Subtle changes in western people's attitudes toward death occurred around the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Ariès titled this mentality shift: "One's Own Death". The defining feature of this era was a new personalization of death, in which the individual rather than the act of death itself came to the forefront.
...
Although mourning was not completely new in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Ariès argues that it became unregulated. It was less of a ritualized social obligation, and more of a spontaneous and often excessive display of emotions. Ariès maintains that survivors no longer accepted the death of friends and loved ones. He states that people of this period lamented that death was a complete rupture from life and were consoled by preserving the memory of the deceased. Memorializing the dead became an important feature of the period of "thy death".
...
Beginning in the very late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Ariès argues that a "brutal revolution" occurred in western attitudes toward death, in which death became both shameful and forbidden.
Thus in the era of "forbidden death" the dying man no longer presided over his own death. Soon the extreme emotions that survivors expressed in the previous period were replaced with an equally extreme avoidance of death and suppression of emotion that became dominant in the twentieth century. Ariès names two societal trends that he believes were very influential on shifting attitudes toward death: the advent of the hospital as a place of dying, and a growing sentiment that life should be, above all, happy.
When asked, the most people express the desire to die at home rather than in a hospital or nursing home, but the majority still die in an institution (National Center for Health Statistics, 2008). Estimates suggest that 56% of Americans will spend some time in a nursing home, and of those who stay longer than two weeks, 76% will die there (Kiernan, 2010). People who are terminally ill identify their top priorities as avoiding suffering, being with family, having the touch of others, being mentally aware, and not becoming a burden to others (Gawande, 2010). The SUPPORT Investigators (1995) demonstrated that death in the U.S. health care system is still characterized by ignorance of patients’ treatment wishes.
From the 1920s through the 1950s, Americans’ denial of death and dying grew steadily, with no place in our progressive, forward-looking age to accommodate the disturbing idea of the end of life.
...
The louder conversation about death and dying during the past half-century has not made Americans any more comfortable with the subject. We’re certainly talking and reading about death more than we used to, but we remain largely in denial about its reality, perhaps no better off than we were in the 1950s. In fact, a solid case could be made that we are considerably worse off when it comes to accepting death and dying for the natural and inevitable events they are.
...
Boomers are taking few, if any, steps to prepare themselves for their own deaths or that of their siblings or friends, this not boding well for their individual and collective future.
The Assisted Dying Bill will have its Second Reading debate on November 29th and MPs will vote on it.
I heard that Archbishop Welby is against it. I doubt he can be seen to take any other position than one of standing up for the vulnerable and being wary of the risk, however small, of abuse of such legalisation.
Easy for Carey to be more 'radical' when he's not in office.
I notice in the Guardian article that the Rev Canon Rosie Harper is cynical like me when she says 'I suspect there's a disconnect between what the bishops feel they have to say and what many of them actually think '.
Easy for Carey to be more 'radical' when he's not in office.
But it's interesting that this is the way in which he chooses to be radical. And he was considered a rather Evangelical ABC and has perhaps been more fiercely so since retiring. So his weighing in like this may have its effect.
I doubt he can be seen to take any other position than one of standing up for the vulnerable and being wary of the risk, however small, of abuse of such legalisation.
I lean towards the view that not allowing people to have a dignified death on their own terms is abusive. I don’t think that abuse should be ignored just because it’s the status quo.
Back in the womb it’s much too real
In pumps life that I must feel
But can’t look forward to reveal
Look to the time when I’ll live
Fed through a tube that sticks in me
Just like a wartime novelty
Tied to machines that make me be
Cut this life off from me (Metallica, One)
Another position is available: that of the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, where Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) has been legal since 2016. "Church should not oppose MAID" is an article from 2022.
Two points from it:
1. The Primate thought, probably correctly, that Canadians would not only not be interested in what a religious organization's opinion on MAID would be, but that expressing such an opinion would probably backfire.
2. The Primate's take on this was one of pastoral care for individuals.
The expansion of MAID in Canada, in 2021, to include "death not reasonably foreseeable" is still new, and I can't find much data on it. The expansion was sought and achieved by two disabled people in Quebec.
