doctor is not obliged to provide it. And "more time alive" is not necessarily an improvement. Whereas providing pain relief and reducing suffering is something they are obliged to do; even if to do so may reduce the patient's lifespan.

Some people view this as doctor-led murder, but they're few and far between. Most people support making terminally ill patients more comfortable rather than forcing them to eek every minute out of their life no matter how miserable it is.

CrabRevolution · 31-10-2017 8:12pm

seamus wrote: »

Medical records have the benefit of hindsight.

What a doctor records/prescribes as palliative care, someone else may see as deliberate poisoning. Especially in a freak case where a patient survives a seemingly terminal illness.

This is why medical inquests always have to be very careful about ensuring they have the context right - that the doctor made good decisions based on the knowledge they had at the time, and not based on hindsight. And is also why people get really annoyed when inquests make no finding of wrongdoing, even when in hindsight the doctor didn't make the correct decision.

Outside of that, it would be very common, bordering on standard practice for doctors to make terminal patients more comfortable, at the expense of a short improvement in life. Where a person is lying in a bed, weak and in pain, and the doctor has the option of a drug which may help keep them alive for a couple of extra weeks (but just alive, not "improved"), or strong painkillers which will make them more comfortable but reduce their lifespan by a couple of weeks, they will go for the latter.

A lot of people (including some doctors) are under the mistaken belief that a doctor's duty is to extend the lifespan at all costs. When in reality it's not. Where a drug or course of treatment will provide no appreciable improvement in the patient's condition, the doctor is not obliged to provide it. And "more time alive" is not necessarily an improvement. Whereas providing pain relief and reducing suffering is something they are obliged to do; even if to do so may reduce the patient's lifespan.

Some people view this as doctor-led murder, but they're few and far between. Most people support making terminally ill patients more comfortable rather than forcing them to eek every minute out of their life no matter how miserable it is.

I agree totally, but the poster in question was claiming the doctors were trying to kill a perfectly viable patient who was capable of recovering, and it was only the intervention of a visitor that prevented this murder occuring.

The Legend Of Kira · 01-11-2017 12:27am

If there was a referendum on this issue I think it would only pass as long as there were some guidelines attached as in the types of cases it would be legalised for etc. if someone is terminally ill he/she is in pain & he/she is not gonna get any better it should be up to the individual if he/she wants to choose to avail of Euthanasia or not. If Im not the one terminally ill in pain like he/she is I don,t see it as my place to dictate what they should be allowed do as Im not walking in their shoes, I think Euthanasia should be legal in certain cases.

Hotblack Desiato · 01-11-2017 2:13am

I believe the Supreme Court said a couple of years ago that there was no constitutional barrier to introducing euthanasia, and it was up to the Oireachtas to legislate if they so choose.

seamus · 01-11-2017 11:04am

CrabRevolution wrote: »

I agree totally, but the poster in question was claiming the doctors were trying to kill a perfectly viable patient who was capable of recovering, and it was only the intervention of a visitor that prevented this murder occuring.

Oh I know, and I'm skeptical of the story.

In attempting to resolve the story to possible truths, I was illustrating that it's not uncommon for a family in hindsight to make claims about a doctor's conduct that from a different point of view, and with the benefit of hindsight, can look like a deliberate attempt to kill a patient.

The LCP in particular has fallen out of use, but would have still been used at the time given in the story. The main problem with it is that it was an unnecessarily "aggressive" way of managing a patient's end-of-life and was sometimes erroneously applied in cases of terminally ill patients who could have died naturally without requiring intervention. Or elderly patients with a very poor prognosis, but who weren't necessarily terminal.

Which is unfortunate, but a long way from the claim that doctors and nurses were trying to "off" a viable patient for the purposes of freeing up beds. Treatment of patients is based on following best practice, and sometimes best practice is flawed in hindsight.

Do you think Euthanasia will ever be legal in Ireland?

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