Euthanasia has been legal in the Netherlands for a decade. But an organisation based in The Hague is now offering a mobile euthanasia service, prompting accusations that the law has been pushed too far.
The anti-euthanasia lobby is in a fury, branding the mobile euthanasia units “death squads” and accusing the government of not doing enough to enforce the strict medical codes of practice that accompanies the procedure.
Teams will be travelling around the country assisting patients whose own doctors refuse to help them to die. The new units consist of a doctor, a nurse and all the medical equipment required to carry out euthanasia.
Patients can choose injections administered by the medical team, or they may drink a lethal concoction of life-ending drugs. The Dutch right-to-die organisation (NVVE), which is funding the new scheme, says both options will be available on the mobile units…
The patients get to make a choice about living or dying, and if the latter – how to proceed. The Religion Phalange meanwhile will continue to beat their breasts in a paroxysm of righteous indignation.
One of the creators of the Levenseinde (Life End) units, Jan Suyver, strongly believes that patients should have the right to decide to die.
“If you are so ill and you know it is not going to get better then at least you can choose to die surrounded by your family, you can choose to ‘die consciously’ so you know what’s happening and you are in control,” he says.
Mr Suyver, a retired judge, says he was inspired to take action after seeing many people who met the strict criteria for euthanasia but were rejected by their own GPs.
“I saw patients experiencing unbearable pain who had no chance of recovery, and who were certain that they wanted to die, but because their own doctors felt they were not experienced enough to perform euthanasia, or because they felt like it went against their religious or moral beliefs, they would not do it,” he says.
“So then what happens to the patient? Euthanasia is legal under Dutch law so if someone wants this and they meet all the requirements they are entitled to this and that is why I made the units – for those patients.”
In 2002, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalise euthanasia. Every year there are between 2,500 and 3,000 procedures carried out, accounting for about 2% of deaths annually.
A sensible, liberty-based law. Freed from the restrictions of politicians catering to superstitious firewalls and spooky limits on an individual’s right to decide the end of their own life with dignity.
Death on wheels. I know, not funny but couldn’t resist. Oregon has a program called Death With Dignity. I see no reason why a person of sound mind suffering with an incurable disease or cancer or some other painful life ending ailment should have to suffer longer than necessary.
http://leg.state.vt.us/reports/05death/death_with_dignity_report.htm#Section3
Fine. What is preventing that person to end it him/her self? Is suicide somehow prosecutable crime?
It is and it have always have been personal right and ability to end your own life at the time of your own choosing, by your own self. No one can even alter that. As long as no one else is involved voluntarily. As soon as someone else is voluntarily involved in other person death – it is no longer suicide, it is murder.
Passive “no extraordinary measures” to save the expiring life is fine as long as “living will” is indeed created by the dying person. No one (including characters in the cartoon) can pull the plug without that, not family, not doctors, not Government. Not their life to meddle.
How does a person in end stage Alzeimers commit suicide? They can’t control their own bowel functions??
How does said person also identify they want someone else to do it for them?
They have to do it while they are still capable is the answer. And if you know you are going to that end why make a sheet of paper with please kill me when I soil myself without control.
Just do it now while you are in full mastery of your situation before any of that comes along and the family has to care for you until the papers say you die.
Be the fucking final arbiter in your life.
Cursor_
Typically as soon as you are diagnosed, or shortly thereafter would be the point to visit the business end of this:
http://tinyurl.com/7ayxnj6
Precisely.
If you know it will make you a burden on people end it.
You have the choice and no one is going to send you to jail afterwards.
Cursor_
I’m not sure but Alzheimers isn’t a painful way to end this mortal coil. Horrific and uncomfortable to consider, but not painful. Especially the burden a loved one carries with daily care. So the loved ones take the brunt of the disease, along with the afflicted. Not pretty but not painful enough to warrant euthanasia.
There is physical pain and mental pain and I know for a fact that stage 5 Alzheimer’s causes mental anguish / pain.
That for me would be time to check-out.
Let the nursing home sheet changers find some productive occupation.
Late-stage Alzheimer’s appears to be a form of living death. From watching my dad go through it, it seemed as though he was in some kind of hellish predicament, wished it would end, but had no way to make it stop.
This is why one has to have an escape plan & put it into effect before one’s window of opportunity has passed one by. In my case it is a “kinder, gentler” form of self-asphyxiation. But wait too long & you become incapable of doing what needs to be done & you’re stuck with whatever will be, for the duration.
Living will. It can take a long time.
Euthanasia gives me the creeps.
That being said, I can’t honestly say it’s a big problem here in Oregon.