I don’t get why the offences under section 26 are punishable by up to 14 years when they are effectively attempted murder and murder.
I also don’t see anything here about how the assessing doctors, who don’t know the patient, as supposed to be able to determine if someone is being coerced - other than that person’s own statement. And as anyone with any experience of domestic violence and coercive control can tell you, that may be unreliable.
I don’t get why the offences under section 26 are punishable by up to 14 years when they are effectively attempted murder and murder.
I also don’t see anything here about how the assessing doctors, who don’t know the patient, as supposed to be able to determine if someone is being coerced - other than that person’s own statement. And as anyone with any experience of domestic violence and coercive control can tell you, that may be unreliable.
That may be part of the reason - the Bill provides protection in principle, but it's hard to see how straightforward it would be to get convictions in practice. In contrast, the 3 offences in Clause 27 - falsification or destruction of documentation - are punishable with life imprisonment.
It's disconcerting to find myself not only in roughly the same place on an issue as Streeting, but also with some of the same reasoning (particularly the current shortfall in palliative care). Makes me want to go and have a shower.
Personally, I've come to see the issue of resourcing as an empty reason. I doubt many laws would be enacted if it depended on their implementation (and that of the surrounding contexts) being sufficiently resourced.
I see the underlying problem as being that society does not value everyone equally, as people who are not valued know all too well. I suggest that people who are valued by society are more likely to see having the option to end their own lives as being a positive thing, compared to people who are not valued by society. Bills tend not to address concerns at this level, because they can't.
I don’t get why the offences under section 26 are punishable by up to 14 years when they are effectively attempted murder and murder.
I also don’t see anything here about how the assessing doctors, who don’t know the patient, as supposed to be able to determine if someone is being coerced - other than that person’s own statement. And as anyone with any experience of domestic violence and coercive control can tell you, that may be unreliable.
That may be part of the reason - the Bill provides protection in principle, but it's hard to see how straightforward it would be to get convictions in practice. In contrast, the 3 offences in Clause 27 - falsification or destruction of documentation - are punishable with life imprisonment.
It's disconcerting to find myself not only in roughly the same place on an issue as Streeting, but also with some of the same reasoning (particularly the current shortfall in palliative care). Makes me want to go and have a shower.
Personally, I've come to see the issue of resourcing as an empty reason. I doubt many laws would be enacted if it depended on their implementation (and that of the surrounding contexts) being sufficiently resourced.
I see the underlying problem as being that society does not value everyone equally, as people who are not valued know all too well. I suggest that people who are valued by society are more likely to see having the option to end their own lives as being a positive thing, compared to people who are not valued by society. Bills tend not to address concerns at this level, because they can't.
Willingness to properly fund things is an indication of what (and who) society values. If we had Rolls Royce palliative care provision, and prior to that enabled disabled people to live full and active lives regardless of their impairment I would be far more sanguine about allowing assisted dying for those who are terminally ill and for whom the option would give them a sense of control and a reassurance of a way out if things became unbearable.
I'm not sure what 'Rolls Royce' palliative care would look like. Because if we are talking about end of life care then in my corner of the NHS I would say patients invariably get excellent care. Round the clock Community Nurses and treatments such as syringe drivers with midazolam, and morphine, and , usually, hyoscine and/or haloperidol mean that physical distress in the dying phase is invariably very well controlled.
So I agree with @pease that funding provision is probably a red herring with respect to the arguments for and against the bill going through parliament as we speak.
I'm now uncertain the bill will pass -because I see proponents of assisted dying wanting different things; if it's about distress in the dying phase then I think it's mainly fear of distress and a desire for autonomy in one's death at the end of life with a terminal illness. And, as I said, a think this fear is to a significant degree unfounded. But if it's about not wanting to have the last chapter of your your life bedbound and needing round the clock care, but not actually dying, then the bill is only of use as first step towards voluntary euthanasia for those types of situation that some (such as Mrs Vole, with her MS) fear greatly. And she says she would want voluntary euthanasia in such a situation. And I think that will be legalised in the UK one day -but probably decades in the future.
