Merciless Life or the One Remedy to All Pain - a Dignified Death?
My sister, Lynette, died on Tuesday 5 April 2022 at the age of 67. She was almost two years younger than me, but had been suffering with emphysema for several years and had great difficulty breathing. She had a small oxygen machine, which she used mainly at night to enable her to sleep. Three weeks before the died she caught a severe cold, which turned into double pneumonia. She was hospitalised briefly, but the hospital sent her home when they found they could do no more for her. Two general practitioners, who both knew her well and had previously attended her, told her and her family that there was nothing further they could do for her. It was now just a question of waiting until her heart stopped. They couldn’t tell us how long this would take. But as her heart rate was averaging around 125 beats a minute with oxygen saturation levels around 60, the stress was enormous and they estimated her heart wouldn’t last more than two or three days. Breathing became increasingly difficult for Lynette, and a friend arranged for a second – more powerful - oxygen machine to be delivered to her at home to help her breathe. Being hooked up to two oxygen machines was uncomfortable as oxygen tends to burn your throat. Even with two machines her oxygen saturation levels were nowhere near normal, and within a day or two she lost the ability to communicate.
When asked whether she recognised me or her son, she just shook her head slightly. The only thing she was able to say, repeatedly, was: “I want to die.” She was constantly agitated – sitting up suddenly, then lying down again, only to sit up once more. However, because she was not in actual physical pain – like a cancer patient, for instance - the doctors said they couldn’t prescribe any medication that might possibly shorten her life. So Lynette spent the last week of her life slowly suffocating, constantly attended by her family and close friends who were helpless to ease her suffering. Every single breath was a Herculean labour and her heart finally stopped at 9 am on a Tuesday – six days after she was discharged from hospital.
How different it would have been if assisted dying was permitted in South Africa. Lynette was ready to die – no coercion would have been needed. She could have said goodbye to us in a dignified, comfortable manner – long before she lost the ability to communicate.
And although we would always have been sad to lose her, we would not now be haunted by her heartfelt pleas to be allowed to die and our feelings of helplessness. Surely it is time to dispense with archaic medical – and moralistic – scruples, and allow people who are on the point of death – and eager to die - the right to do so with dignity. It is the only civilised way to go about the business of dying - which, after all, every one of us will come to in the end.
𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐚 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞?
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