Voluntary Euthansia Is It A Crime Or Passion?

Voluntary euthanasia is it crime or passion? - Aug. 21 2007.

Drouin resident Peter Hammond has just been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. His wife Mieke Hammond has written this article calling for community support for voluntary euthanasia.

My neighbour’s dog wasn’t feeling very well, sad, he suffered from severe arthritis in back legs and he was in a lot of pain.

Although the vet had given him the necessary painkillers, it didn’t seem to help anymore. The poor dog, it was awful to see him in such a painful situation.

The neighbour went back to the vet and it was decided that it was best for the dog to put him down, let him rest in peace without any pain or suffering.

My husband was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease and has only a year and a half to live. Several years before this diagnosis he showed signs of this illness but it took at least two years before the penny dropped and the symptoms were finally recognized as being part of MND.

When the neurologist gave us the bad news, we were devastated, although we didn’t really know what it meant at the time. Since that fatal day, we have been browsing websites, became a member of MND Association, talked to several people and slowly started to realize that this terminal illness was going to change our lives drastically.

We met suffers of this disease, most of them were totally incapacitated and could not talk or eat, or walk anymore and needed fulltime care in a hospital.

What a life being totally depending on others and having no control over one’s own life anymore. There is no way my husband wants to experience that phase of life and we began ourt search for any alternatives which could help him to “step out” before he would lose control over his own life.

There are only a few countries that really support voluntary euthanasia in one way or another and Australia is not one of them. We got in contact with Dying With Dignity Victoria and spoke to Vice President Rodney Syme about this fact. He mentioned that their organisation’s goal was to get the legalization going in order to make it legal to help people die if they are terminally ill and wish to do so.

Rodney Syme and the team at DWDV are passionate about this and we support them to the fullest. The advice given by DWDV is always within the current law and they cannot provide the names of doctors who might be prepared to give more specific advice or assistance.

The organization however, can give us the options available under the current law, which is most helpful.

It seems strange that we are able to put our dog or any other animal down when it is terminally ill or suffering immense pain, but don’t allow people to die with dignity under the same circumstances.

It is not always the pain that causes the suffering, but the loss of control over bodily functions and total dependence on others. Just imagine the psychological distress caused by the significance of loss of control over dying, it must feel like a prisoner in your own body.

Not being able to make the choice to end your own life before you end up in a vegetative state is humiliating to say the least not only for the patient but certainly also for the family.

I have experienced two occasions of psychological stress caused by keeping a patient alive despite horrendous suffering and the knowledge that the patient would never recover.

That happened in the Netherlands, where I was born and grew up. The first case was my mother. She had cancer of the oesophagus and couldn’t eat nor drink without experiencing a lot of pain.

She soon deteriorated during her stay in hospital. She had lost a lot of weight and looked like a bag of bones. One day during visiting hours, most of my family was there to support her.

Unfortunately the morphine had made her distressed and hallucinations made her sit up and wanting to get out of her bed. The morphine brought back certain upsetting periods of her life and she was crying out for help, reaching out for Tom, the little brother I could have had, but who died just after being born. Just imagine the stress and suffering she went through at that moment. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. And although we all tried to calm her down, it was not enough.

So we called the doctor and asked him to please stop this immense inhumane suffering and he did. We were all there when she finally settled down and it seems like she just fell asleep, her face showing peace and a smile. I’ll never forget that day; she was only 60 years old. But that of course was the Netherlands where people are able to choose to die with dignity.

The second case was my then father-in-law, who suffered from lung cancer due to smoking. He was in such a bad state that his lungs kept collapsing, making life unbearable and very painful.

And again his GP helped him die with dignity in the comfort of his own home in the Netherlands. He was only 52.

Our goal now is to help DWDV to get the law reformed her in Victoria to allow medically assisted dying at the request of rational, informed profoundly suffering adults.

Should you agree please let your parliamentary members know that you are unhappy with the current state of law in Victoria which prevents terminally and incurably ill Victorians with profound suffering from choosing to die with dignity. More details can be found on the website www.dwdv.org.au.

Warragul and Drouin Gazette