Sorry to double-post:
The CEO of Care Not Killing (who obviously oppose the bill going through parliament), George Macdonald, (who usually campaigns in the Scottish parliament) has said "This bill is being rushed through with indecent haste and ignores the deep seated problems in the UK's broken and patchy palliative care system and the crisis in social care. It also ignores data from around the world that shows changing the law would put pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives".
How can anyone know the whole picture of palliative care in the UK? Scaremongering? or some truth in the assertion?
In terms of how the wider "debate" is progressing, the Guardian / Observer seems to be making a stab at balance.
Harriet Harman makes a point about pursuing the issue of resourcing:
“By commissioning work to assess the cost of facilitating assisted dying – which he [Wes Streeting] will have to publish – he will then of necessity have to balance that against the cost of the person staying alive. That leads you to the awful prospect that the research could find that it is cheaper for people to be doing assisted dying rather than staying alive, and that would really contaminate the argument,” said Harman, who is co-host of the podcast Electoral Dysfunction.
“It has to be an argument about individual choice and moral principle. It cannot be an argument about money.”
But just because it shouldn't be about the money doesn't mean it has to be about individual choice or moral principle.
And with reference to a report from Policy Exchange that comes out strongly against assisted dying:
It also says that the case advanced for legalisation unduly prioritises the argument for individual autonomy, holding this to be the paramount principle at the expense of other important considerations, such as the sanctity of life.
[Lord] Sumption writes: “The lesson of this paper is that medically assisted suicide arouses strong feelings, and strong feelings make for muddled thinking and moral confusion … It would be difficult to argue that the interventions of courts and judges have been either coherent or consistent. What is the justification for allowing medically assisted suicide but limiting it to those believed to be close to death or in intolerable pain, actual or prospective? There are so many other reasons why one might want to end one’s life. Once the moral barrier has been crossed, what is the logical stopping point?”
Which also makes a moral principle argument, but on the other side.
I continue to think that passing the bill and not passing the bill both look like bad options. And that this bill is doing an effective job of illustrating our (western) societies' fractured and somewhat incoherent attitudes to life and death.
In relation to valuing life, both of those who would embrace having the choice to end their life, and those who fear the effect it would have on their lives, I would like to see more developed arguments about the place of compassion in our society.
I continue to think that passing the bill and not passing the bill both look like bad options.
Especially if it's by a narrow margin.
But there is another option, come Friday, which is not to put it to a vote, which would allow the assembled to go away and return with a different bill that focuses on treating vulnerable people with compassion. In contrast, defeating the bill at this stage would result in a much longer delay (of years) before the issue is next debated.
Well, it has passed. The reaction as the votes were announced was serious and subdued - no cheers, just a collective exhalation. Video from the Guardian here.
Sorry to double-post:
The CEO of Care Not Killing (who obviously oppose the bill going through parliament), George Macdonald, (who usually campaigns in the Scottish parliament) has said "This bill is being rushed through with indecent haste and ignores the deep seated problems in the UK's broken and patchy palliative care system and the crisis in social care.
Palliative care has experienced similar cuts - in real terms - to mental health provision, and social care is at the behest of LAs a large number of whom are tottering on the edge of bankrupcy (after experiencing cuts from central government).
Sorry to double-post:
The CEO of Care Not Killing (who obviously oppose the bill going through parliament), George Macdonald, (who usually campaigns in the Scottish parliament) has said "This bill is being rushed through with indecent haste and ignores the deep seated problems in the UK's broken and patchy palliative care system and the crisis in social care.
Palliative care has experienced similar cuts - in real terms - to mental health provision, and social care is at the behest of LAs a large number of whom are tottering on the edge of bankrupcy (after experiencing cuts from central government).
Are you referring to hospice provision or palliative care in people's homes or palliative care in hospitals? I know from first hand experience of my father's death in a 'district general hospital ' that the palliative care there was almost non-existent. But as I put in my post of Nov 17th I work at the coalface in the community and I see palliative care working very well there.
Are you referring to hospice provision or palliative care in people's homes or palliative care in hospitals?
Hospice provision and palliative care in hospitals, I can't speak to the second but AIUI depending on where you live that can be funded by the LA and/or the NHS, and so there's more than a bit of variation by postcode.
