Heroin addict dies in Hospital after overdose

[az]

Doctors usually know an addict when they see one. Still, he's a human being and as such deserved treatment, IMHO. They couldn't know he'd do himself in just after the op. The problem is the same with addicts, old people and deathly ill: Will you improve or at least preserve their quality of life with the treatment? Will they live on for at least a few months? Or will you simply delay death and make life hell on earth for the patients and maybe their families? If you answer the first two questions "yes" and the third "no", then by all means apply the treatment (this surely applies to a new hip joint for old people). But if you can do nothing except dragging a patient through a hospital's white hell, send them home and let them have all the painkillers they need (without drugging them into half-coma), and let them die in peace, where they want to die (I think I want to die in a house at the sea, and I'll rent one when the end comes).

AZ

[Brian Ellis]

Originally posted by az
(I think I want to die in a house at the sea, and I'll rent one when the end comes).

You assume that you are not going to die by being knocked down by a No. 7 bus or a car driven by a stoned addict; being a passenger in a 747 falling out of the sky or even a massive myocardial infarction.

I'm delighted that we are starting the New Year on a very rare note of agreement

[Paddy]

I agree to your notion of mutual agreement

[DentyCracker]

The case comes up, you have to sort it. Being an addict doesn't enter the picture. This is simply another human being in need of help. Your personal feelings simply do not enter the equation. That is how I see it from the doctor's point of view. How I think it should be is another matter but I don't feel like going into that now. The oath I took was slightly different from what Brian wrote but pretty similar.

[az]

Brian, I'd rather die quickly in an accident than be treated for months to finally die in my own juices in a hospital bed, with nothing but suffering for me and my family before the end finally gracefully comes.

AZ