The Government has published the End of Life Care Strategy - promoting high quality care for all adults at the end of life which is the first for the UK and covers adults in England. Its aim is to provide people approaching the end of life with more choice about where they would like to live and die. It encompasses all adults with advanced, progressive illness and care given in all settings. The strategy has been developed by an expert advisory board chaired by Professor Mike Richards, National Cancer Director, and including key stakeholders from statutory health, social care, third sector organisations, professional and academic organisations. The strategy has been informed and shaped by the work on end of life care undertaken by strategic health authorities for the NHS Next Stage Review.
Proponents for the legalization of physician assisted suicide (PAS ) argue that it has been legal in Oregon since 1997 and that it works well. They maintain that palliative and hospice care can co-exist comfortably with the option for PAS. My aim was to examine these claims, in two cities in the Northwest of America; Seattle where there is no legalized PAS and Portland where PAS is legal.
Test Santé vient de publier les résultats d'une enquête sur les actes de fin de vie et l'euthanasie. Elle est le prolongement de l’enquête récente sur les soins palliatifs. Pour cela, Test Santé a donné la parole aux personnes concernées : proches, médecins et infirmiers. Il en ressort que les soins palliatifs, aussi efficaces soient-ils, n'empêchent pas certains de souhaiter mourir. L’enquête souligne le fait que la demande vient le plus souvent exclusivement du patient lui-même (47% des cas contre 38% de la famille), et c’est encore plus vrai pour les patients en soins palliatifs (61%). Par ailleurs, Test Achats constate que l’euthanasie joue un rôle dans le débat sur la qualité de la fin de vie et que celle-ci est meilleure lorsque l’euthanasie est appliquée «à un moment plus naturel de la mort » (ou même avant dans certains cas) plutôt qu’après un acharnement thérapeutique.
Sky Television’s documentary showing an assisted suicide has provoked a storm in UK tabloids, but the medical ethicist Daniel K Sokol says it has reinforced his belief in the moral permissibility of helping people die in exceptional circumstances.
The National Ethics Council has intensively discussed the issues involved in dealing responsibly with dying. It has perused a large volume of material, obtained expert opinions, consulted with doctors and other medical specialists, and held meetings in Augsburg and Münster at which it exposed itself to public debate. The outcome is enshrined in the Opinion now presented. Self-determination and care at the end of life continues the examination of the themes addressed in the Opinion The advance directive published in June 2005. The present analysis, in conjunction with the clarification of terminology here proposed, may facilitate interpretation of the recommendations set out in that Opinion.
But there is evidence that some clinicians may already be using continuous deep sedation (CDS), as a form of "slow euthanasia". Research suggests use of CDS in Britain is particularly high - accounting for about one in six of all deaths.
Subsequent to an intensive three-year period of reflection, the CMQ is revealing its perspective and conclusions today regarding end-of-life care and euthanasia. The CMQ embraces the point of view of the patient who is confronting imminent and inevitable death. In such a situation, the patient looks to their physician and generally requests that they be able to die without undue suffering and with dignity. Neither surveys, nor attorneys, nor politicians can properly advise the physician and the patient facing this situation. In the majority of cases, the patient and their doctor find the appropriate analgesia that respects the ethical obligation of physicians not to preserve life at any cost, but rather, when the death of a patient appears to be inevitable, to act so that it occurs with dignity and to ensure that the patient obtains the appropriate support and relief.
Objectives: To investigate why physicians label end-of-life acts as either ‘euthanasia/ending of life’ or ‘alleviation of symptoms/palliative or terminal sedation’, and to study the association of such labelling with intended reporting of these acts. Conclusions: Similar cases are not uniformly labelled. However, a physicians’ label is strongly associated with their willingness to report their acts. Differences in how physicians label similar acts impede complete societal control. Further education and debate could enhance the level of agreement about what is physician-assisted dying, and thus should be reported, and what not.
A TV presenter's on-air confession that he killed his ailing lover is to be investigated by Nottinghamshire Police. Ray Gosling, 70, told the BBC's Inside Out programme he had smothered the unnamed man who was dying of Aids. Pressure group Care Not Killing said it was "bizarre" the BBC had not told police of the admission when it was filmed in December. The BBC said it was under no obligation to report to police ahead of broadcast but would co-operate with the inquiry. During a documentary on death and dying the Nottingham filmmaker said he had made a pact with his lover to act if his suffering increased. In the BBC East Midlands programme, broadcast on Monday, he told how he smothered the man with a pillow while he was in hospital after doctors told him that there was nothing further that could be done for him.
A retired doctor has been struck off after giving excessively high doses of morphine to 18 dying patients. A disciplinary panel found that former County Durham GP Dr Howard Martin had not acted negligently but had "violated the rights of the terminally ill". He was cleared of murdering three of his patients five years ago. But he has been struck off by the General Medical Council (GMC) for "completely unacceptable" treatment of some patients.
Medical end-of-life decisions are frequent in minors in Flanders, Belgium. Whereas parents were involved in most end-of-life decisions, the patients themselves were involved much less frequently, even when the ending of their lives was intended. At the time of decision making, patients were often comatose or the physicians deemed them incompetent or too young to be involved.