Our local hospice (the only one in a conurbation of 250000 people - though there are others not too far away) relies heavily on charitable donations.
Churches are among the most loyal supporters, but I daresay more could be done. Our Place's FatherinCharge is against assisted dying, so might welcome ideas on how to boost the work of those engaged in palliative care, whether in hospice or at home.
Has any shipmate read what the Church Times columnist, Andrew Brown (who quotes Ros Taylor, a lady living with MS) has to say about arguments in favour of assisted dying in the latest issue? Thought provoking.
Well, it has passed. The reaction as the votes were announced was serious and subdued - no cheers, just a collective exhalation. Video from the Guardian here.
It seems, at the least, to be a fairly democratic result, which may or may not be a good thing.
A significant group of citizens of England and Wales are now feeling more relieved and hopeful, while another significant group of citizens are now feeling more worried and concerned.
Several MPs have noted that a number of their colleagues have "lent" their vote to the bill, in anticipation that significant changes need to be made to safeguarding and oversight (regarding coercion) before they'll vote for the Bill in its final form.
Well I hope they do improve the processes around safeguarding. People often want to forget that most abuse, rape and murder is carried out by people the victims know. The assumption that people would never be pressured by their families is bollocks.
We live in a world where people do things like this. [CW Severe child abuse]. Why do we think she did that ? Of whom do we think she was afraid ?
Has any shipmate read what the Church Times columnist, Andrew Brown (who quotes Ros Taylor, a lady living with MS) has to say about arguments in favour of assisted dying in the latest issue? Thought provoking.
That is a powerful argument, for me. As she says, palliative care is being boosted as the alternative to assisted dying, but end of life care is poor, and what seems to be her key point, will not improve, as society doesn't set great value by it. I noticed somewhere else that Diane Abbott makes the point that AD could become the cheaper option. Harsh realities, when we have a Labour govt, who you would expect to be better.
I don't think that Diane Abbott speaks for the government.
Well, no, but she is saying things that the govt will not, isn't she? I doubt if palliative care will receive lots of dosh. Incredible really, that hospices have to survive on charity.
I was in a public consultation meeting this year, in which there were folk who work in hospices - and I said I thought it should be core, not charity, provision. They said they didn’t want that because they have more freedom to do what they think is right in provision outside of the NHS.
Personally, I think this is wrongheaded - I suppose I’d rather have an ok service for most people than a. very very good service for a few people and a terrible service for many people. (obviously, I’d prefer to have a very very good service for everybody.)
Anyway, I think that one of the reasons hospices are charities maybe because some of their leadership think that is a good idea.
That's a good point. But is another reason that society basically doesn't value end of life care? I guess that the Tories trade on such indifference, but maybe Labour as well. Hence Diane's point, cheaper to let them die.
I was in a public consultation meeting this year, in which there were folk who work in hospices - and I said I thought it should be core, not charity, provision. They said they didn’t want that because they have more freedom to do what they think is right in provision outside of the NHS.
Personally, I think this is wrongheaded - I suppose I’d rather have an ok service for most people than a. very very good service for a few people and a terrible service for many people. (obviously, I’d prefer to have a very very good service for everybody.)
Anyway, I think that one of the reasons hospices are charities maybe because some of their leadership think that is a good idea.
But it's interesting that at least some of those working in hospices also think it is a good idea. Did they give any examples of the things that might impinge on they way they work if they received government funding?
Clearly there is some loss of independence that comes with government funding. I have experienced this in an educational setting where if you are doing a teacher-training workshop with government funding, you may have to structure a session along particular Department-of-Education-approved lines which you may not think is the best way of delivering the training.
In relation to the key part of Ros Taylor's reported argument:
“...We routinely treat disabled people with disgust, impatience and pity. Yet many of our MPs do not want a sick person to avoid an unpleasant death at their own request.”
What I like about this — indeed, what I love about Ros — is that she refuses to take the rhetorical swerve away from reality. She asks what choices are actually available, not which ones might be open to us if only we lived on Big Rock Candy Mountain. Her argument addresses, head on, the concerns of people like me, who say that we live in a heartless world where the weak and poor are not valued, and so we can’t trust that the powerful won’t use this law to abuse them.