I never hear about it being abused. I hardly hear about it at all, actually.
“The Hague-based facility that will dispatch the mobile euthanasia units does not yet have any bookings. In fact, it does not even have any beds. There is just a woman answering a telephone.”
Wait, why do they need beds? Is one not supposed to die in one’s own bed? Isn’t that why they send the “remote unit” out to your own digs when your time is nigh?
Don’t get your hopes up—this will never be allowed to happen here in the USSA. We need Rick Sanctimonium to weigh in right now & affirm that Jeebus doth not approve of it.
They’ll try their plan out for awhile over there in the Lowlands & they’ll wise up real quick that the Van-O-Death cannot be sent out until the fateful deed is done. The van can be used for body pickup only. They could paint it up like a furniture store truck & conceal the corpse in a fake used sofa being carried out the door & that way the idiot public need not be alerted to what has happened.
t0llyb0ng says:”Wait, why do they need beds? Is one not supposed to die in one’s own bed?”
Death is a messy business, tolly. Given the choice, I would not put MY family through it at home.
Thats right! Send your loved ones off to die. We certainly don’t want them to have the comfort and love of being with family and friends during one of the most frightening times of their life.
Do a living will.
Me and the wife took care of that a few years ago. I don’t want to be a carrot hooked up to a machine, sometimes I think I am already brain dead, or is that just the side effect of 20 something republican debates.
Nah. Americans need more debates which are basically just reality TV. You know, kind of like Jersey Shore with Santorum playing the part of Snooki.
And to consider she(it) is reproducing. Dvorak just streamed on NA that Jersey Shore is the #1 cable program. If Newt gets elected and builds a Moon base, I’m F’in going, just to get away from the dumb downed morons on this planet. If not just euthanasia me now, I’m done.
Ahh.. just ranting.
For a laugh, the only way to stay semi-sane… laugh.
http://southparkstudios.com/clips/360406/its-called-a-snooki
My mother had advanced Alzeimers (she could not eat, talk or recognise anyone) and then had a severe stroke. The doctor refused to accept her living will and said it was his job to save her life – so she lived for another year as a vegetable. Sue the doctor to what effect?
If there was a living will AND a durable health care power of attorney (one that continues AFTER incapacitation), then it would have merely been a matter of selecting a new doctor who would honor the living will.
Both documents are important. BTW- just have the living will say that two licensed physicians are required to independently determine the patient is in a permanent vegetative state. Naming a specific doctor just leads to trouble.(they died, left town, quit practicing, don’t agree anymore, etc.)
And whatever you do, make only ONE person the attorney. If it is two or more and they have to agree, only bad things will result. There will be lots of decisions to make, often without time for a board meeting.
Dr Wally got it. You need to put the power of attorney into effect at the right time. In our case it was my brother and we discussed all decisions among the family first.
No matter what it’s all difficult, emotional decisions.
I didn’t read the links since I read this story several days ago and see no reason to revisit.
People seem to be responding to this story like some huge panel truck is going to pull up outside the residence, wheel the patient into the back and soylent out the front.
But, in truth, by “mobile unit” they simply mean the team will come to you. Without getting into ethics, all I can say is that this is a legal option in Die Niederlande but a physician is NOT required to provide the service. They may have ethical reasons or moral reasons or (shudder) they may simply not like killing people! (Best part of the job, if you ask me.)
So, if you desire this demise and your doc won’t do it, who ya gonna call? GhostMakers!
The law may be controversial but this “mobile unit” is certainly not.
“who ya gonna call? GhostMakers!” LOL
Animby FTW.
Sounds like a good business…
hhmmm we need this in the U.S. for some political campaigns, some just dont realize their campaign is over and are keeping it on life support and pumping it full of lies and money…:P
Americans have a funny relationship with Death. For the most part, they die in hospitals surrounded by medical professionals, in sterile and cold surroundings. The living often feel guilt if they don’t maximize life extending treatments. Dying is “handed off” to a third party.
Meanwhile in most of the rest of the world, people largely die at home surrounded by family. As a result, for them death is familiar, they have seen family members die and are less fearful. They are less willing to invoke the every last shred of technology, and instead accept death as a natural part of living. Euthanasia is simply a rational acceptance of the inevitability of death without all the unnecessary actions.
My father, in hospice with terminal stage lung cancer, was increasingly unable to breathe — gasping and choking. The staff simply kept increasing the morphine drip to keep him calm, until he slipped away. So did he die from the cancer or the morphine? Does it matter?
Sad to hear, suffering through cancer is a nightmare. Sorry for your Dad’s pain and your loss. I would hope the morphine helped and eased the pain, and maybe brought a faster end.
