THE recent suspension of a Glasgow doctor for prescribing a deadly drug and the cost of care for the elderly are two closely related subjects.
Doctors now prolong life without any clear guidance on the consequences. The unnecessary, and in some cases unwanted, prolongation of life is part of the problem of healthcare for the aged.
This is a new problem. The old lady in the chimney corner has no place in a modern household. Houses are too small to hold three generations.
Emancipated women will no longer become geriatric nurses to the grandparents of their children and their husbands won’t do it. The aged must go into care.
To many the idea is repugnant, particularly as it is now a doctor’s duty to keep us alive into dribbling senility.
Yet agecare has become big business.
Granny and grampa hutches have become a feature of modern Argyll.
They can be seen as examples of a caring community. I see them as prisons. I won’t go there. I have lived free and I will die free.
There are two ways I can think of to avoid a grampa hutch. People should be encouraged to make living wills.
My medical records contain a provision that should I no longer be fit to give instructions for my medical care nothing is to be administered except analgesics and soporifics. My life is not to be needlessly prolonged. I want to die decently. Also, my family know that when life becomes a burden I shall go out into the night with a bottle of whisky, drink myself insensible and the cold will let me cease upon the midnight with no pain.
Archbishop Conti may say that it is playing God to give people drugs to die with decency. We already play God. We do so by extending the allotted span of three score years and ten. I type these words aged 83, having had my life prolonged by a heart by- pass operation eight years ago.
My much-loved father died because 40 years ago that operation wasn’t available to him. If we can play God by prolonging life, why can’t we play God by terminating it? It is one of the great moral issues of our time.
Ian Hamilton, Lochnabeithe, North Connel, Argyll.
THANK goodness NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde have seen sense and decided to allow Dr Iain Kerr to continue as a GP after his suspension, by the GMC Fitness to Practise panel, ends. Dr Kerr is quite plainly a caring, compassionate doctor who has dedicated his working life to his patients.
Thank God also for the “people power” of his patients and colleagues, who have supported him throughout this time.
Sheila Duffy, 3 Hamilton Drive, Glasgow.
Originally published by Newsquest Media Group.
(c) 2008 Herald, The; Glasgow (UK). Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.
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