Euthanasia is a very touchy subject, especially within the medical field. As a healthcare advocate, it is our job as professionals to better the lives of our patients. What happens when there is nothing more you can do?
I understand, being a Home Health Aide that works a lot with Hospice, that comfort care is important. But truly, when a suffering patient looks to you to ease the pain what do you do? Should you apologize and say their is nothing more I can do?
I can hardly say no more treats to my cat when he gives puppy dog eyes, much less a patient dying alone of cancer. In my opinion, for what it is worth, Euthanasia is most certainly not murder and should never be referred to as such.
If Euthanasia was legal, but very strict in regulations and rules, it would be very beneficial to many terminally ill patients. This may be the only healthcare decision a patient makes within their life, and they should be allowed to make such a decision when conditions permit. We all have choices in this world, what gives you or I the right to take such choices away from someone in such a situation.
What is your opinion? Do you agree or disagree? Do you have a story, personal or not that pertains to this topic?
That's your view on it, but this thread is about euthanasia- let's not continue to derail the topic, please.
I'm not derailing anything. I was using it as a current example of a legal issue undergoing change, where people have claimed that X won't happen, only to be proven wrong.
I don't think I'll ever be okay with the idea of physician assisted (or nurse assisted) suicide. I suppose there's an element of hypocrisy in being both pro-choice and anti-assisted-suicide, but there it is.
For a doctor/nurse to participate in an assisted suicide or in euthanasia seems like a fundamental breach of both nursing and of medicine. Hospice care, palliative care, terminal sedation, titrated morphine are all treating the symptoms of the dying process. Giving a KCl injection because someone with a bad prognosis wants to die is something else entirely.
Forgive me if someone posted this already, but here's a cut-and-paste of the ANA's stance:
Statement of ANA Position: The American Nurses Association (ANA) prohibits nurses' participationin assisted suicide and euthanasia because these acts are in direct violation of Code of Ethics for Nurseswith Interpretive Statements (ANA, 2001; herein referred to as The Code), the ethical traditions and goalsof the profession, and its covenant with society. Nurses have an obligation to provide humane,comprehensive, and compassionate care that respects the rights of patients but upholds the standardsof the profession in the presence of chronic, debilitating illness and at end-of-life.
I don't think I've seen the ANA's statement on this thread so thanks. (Although I've been gone for a few days). I agree with it.
Again, as hospice, I can't see myself as the active deliverer of a medication that stops someone's heart. That's why I answered "murder" on the poll.
I've just come off of 4 days of hospice call and yesterday was my day to see patients. I was called out over the weekend and last night. Our team's goal is to handle the pain for patients to be able to live out their lives as they wish. One man got to go spend the night with his kids/grandkids after we got his pain under control. After that visit, he's deteriorating quickly. His goal was to get to see the grandkids one more time. Another patient and her sister met up with another sister and their mom on Sunday and spent the day together. She said she ate a "logger's breakfast" at Denny's. She showed me photos of the day together. We controlled both patients' pain with a CADD pump. One with Dilaudid and one with Morphine Sulfate.
In the midst of this argument I still say we need to do more regarding educating about palliative and hospice care so people don't feel all alone and suicidal. Obviously we won't change everyone's mind but I do not think we are doing a good enough job giving people OPTIONS!
This isn't about clubbing seals who weren't able to complete an advance directive.
This is more like, I think homosexuality is a sin so therefore what happens between two consenting adults is my business and I will vote down their personal rights based on my personal religious beliefs.
This is completely different than equal rights. The rights of a non-straight person have absolutely nothing to do with you, if you are straight. Asking a person to push a fatal IV dose is asking them to end that life. They are directly being involved. If the person believes it is murder, that's a valid reason to vote against it, particularly the requirement for them to participate.
I share that opinion as a person willing to give that IV push.
There are things in life far worse than death.....why as nurses do we allow our patients to suffer? Why do we think this is ok?
We have no problem putting down fluffy the dog but mother need to suffer till God takes her?
Remind the fable about the drowning man that died .....God sent three items to save him....maybe nursing are that rescue ship for that suffering patient.
There are things in life far worse than death.....why as nurses do we allow our patients to suffer? Why do we think this is ok?
We have no problem putting down fluffy the dog but mother need to suffer till God takes her?
Remind the fable about the drowning man that died .....God sent three items to save him....maybe nursing are that rescue ship for that suffering patient.
This is what sticks in my craw. . . . .we as nurse do not allow our patients to suffer and we do not think it is ok for them to suffer.
I'm hoping your post came without reading this entire thread because I think many nurses have articulated very well why they wouldn't be the one to push the IV med that stops the heart of a patient however, we would do everything we can to make sure the patient doesn't suffer pain. I just came off a weekend of hospice patient care where I did just that.
by ixchel, BSN, RN This is completely different than equal rights. The rights of a non-straight person have absolutely nothing to do with you, if you are straight. Asking a person to push a fatal IV dose is asking them to end that life. They are directly being involved. If the person believes it is murder, that's a valid reason to vote against it, particularly the requirement for them to participate.
I share that opinion as a person willing to give that IV push.
Thanks for pointing that out. I appreciate your candor and support at the same time.
There are things in life far worse than death.....why as nurses do we allow our patients to suffer? Why do we think this is ok?
We have no problem putting down fluffy the dog but mother need to suffer till God takes her?
Remind the fable about the drowning man that died .....God sent three items to save him....maybe nursing are that rescue ship for that suffering patient.
Only a sociopath would think it's okay to let a dying patient suffer.
Thats why we liberally give pain meds to dying patients.
But I am not okay with the idea of "putting down" an actively dying patient the same way Fluffy is put down.
This is completely different than equal rights. The rights of a non-straight person have absolutely nothing to do with you, if you are straight. Asking a person to push a fatal IV dose is asking them to end that life. They are directly being involved. If the person believes it is murder, that's a valid reason to vote against it, particularly the requirement for them to participate.
I share that opinion as a person willing to give that IV push.
i never interpreted this thread as asking an unwilling person to give a fatal dose.
I thought this was about someone being able to end their life with the assistance of a willing medical advocate.
The relation with non hetero marriage is they are both denying an adult individual to make a consenting choice based on the moral beliefs of others.
Re Hospice care, there is no number of successful palliative experiences that will make it relevant to this issue, one of personal rights to die the way one chooses.
I'm not sure what the OP was originally about but I am NOT speaking about insisting an unwilling nurse to perform euthanasia.
I'm referring to someone with a solid directive making it legal for their agent/MD to make euthanasia legally obtainable and performed if the parties are willing. If my husband had declared a wish to be euthanized in the last 24 hrs of his life after he was no longer responsive and not reversible, it doesn't matter how many peaceful natural deaths one has witnessed or assisted, his choice to live and die on his own terms should not be obstructed by anyone else's beliefs or experiences.
Yeah but . . . . . denying an individual the chance to get married and actively ending another person's life don't have much to do with each other.
Marriage vs killing someone just isn't the same.
Whether you call the killing of someone "murder" or not.
Obviously I am in agreement with ixchel in regards to this. However, I would not be the one to push the IV med.
I'm at a loss on how to make it any clearer, I'm not referring to killing someone, I'm speaking of someone's choice amd performed by their willing advocate.
Your religious beliefs or where ever it comes from does not make a requested speeding up of the dying process by a few hours murder.
Red Kryptonite
2,212 Posts
I'm not derailing anything. I was using it as a current example of a legal issue undergoing change, where people have claimed that X won't happen, only to be proven wrong.