It has also been legal in Switzerland for many years, and has brought controversy, but in the end I’m convinced it helped a lot of people.
Society is unprepared and unable to accept death as a medical proceedure. This is why it needs to be a home delivery service.
I think society is kept fearful of new medical developments and procedures, such as euthanasia and stem cell research. By the politicians and so-called religious officials, who wish to use the controversy to their personal gain. Which is a crime against humanity. Preventing useful tools of modern medicine being used. Ultimately costing more lives in the long term, than saving them in the short term. Society could be made ready, or become ready on its own, if left alone. But the greedy will always seek to exploit the fears of the ignorant and uninformed.
US politicians are far more willing to jump on the pro-life bandwagon, for a free ride down a slippery slope, than they are to help get out and push the anti-war ox cart, up hill. And it’s war, that ends the life of perfectly healthy young persons, against their will. Whereas euthanasia is voluntary, and applied only to the terminally ill or comatose. All the controversy comes from those try to make some political book from its use. Whether they be career politicians, or religious officials of some sort. Everybody agin it, seems to have some axe to grind. When it shouldn’t even be any of their business. And the health care industry might even oppose euthanasia, because they stand to make more money taking care of a vegetating body, than relieving same’s long term pointless suffering. As yet, they don’t sell Lottery tickets in hospitals. And yet anyone’s odds of recovering from a lengthy comatose state are worse, than hoping to win that gamble of a couple of bucks.
The world’s priorities are just so out of whack!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_Coaster
Not mobile, but it does moooovvvvveee.
I’d buy Pedro a ticket on this!
All this really is about is money, and not having enough to pay for elderly care. So they are nudged into other choices. When government is the one paying, it is more than a nudge. The future of government health care will be death panels, or hospitals that accidentally lose power with some frequency.
What’s your address?
Oh, cripes. Don’t start on that death panels crap. It was never more than authorizing payment to doctors for counseling patients on end of life options. Something we all do now only for free. Since we do it for free, we tend to rush through it or put it off. After all, it’s not something you can squeeze into a ten minute office or hospital visit. It takes AT LEAST thirty minutes and very often a lot longer. Now a half hour may not seem like much to you but when you’ve got 40 more patients to see before you get to go home…
When it comes to pulling life support, there has always been at least a two doctor panel involved in the decision and at some hospitals a special committee to authorize it.
I’m not in favor of O’BamaCare but this is a bullshit reason to attack it.
The death panels is not the end of life care, but the IPAB that decides on what treatments to cover or not cover. Combine that with the automatic doctor payment reductions by the amount of the top 10% each year.
amazing how conservatives rail about preserving personal freedoms. The ultimate personal freedom-deciding your own fate. I can’t decide what happens to myself?
I do have compassion for people in this situation, but there are people on both sides who can take advantage. For instance, this guy.
The Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead.
[a man puts a body on the cart]
Large Man with Dead Body: Here’s one.
The Dead Collector: That’ll be ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I’m not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Large Man with Dead Body: Nothing. There’s your ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I’m not dead.
The Dead Collector: ‘Ere, he says he’s not dead.
Large Man with Dead Body: Yes he is.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I’m not.
The Dead Collector: He isn’t.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, he will be soon, he’s very ill.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I’m getting better.
Large Man with Dead Body: No you’re not, you’ll be stone dead in
a moment.
The Dead Collector: Well, I can’t take him like that. It’s against regulations.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I don’t want to go on the cart.
Large Man with Dead Body: Oh, don’t be such a baby.
Sadly Benji–there are too many like you who do equate 1000’s of people unnecessarily suffering who want a more dignified end but are not allowed to because of a value system driven by religious dogma that has become part of our common law and morals all as supported by a skit from British TV.
Reality vs Satire.
Satire wins.
Still waiting for the rupture.
Here’s my living will: give me a brompton cocktail when I can no longer control/indicate what tv channel I want to look at.
So–What to do when the Doc won’t honor a LivingWill?==as stated: change doctors. In fact, unethical for the non-compliant Doc not to do so, So==report his ass to everyone you can think of. His group, the hospital, the local medical society, bbb, newspaper, and so forth. Such efforts add up.
I think in most places suicide IS against the law. Ergo==you have no right personal or otherwise to off yourself. This is the backstop against assisted suicide. Your ABILITY to off yourself is not a right, rather it is a power. totally different concept. One of the “words” knowing of which will allow you to flower (sic). Ok, so its a stone garden. Metaphor still fits.
