Death on wheels: The suicide service that comes to your door

The Daily Mail (U.K.) ^ | November 7, 2007 | ALLAN HALL

[Stoat]

There are all kinds of internet "resources" for suicide methods one can self-administer which are suppose to be swift, painless, and certain.

That may well be true, but I have not seen this as a real-world reality of what most people actually do.

Desperately unhappy and / or gravely sick people typically don't spend a lot of time researching on the internet in my experience, but that's just me.

there is no reason for any terminally ill person in the 21st century to die in pain

Again, I regret that this is at variance with my experience after over two decades in prehospital emergency medicine and considerable contact with hospice nurses and end-of life scenarios.

However, your experience may be different and I certainly don't pretend to be an expert on death..

[Mrs. Don-o]

Your experience must certainly be more extensive than mine. But as I understand it, what's available in pain management and palliative care ain't necessarily what you get. It's that "intractable doctors and nurses" problem: health professionals who really don't know all that much about eliminating pain in terminal patients, or who (for whatever reason) don't routinely apply it.

Our Sunday Visitor, May 20, 2007 had an interview with Providence Sister Karin Dufault, a registered nurse and executive director of the Supportive Care Coalition based in Eugene. She said the political movement for suicide-oriented “treatment” in Oregon had one paradoxical effect: It has spurred palliative-care providers into greater action to strengthen positive, nonviolent alternatives.

“What is now the 16-member Supportive Care Coalitioncame into being in 1994, when six Oregon Catholic health ministries became deeply concerned about the underlying causes behind the push for legalized suicide,” said Sister Dufault. “We were determined to address the public’s expressed fears of poorly managed pain, unbearable suffering at the end of life and fear of burdening their families.”

“The coalition began by listening carefully to what people had to say abut the effect of failing health on their lives, and particularly about how well or poorly the health care system met their needs.”

...Looking back on her long experience in oncology and gerontology, Sister Dufault agreed that highly effective treatments exist for pain and other physical symptoms of terminal illness. “We know that we can successfully address pain, nausea and other physical symptoms in people who are seriously ill. A lethal overdose of barbiturates is not an appropriate treatment. In fact, it’s not a treatment at all,” she said.

It's my impression that it takes a major political campaign, promotional effort, paradigm shift, to get doctors and institutions to focus seriously on effective pain management and palliative care.