I see a lot of old people on dialysis in the clinic. The desire to live on is so strong that one keeps going even when the body has already given up.
I can imagine that at the final stage of one's life one wants to somehow keep living on, at any cost. A favorite grandchild that you want to see grow up, there must be a real strong motivator to keep these people coming back for more dialysis. But there has to come a point when the motivation curve changes direction. How can this be any fun? I hope that the Germans have better policies than the US in this respect; when one wants to die peacefully, can one just say so and move on?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comments:
As usual in Germany, it's a bit complicated. We have a thing that is called "Patientenverfügung" which basically is your written statement what they should do with you if you're in hospital, probably in a coma, and your life depends fully on machines. You can allow them to switch off the machines if there's no hope for you.
The public discussion focused on the case when people cannot decide any more themselves, so they could decide in advance. I don't know about the legal situation when you're still well aware of things and want to be "switched off" anyways.
Perhaps this doesn't happen to often, because people generally don't want to go. And perhaps, if they are very sick, if they let go in their minds, their bodies follow.
Post a Comment