My 93-year-old friend at last died at 4.30 p.m. last Sunday, despite the best efforts of the NHS to keep her alive, against her will. Of course they had the best of intentions. Of course they are there to preserve life. But: Thou Shalt not Kill, nor Shalt Thou Strive, Officiously to keep Alive.
On Friday she told a doctor who was going to launch on yet another course of anti-biotics that she did not want it. She only needed to be kept comfortable, she wanted no further treatment. The young doctor fetched a senior one, and he persuaded her to accept the medication.
On Saturday it was clear to her nephew that she was near death. On Sunday it was clear to me. Three hours before she died a nurse came in to give her not one, but two injections. I don't think they were the anti-biotics, she had already had those. No wonder the NHS is short of funds, pumping expensive drugs into dying people.
My friend had made a living will. She had made it clear to everybody she knew in the past two years, and more, that life had no more attraction for her. What's more, she was a person who hated waste. She saw it all around her, both in her nursing home and in the hospital. She made me promise to campaign on these two issues, not prolonging life artificially, and not wasting our planet's resources. I am going to pursue this on her account as well as my own as long as I have breath and finger-power to do so.
This blog is a plea for common sense in public policy. Our leaders don't seem to have any. They just make daft rules for us to follow. We need to assert our right to use our own good sense instead of ticking boxes which can only say 'yes' or 'no'.
We hear every day the NHS is short of funds. Yet I have just been observing the most flagrant waste,and unkind as well. When people recognise they have reached the end, they should be allowed to die, not pumped full of unwanted drugs that cure the minor ills but can't make life viable again. I promised my dying friend I'd pursue this, and will.
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