My friend's mum had a bad stroke and then found out she had parkinsons. She decided to end it all and took herself off one night and walked into the sea down here and drowned herself. She left a note explaining that she didn't want to become a burden and wanted to take the decision to end her life before she was unable to do it. I thought that was a very courageous thing to do personally. The only issue was that her son, my friend is a lifeboat man for the RNLI and his team were sent out to search for her. They didn't find her, she was found by a member of the public washed up in a cove around 12 miles up the coast a couple of weeks later and the Coastguard retrieved her body.
Yes, and I agree we should apply the same principles. The point I'm making here about suicide is that, the plan you have when you have capacity. You might not have the ability to carry out when you decide your life no longer is worth living. i.e. if you're bed bound.
It all depends on what capacity you have. Lots of people might say 'If I ever get that bad, then I'm ending it myself', Expect there is 1000s mate,
That's what she decided to do. I worked in mental health for 16 years and I know people who have thrown themselves off of cliffs down here. There's a particular spot called Hell's Mouth, it's relatively easy to park up close by and it's pretty much guaranteed that you won't survive the fall, although a couple have for a week or two after. Not pretty.
My couple of visits to a&e basically meant I couldn’t get a bed due to the amount and 80+ year olds that had either had a fall or some sort of heart attack etc.. we have the capacity to stop them dying but for what. The health service is essentially clogged up with people who have very little to live for and the behest of people that may have something seriously wrong with them that can’t get the treatment due to having to keep folks alive. How many of us know of old folk that live on their own in run down places that never leave their house other than to go to hospital.. I’d happily live forever if I could stay at a level where I can function and enjoy life. If all my life is sitting in front of the tv and occasionally falling over I’d rather not bother.
Probably more mate. The point I was making though, is people might have a plan, but often aren't able to carry it out when they are incapacitated at the end of their lives.
Is that not more about lack of funding for hospitals though ? I do agree that it's pointless to keep somebody alive when their quality of life is non existent, but I don't think we should confuse the decision to end somebody's life with the fact that there aren't the finances available to keep them alive.
It was in the winter and at night, I would imagine that she lost consciousness from the onset of hypothermia before she drowned.
But the fact you have to walk into the sea, slowly, and get swept unnder under time after time, and resist the need need to swim.... Unless you have zip tied your hands, it's hard.. The fact it was at night makes no difference mate.
Well I'm not here to comment whether it was good or bad, it was tragic really. But it was her choice and she went the way she wanted to go.
We spend far more on the nhs than we ever had. Fact is we live for longer. I’m not suggesting that if your over 80 you get left to die. Especially if you are fit an healthy. What I do suggest is that beds are taken up by old folk for the sole reason they can’t care for themselves. Should someone that needs exploratory investigations that is young be denied it quickly because the ct scan or x ray or whatever is being taken up by really old folk. One thing I will say about the nhs, the nursing staff are utterly superb. What is wrong with it is that it is badly run. The doctor that a junior one that saw me was on duty at 7:30am and he was still on duty at 9:30pm he totally ****ed up and forgot about me.