Yes, she says: we do live in such a world, and we can’t trust the powerful to change it. The policies that don’t value useless human life are overwhelmingly popular; no one is going to vote to pay care workers properly, least of all with their own wallets. Assisted dying won’t end or alter this unfairness — nothing will — but it will allow some people slightly better deaths.
I had the impression leading up to the vote that several MPs came close to saying this, instead of just thinking it.
And I think she is both right and wrong. As she says, some people will benefit, but in societies like ours, the price of increased self-determination for some is often an increase in inequality for many (or the potential for an increase, which is a vacuum that inequality is usually happy to fill).
The part of her argument that needs examining is her assertion that nothing will alter the unfairness. (It seems pretty obvious that it can always get worse.)
I noticed somewhere else that Diane Abbott makes the point that AD could become the cheaper option.
What do you mean, "could become"?
AD is cheap. Even with the price gouging of certain parasitic manufacturers, it's cheaper to end someone's life than to pay for an additional month in a care home, for example.
AD will essentially always be the "cheaper option".
In the Guardian article Rachel Maskell said that expanded end of life care must not be
"delivered by a district nurse who is rushed off their feet, running from person to person in the community, so they’re not able to administer drugs at the rate that perhaps is required".
As I posted previously, I don't recognise this in my working experience.
Diane Abbott may have been thinking with her heart, rather than her head.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean, it was relatively clear that she was raising a concern couched in terms of how an individual part of the health service might be incentivized.
In the Guardian article Rachel Maskell said that expanded end of life care must not be
"delivered by a district nurse who is rushed off their feet, running from person to person in the community, so they’re not able to administer drugs at the rate that perhaps is required".
As I posted previously, I don't recognise this in my working experience.
My mother worked in home health care, and regularly complained that she was not allotted enough time to properly handle IV medications for all the people she was assigned in a day. I'm guessing they didn't factor in travel time, set up time, the time needed to access a person who might not be immediately available (say, eating or having some other service at just that moment). And since IV drugs aren't supposed to be administered more quickly than prescribed, generally for really good reason, well... it all becomes quite problematic.
In the Guardian article Rachel Maskell said that expanded end of life care must not be
"delivered by a district nurse who is rushed off their feet, running from person to person in the community, so they’re not able to administer drugs at the rate that perhaps is required".
As I posted previously, I don't recognise this in my working experience.
My mother worked in home health care, and regularly complained that she was not allotted enough time to properly handle IV medications for all the people she was assigned in a day. I'm guessing they didn't factor in travel time, set up time, the time needed to access a person who might not be immediately available (say, eating or having some other service at just that moment). And since IV drugs aren't supposed to be administered more quickly than prescribed, generally for really good reason, well... it all becomes quite problematic.
To say nothing about time for a bit of a chat - often a very important part of the visit.
Comments
Wikipedia page on Philippe Ariès's book Western Attitudes Toward Death from the Middle Ages to the Present:
Denying and Defying Death: The Culture of Dying in 21st Century America (extract):
The Past, Present, and Future of Death in America (Psychology Today):
I heard that Archbishop Welby is against it. I doubt he can be seen to take any other position than one of standing up for the vulnerable and being wary of the risk, however small, of abuse of such legalisation.
I notice in the Guardian article that the Rev Canon Rosie Harper is cynical like me when she says 'I suspect there's a disconnect between what the bishops feel they have to say and what many of them actually think '.
But it's interesting that this is the way in which he chooses to be radical. And he was considered a rather Evangelical ABC and has perhaps been more fiercely so since retiring. So his weighing in like this may have its effect.
I lean towards the view that not allowing people to have a dignified death on their own terms is abusive. I don’t think that abuse should be ignored just because it’s the status quo.
Back in the womb it’s much too real
In pumps life that I must feel
But can’t look forward to reveal
Look to the time when I’ll live
Fed through a tube that sticks in me
Just like a wartime novelty
Tied to machines that make me be
Cut this life off from me
(Metallica, One)
Two points from it:
1. The Primate thought, probably correctly, that Canadians would not only not be interested in what a religious organization's opinion on MAID would be, but that expressing such an opinion would probably backfire.
