should patients be able to choose to end their life if they are in pain and dying

[melz34]

Should pts be able to choose to end their life if they are in pain and dying I do because they shouldn't have to cope with been in pain and they should be given the choice to die naturally or with help in ending it:cry:

[Atheos]

Sometimes death IS therapeutic...

[leslie :-D]

Actually there are terminal people who will recover-the medicine cannot predict EVERYRHING,tell ithis to the doctor who defibrillated 20 times a women who was found in her home laying on the floor,pulseless.Miracles,prayers happens and we should not give up our hopes.

i agree that there are some folks on hospice, that probably shouldn't be so.

i'm talking about those with negligible dxs (ftt, alzheimer's..) and many gray areas.

but for the most part, folks receiving hospice are indeed terminal w/less than 6 months, and who have absolutely no hope of recovery.

at this point, it is no longer about "hope".

"hope" causes much, MUCH unnecessary and relentless pain and suffering.

people deserve to die as peacefully as humanly possible.

just as important, people have every right to die as they deem bearable.

and, when we talk about pain, it is not just physical pain that exists.

there are folks who suffer such intense, horrific mental anguish during their dying process.

short of giving them terminal sedation, there is nothing we can do to relieve them from their hell.

i see this far too frequently.

and i pray for their death.

those are my prayers.

i get frustrated reading about insensible ideals.

that prayer, miracle, hope is enough to sustain life.

these visions do nothing for the pt, except to prolong the hell in which they live.

we need to act on their behalf, and put our beliefs aside.

to act otherwise, only serves to do more harm, vs no harm.

i know i can sleep at noc, knowing i acted in accordance with the wishes of my pts.

afterall, it is their life...

and i need to ensure that it remains their death as well.

leslie

[rnmi2004]

So from your understanding all the mentally ill people or "unhappy" people should walk with lethal injections in their pockets?

Notice how my reply to you included a quote of your post that I was responding to.

Your post implied that the only reason a person would suffer was due to physical pain, and the remedy to that was simple: the nurses needed to give them more pain medication.

My response was to bring out that not all end-of-life suffering is physical.

I am replying to your allegation while also staying on the OP's topic, which is about patients who are dying. Not about patients who are mentally ill or unhappy.

If you choose to put words in my mouth to try to support your shaky, self-centered reasoning, that is on you and is a reflection of how weak your argument is.