Re: “Quebec doctors to get euthanasia kits” (Montreal Gazette, Sept. 1)
For a sick patient nearing the end of life, intravenous insertion can be incredibly traumatic and difficult. While it is refreshing to see that Quebec is taking a proactive role in trying to ease a patient’s suffering, creating a “standardized” euthanasia kit that relies solely on IV access is like treating the patient like a parcel in the mail and not like a human being.
Many patients do not want to be stabbed with a needle when they are well, let alone when they are dying. The process of finding a suitable vein on a sick patient that will not collapse as a catheter is thread into it is not easy, often takes one or more attempts, and frankly, is sometimes impossible.
Combine that with the fact that this vein, assuming it is accessible, must then accommodate three different drugs, some of them “thick,” and what doctors will face will be “blown” veins and a patient who is suffering as they die, having to endure poke after poke with a needle. Provisions should be put in place. What if IV insertion is not possible? How many times should a patient be stabbed with a needle? Who should be attempting to insert the IV?
Standardizing the process of euthanasia sets a dangerous precedent as it assumes patients fit a mould that can be satisfied with a lawmaker’s bill. Having seen the process of death up close, it is everything but standard. Human beings are precious because we are not all the same and to assume otherwise might only create a painful death for patients when that is surely not what Bill 52 had in mind.
Nathan Friedland, Roxboro QC
Many patients do not want to be stabbed with a needle when they are well, let alone when they are dying. The process of finding a suitable vein on a sick patient that will not collapse as a catheter is thread into it is not easy, often takes one or more attempts, and frankly, is sometimes impossible.
Combine that with the fact that this vein, assuming it is accessible, must then accommodate three different drugs, some of them “thick,” and what doctors will face will be “blown” veins and a patient who is suffering as they die, having to endure poke after poke with a needle. Provisions should be put in place. What if IV insertion is not possible? How many times should a patient be stabbed with a needle? Who should be attempting to insert the IV?
Standardizing the process of euthanasia sets a dangerous precedent as it assumes patients fit a mould that can be satisfied with a lawmaker’s bill. Having seen the process of death up close, it is everything but standard. Human beings are precious because we are not all the same and to assume otherwise might only create a painful death for patients when that is surely not what Bill 52 had in mind.
Nathan Friedland, Roxboro QC
The writer makes a good point, but overall, no it's not commendable that Quebec is issuing standardized euthanasia kits. Being poisoned to death is no less a violent and cruel act than any other method of killing people, because the body does not like poison and tries desperately to get rid of it by vomiting, convulsions and diarrhea. I wonder if the people preparing these "kits" are getting as much of a charge contemplating how much poison to put in them and how people will die as the Nazi 'doctors" got from figuring out how much gas to pump into the gas chambers to kill everyone. Hey - it's faster and no problems with veins collapsing.
ReplyDeleteShame on Canada!!!!
By the way, according to Stats Canada, from 2007 to 2011, 18,885 Canadians successfully committed suicide without any help from doctors at all, an average of 3,777 per year. If the rate held, we can assume that from 2007 to 2014,approximately 30,216 Canadians successfully committed suicide with no help from doctors.