2. The Primate's take on this was one of pastoral care for individuals.
https://anglicanjournal.com/church-should-not-oppose-maid-law-primate-says/
https://anglicanjournal.com/the-dilemma-of-maid/
The expansion of MAID in Canada, in 2021, to include "death not reasonably foreseeable" is still new, and I can't find much data on it. The expansion was sought and achieved by two disabled people in Quebec.
ETA And another three criminal offences in Clause 27.
I also don’t see anything here about how the assessing doctors, who don’t know the patient, as supposed to be able to determine if someone is being coerced - other than that person’s own statement. And as anyone with any experience of domestic violence and coercive control can tell you, that may be unreliable.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/nov/13/wes-streeting-nhs-hospital-league-tables-starmer-badenoch-pmqs-uk-politics-live
It's disconcerting to find myself not only in roughly the same place on an issue as Streeting, but also with some of the same reasoning (particularly the current shortfall in palliative care). Makes me want to go and have a shower.
Personally, I've come to see the issue of resourcing as an empty reason. I doubt many laws would be enacted if it depended on their implementation (and that of the surrounding contexts) being sufficiently resourced.
I see the underlying problem as being that society does not value everyone equally, as people who are not valued know all too well. I suggest that people who are valued by society are more likely to see having the option to end their own lives as being a positive thing, compared to people who are not valued by society. Bills tend not to address concerns at this level, because they can't.
Willingness to properly fund things is an indication of what (and who) society values. If we had Rolls Royce palliative care provision, and prior to that enabled disabled people to live full and active lives regardless of their impairment I would be far more sanguine about allowing assisted dying for those who are terminally ill and for whom the option would give them a sense of control and a reassurance of a way out if things became unbearable.
So I agree with @pease that funding provision is probably a red herring with respect to the arguments for and against the bill going through parliament as we speak.
I'm now uncertain the bill will pass -because I see proponents of assisted dying wanting different things; if it's about distress in the dying phase then I think it's mainly fear of distress and a desire for autonomy in one's death at the end of life with a terminal illness. And, as I said, a think this fear is to a significant degree unfounded. But if it's about not wanting to have the last chapter of your your life bedbound and needing round the clock care, but not actually dying, then the bill is only of use as first step towards voluntary euthanasia for those types of situation that some (such as Mrs Vole, with her MS) fear greatly. And she says she would want voluntary euthanasia in such a situation. And I think that will be legalised in the UK one day -but probably decades in the future.
The CEO of Care Not Killing (who obviously oppose the bill going through parliament), George Macdonald, (who usually campaigns in the Scottish parliament) has said "This bill is being rushed through with indecent haste and ignores the deep seated problems in the UK's broken and patchy palliative care system and the crisis in social care. It also ignores data from around the world that shows changing the law would put pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives".
How can anyone know the whole picture of palliative care in the UK? Scaremongering? or some truth in the assertion?
Harriet Harman makes a point about pursuing the issue of resourcing: But just because it shouldn't be about the money doesn't mean it has to be about individual choice or moral principle.
And with reference to a report from Policy Exchange that comes out strongly against assisted dying: Which also makes a moral principle argument, but on the other side.
I continue to think that passing the bill and not passing the bill both look like bad options. And that this bill is doing an effective job of illustrating our (western) societies' fractured and somewhat incoherent attitudes to life and death.
In relation to valuing life, both of those who would embrace having the choice to end their life, and those who fear the effect it would have on their lives, I would like to see more developed arguments about the place of compassion in our society.
But there is another option, come Friday, which is not to put it to a vote, which would allow the assembled to go away and return with a different bill that focuses on treating vulnerable people with compassion. In contrast, defeating the bill at this stage would result in a much longer delay (of years) before the issue is next debated.
Palliative care has experienced similar cuts - in real terms - to mental health provision, and social care is at the behest of LAs a large number of whom are tottering on the edge of bankrupcy (after experiencing cuts from central government).