Suicide and slow death does not provide the DIGNITY part of dying.
Morphine for pain control is the killing agent, not the underlying disease/cancer. Don’t believe it?===without the pain control, you could suffer on in uncompromising pain/unconsciousness or partial, and depletion of your life savings for month after month unless your living will was honored.
I’m all for Death Panels with just the meaning everyone is afraid of. Makes good rational sense. Death—its the only event that makes life fair for all who engage===well, I still “feel” early death is unfair to the kiddies, never getting their chance to flower. Few of us do much with either.
Yea, verily.
If I’m in a persistent vegetative state, I don’t really care what they do. Sure, there are 2 meanings to that:
1) I don’t care today.
2) I wouldn’t care in that state because I’m a vegetable.
Wouldn’t people in that state demand a better word than being called a “vegetable” if they could.
That just isn’t politically correct. Like “retard” or “Mongoloid”.
Don’t call me a vegetable. Call me “permanently interactively non-responsive or something”. Why do they have to insult me comparing me to potatoe (<– hidden Dan Quayle joke) or brocolli?
Keep it clean and keep comparing me to food groups to yourself. Thanks in advance!
Well, thats the medico / legal language: “persistent vegetative state”. It has a specific legal meaning the medical doctors understand and agree on.
I understand it is a bit harsh, although not quite “Dude, your Mom’s a carrot!”. I would guess that it has been around so long that no one thinks much about it’s origin.
On the other hand, almost everyone dies of the same thing — something you have probably never heard of: ischemia.
Ischemia is the insufficient supply of oxygenated blood, specifically to the brain. Without oxygen, brain cells die and when enough die you are gone too. So you don’t die of a heart attack, you die because oxygenated blood isn’t going to the brain. Similarly for drowning, excessive bleeding, asphyxiation, a guillotine — you name it. (The only possible exception is being instantaneously turned into a million degree plasma by being too close to a nuclear detonation)
You can always get smarter reading the comments…..
Thinking back on my very first hospital jobs and going all the way up to and through med school and all the years subsequent, I don’t think we ever compared a patient to a potato(e) or a carrot.
Usually cabbage.
I wonder how cabbage got so maligned? (Can you go change the sheets on that cabbage in bed 6?)
Oh, some we referred to as fruit salad. But that had a very different meaning. (What in hell does that fruit salad in 7 want NOW?).
Actually, most of the patients like that were referred to as GOMERs of GOOMWahs. (Get Out of My Emergency Room -and= Get Off Of My Ward) Both were classes of patients that too too much work that seldom accomplished anything beneficial. Don’t take it personally that we thought of your grandma as a gomer. In your heart, you know she was…
Regardless of your mental state, I’ll always think of you as a Republican.
I have some Republican tendencies (pro-gun, somewhat wary of government, think government is wasteful, if situation is right like Iraq or Libya go on offensive against bad guys).
But I don’t like religious zealots, believe in true science (not consensus), believe in the conservation of natural resources (like not using all our oil).
I don’t subscribe to either party’s “talking points” and think both parties are borderline corrupt.
If you would prefer to think of me as a “Republican” you may do so. I might even vote for Romney — who I view a closet pragmatic liberal (and the fact the Flat Earthers don’t like his “funny” religion would make it a “bonus”).
But I haven’t decided any of these things. I have no party loyalties.
And people like me decide every election.
A find example of independent thinking eh? Much as Animby must think of himself??
but you are both wrong to even play with the idea of Romney or any other Puke as long as the Republican Party has its nuts firmly in the hairy paws of the Taliban Wing.
It really DOESN’T MATTER who Romney “really is” or what you think he might privately think.
He wants to cut taxes for the rich and pay for it partially by gutting the social safety net for the rest of us. Plain and simple to see. All kinds of cut backs in other regulations, Drill Baby Drill, and the Morality Police in our Bedrooms.
We all can criticize Obama and the Dumbo’s for going too far here and there but they aren’t out to kill the lower, middle, upper and working class as are the Pukes.
Isn’t this clear to you?
Some group of ethicists claims it’s okay to commit infanticide. They prefer to call it post birth abortion. You aren’t really a person at that stage in their view. I’m sure they’d say the same for seniors. I think Obama noted in relation to, I think, his grandmother that spending money on seniors by the state was a waste of money and he actually covered the bills though later research showed the insurance company had come through for most or maybe even all of it.
The population bust after the baby boomers means that knocking off the seniors in the nursing home by not providing life saving medical procedures is going to be a real money saver. Don’t worry. You won’t feel a thing.
Based in The Hague? Isn’t that a place associated with involuntary suicide?