Current Events > End of life care for old people suck.

(+) Yeah! (+)

I made a few topics on this already. Gran is on her death bed and has been in a shitty situation for a few weeks. If she were a cat shed have been put down months ago. It seems unfair we force people to stay alive who are dying.

You can look at this from two positions.

The moral side which is the one Im more bothered about at the moment. If someone is in their late 80s and in pain and suffering it seems inhumane to me to try and keep them alive as long as possible for no other reason than to keep them alive as long as possible. It might seem selfish but our entire family has been waiting for her to pass for some time now and its agony having to wait for the inevitable when shes being kept alive artificially when there is no hope of recovery. Ive seen people go through cancer and that stuff really sucks at the end. If I were in that position Id want a nice peaceful death not prolonging the agony for months and months for nothing. We have family members coming down every other day from four / five hours away to be with her which is amazing to see but we are all just waiting now for the end and feel like its being dragged out more than is actually fair on everyone.

Then there is the pure utilitarian side where in the uk at least we have so many old people taking up bed be NHS resources. You walk into any ward and its likely its going to be 80% people who are elderly and at the end of their life. People who are younger cant get a bed because they are full of old people which doesnt seem fair either.

Im not in a good place right now so this probably isnt as well thought out as it could be but would love to see some opinions on this. Maybe Im wrong.

So why isn't she CMO?

Can you get her on hospice?

Don't be so cruel. Remember, that might be you in that bed one day.

After COVID, I'm in two minds about euthanasia.

The egalitarian, pro-rights side of it is that euthanasia - assisted suicide - should be an option for people suffering chronic conditions that will render the rest of their life a living hell against their own wishes. If you're going to face a slow, painful descent into non-function and eventual death through ALS, or if you learn that you're in the early stages of dementia and the thought of a prolonged descent into that illness is a fate worse than death for you, I think it's an essential right for a person to set terms to end their life to ease their suffering. Some people might choose to tough it out, and that's just as much their right as the right to die with dignity - forcing people to live their own worst nightmares, living in their own bodies as prisoners of some horrifying disease, is incredibly inhumane.

But the far more cynical side of me is wary because of how quickly right wing fuckfaces began to advocate for the death of the elderly when COVID was at its peak. Euthanasia legislation passed by an ever-increasingly militant right wing, who outright said "COVID mostly kills old people, so let it run its course and cull the herd", would not lead to a dignified right to die. I think it would be so mishandled that it could lead to unrelated third parties and institutions to make that call regardless of what the ailing person was asking for.

Like during the pandemic, a bunch of disabled people had "do not resuscitate" added to their medical profiles. They didn't update their records, nor did their families or carers. Someone in the system changed their files so that in the event of significant illness or injury, they would be left to die. I think that's what a pro-euthanasia right-wing would look like, and with enough of those fundamentalist cocksuckers already in power I would be hesitant to move the idea forward, which I fucking hate.

But the point is that rather than suffer through years of objective, unwanted decline at the whims of a degenerative disease - rather than die a slow, painful death where you're waiting for your lungs to grow too weak to pump enough oxygen into your body, asphyxiating under the weight of your own lungs - the option needs to be there for a person to say "this is the point where I will no longer want to be alive, and I would like to establish a contingency in the event of that outcome to preserve my dignity and ease my suffering". If they don't put those contingencies in place, that's their right. But for those who see a long, inevitable and painful death ahead of them, euthanasia gives them the right to die in peace, as themselves, on their own terms.

Sorry to hear about your grandma TC, hopefully her suffering doesn't last for much longer.

Canada legalized medically assisted death and they basically turned it into a eugenics program where anyone who's poor and disabled is given that option. Imagine how much worse it'd be in the States.

Sexypwnstar posted...

So why isn't she CMO?

What is CMO? This is the UK btw.

TyVulpine posted...

Don't be so cruel. Remember, that might be you in that bed one day.

She has explicitly expressed she wants to go and is just waiting to die.

SHRlKE posted...

What is CMO? This is the UK btw.

Comfort Measures Only

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8740772/

Oh right. I guess that is like palliative care right?

SHRlKE posted...

Oh right. I guess that is like palliative care right?

It's more like the Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient (which was generic), which was superseded in the UK by End of Life Care Pathway (which is supposed to be tailored per patient):

https://www.helpinghandshomecare.co.uk/care-advice/the-end-of-life-care-pathway/

TyVulpine posted...

Don't be so cruel. Remember, that might be you in that bed one day.

Don't think like a healthy young person that will always be a healthy young person.

I have made it clear to family that I don't want to be kept alive on machines in pain for months or even years, making everyone around remember me as a frail dying body and not the snarky asshole they knew when I was healthy.

knightmarexx posted...

It's more like the Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient (which was generic), which was superseded in the UK by End of Life Care Pathway (which is supposed to be tailored per patient):

https://www.helpinghandshomecare.co.uk/care-advice/the-end-of-life-care-pathway/

ok thats great thanks. Im not the next of kin so I dont have all the answers. Shes basically not drinking or eating so it wont be long now and she has started morphine.

Very sad TC I hope things get better for you and your family. Just remember some people dont get to see all friends and their homies on the way out some people just sit at home alone or wander streets until they cant move anymore and they just fall over dead. It can be so much worse brother. Dying of old age saying bye to everybody seems preferable. I know old heads with no family and kids that hate them and they just disappear one day bro.

SHRlKE posted...

She has explicitly expressed she wants to go and is just waiting to die.

And did not ask her if she wanted to enter hospice? That's what they did with my friend. She had her last bout with pnumonia and it ravaged her lungs enough that it was unrecoverable. She told them she wanted to die and she entered home hospice. I was her caretaker, so I know what you are going through. You know they are in pain and there is nothing you can do. Even with the pain meds its not enough.

Shes in a care home if thats what you mean.

This might be a UK / US language issue.

Shes on end of life / palliative care and the home she is in can facilitate that. I.E. give her morphine.