Are you referring to hospice provision or palliative care in people's homes or palliative care in hospitals? I know from first hand experience of my father's death in a 'district general hospital ' that the palliative care there was almost non-existent. But as I put in my post of Nov 17th I work at the coalface in the community and I see palliative care working very well there.
Hospice provision and palliative care in hospitals, I can't speak to the second but AIUI depending on where you live that can be funded by the LA and/or the NHS, and so there's more than a bit of variation by postcode.
https://www.hospiceuk.org/latest-from-hospice-uk/should-hospice-care-be-part-nhs
Churches are among the most loyal supporters, but I daresay more could be done. Our Place's FatherinCharge is against assisted dying, so might welcome ideas on how to boost the work of those engaged in palliative care, whether in hospice or at home.
The problem for hospices is that as costs gave gone up donations have not kept pace and the shortfall has to be made up from sonewhere.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jul/16/fifth-of-uk-hospices-cutting-services-amid-funding-crisis-finds-report
https://www.hospiceuk.org/latest-from-hospice-uk/urgent-call-save-end-life-care-20-hospices-threatened-cuts
A significant group of citizens of England and Wales are now feeling more relieved and hopeful, while another significant group of citizens are now feeling more worried and concerned.
Several MPs have noted that a number of their colleagues have "lent" their vote to the bill, in anticipation that significant changes need to be made to safeguarding and oversight (regarding coercion) before they'll vote for the Bill in its final form.
We live in a world where people do things like this. [CW Severe child abuse]. Why do we think she did that ? Of whom do we think she was afraid ?
Here's the link for people
https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2024/29-november/comment/columnists/press-this-case-for-assisted-dying-is-hard-to-dismiss
Well, no, but she is saying things that the govt will not, isn't she? I doubt if palliative care will receive lots of dosh. Incredible really, that hospices have to survive on charity.
Personally, I think this is wrongheaded - I suppose I’d rather have an ok service for most people than a. very very good service for a few people and a terrible service for many people. (obviously, I’d prefer to have a very very good service for everybody.)
Anyway, I think that one of the reasons hospices are charities maybe because some of their leadership think that is a good idea.
I'd like to see hospices receive better funding, too, though palliative care is not always the best option.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/dec/01/blueprint-drawn-up-to-deliver-unprecedented-transformation-of-end-of-life-care
Perhaps Labour does care?
But it's interesting that at least some of those working in hospices also think it is a good idea. Did they give any examples of the things that might impinge on they way they work if they received government funding?
Clearly there is some loss of independence that comes with government funding. I have experienced this in an educational setting where if you are doing a teacher-training workshop with government funding, you may have to structure a session along particular Department-of-Education-approved lines which you may not think is the best way of delivering the training.
I had the impression leading up to the vote that several MPs came close to saying this, instead of just thinking it.
And I think she is both right and wrong. As she says, some people will benefit, but in societies like ours, the price of increased self-determination for some is often an increase in inequality for many (or the potential for an increase, which is a vacuum that inequality is usually happy to fill).
The part of her argument that needs examining is her assertion that nothing will alter the unfairness. (It seems pretty obvious that it can always get worse.)
What do you mean, "could become"?
AD is cheap. Even with the price gouging of certain parasitic manufacturers, it's cheaper to end someone's life than to pay for an additional month in a care home, for example.
AD will essentially always be the "cheaper option".
"delivered by a district nurse who is rushed off their feet, running from person to person in the community, so they’re not able to administer drugs at the rate that perhaps is required".
As I posted previously, I don't recognise this in my working experience.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean, it was relatively clear that she was raising a concern couched in terms of how an individual part of the health service might be incentivized.
My mother worked in home health care, and regularly complained that she was not allotted enough time to properly handle IV medications for all the people she was assigned in a day. I'm guessing they didn't factor in travel time, set up time, the time needed to access a person who might not be immediately available (say, eating or having some other service at just that moment). And since IV drugs aren't supposed to be administered more quickly than prescribed, generally for really good reason, well... it all becomes quite problematic.
To say nothing about time for a bit of a chat - often a very important part of the visit.
I imagine the fact that as charities they don't have to abide by NHS pay scales helps a bit too.
That's a bit scary considering that NHS pay scales are not what you'd exactly call generous.