Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
Under the topic of Uneasy relationship, Preston writes:
Several research studies on assisted dying conducted at Lancaster University have highlighted the practical and ethical challenges for healthcare professionals who are asked by patients to support medically assisted dying. Interviews with medical practitioners often indicate an uneasy relationship for many healthcare workers with this practice.Preston comments on research related to the conflict with preventing suicide and assisted suicide. She writes:
In [the Netherlands], where both medically assisted suicide and euthanasia are permissible, healthcare workers supporting patients with an assisted death described the work as emotionally demanding, particularly for less experienced professionals. Even when healthcare professionals are trained to support patients in this area, some feel they can do only one or two cases a year.
One doctor interviewed for the study said: “I had a colleague who was all for it [assisted dying] and she’s ‘I can’t do it anymore’ because even if you are in favour of it, it becomes a burden when you do it three or four times. It is stressful to kill somebody.”
Some healthcare workers in the study even applied to work in places where assisted dying did not occur. Others were more comfortable being involved but agreed it was never a normal death and they remembered each one.
Interviews with hospice staff in Washington in the US, where a form of medically assisted dying is available, found that they encountered different types of suicide, and felt conflicted and powerless about wanting to prevent suicide on one hand and supporting a patient’s decision on the other.
The assisted suicide lobby is trying to normalize assisted suicide as a form of medical treatment. Even medical professionals who support assisted suicide found it stressful to kill somebody.
Employers (health authorities in Canada) should be considerate on the confidence level of medical and nurse practitioners. It shouldn't be mandated that they need to provide it because it is legal. The employers should invest on those who are confident to undergo further training to become an effective MAiD provider. They should not force palliative medical experts and palliative care nurses provide MAiD. It will only cause ethical dillemma, stressful working condition when they are forced to do it for the sole reason that "MAiD is legal".
ReplyDeleteWell, thank God, at least some health care professionals find it stressful. They should. If they do, it shows that at least a tiny remnant of the conscience God gave them remains, ... just a little bit.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there are some out there who don't find it stressful and those ones are even scarier than the ones who find it hard to do. Sociopaths who don't feel a thing and there are some in health care. We read about them when they are caught in the hospitals doing illegal medical murder (that's what it is, really, ... "assisting" someone to die.
In hospice, sadly to say, there are more than one might suspect and it's very easy to disguise medical "aid in dying" without declaring it as such, as "comfort care."
Perhaps one day, society will realize its grave error in legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide and repeal these evil laws.