End of life care: we need love as well as dignity

30/04/2008

The article by Alison Davis about voluntary euthanasia (MT, April 2008) really made me think. I am very supportive of Dignity In Dying, but Alison very eloquently put across arguments for the other side. Yet somehow what she said was defeated by her very last sentence: "what we really need is assistance and encouragement to live with dignity until we die naturally."

 

That is exactly where the system falls down. I have visited people in hospitals and care homes who were not cared for properly at any level - and nothing anyone said made a shred of difference.

 

I understand that care in hospices is excellent. So, until we can be assured that hospital-style care, attention and, dare I say it, love, is available in every hospital and care-home, then I, for one, need to know that I will have the voluntary euthanasia or assisted dying choice.

 

I. Apsly, Swindon