From: Your Choice In Dying [mailto:choice@yourchoiceindying.com]
Sent: Friday, 27 November 2009 11:07 AM
To: letters@theage.com.au
Subject: “Caring” can mean ‘allowing death to occur”
The ultimate respect Governments can give their Seniors is to enable them to participate in the decision making process dealing with their own end of life.   All the sweet talk about their decades of contribution to society, while fit and healthy, is meaningless unless it is followed by common sense, once aged.   Dying is a natural result of living but it needs to be managed in the most humane way possible in these days death preventing technology.  Those who wish for a hastened death suffering from age related illnesses should be allowed the right to voluntary euthanasia.  I hope all politicians will listen to the 85% of Victorians who have indicated they agree with intervention by Physician Assisted Dying or alternatively providing the right to terminally self medicate.

Mary Walsh

Postscript:  Gawd what a debacle is being played out in Federal Politics this week.  Can the ‘right to die’ lobby have a full comprehension of how far back our cause will be dragged should the man whose mother predicted when he was still a child, he’d either be the Pope or Prime Minister!   Tony Abbott!!  He’ll never be the Pope!  I’d rather that then he would be out of Australia’s hair living in Catholic splendor in Rome… What a weasel of a man, without genuine loyalty or commitment to a cause!   A man who uses the moment to seize the initiative for his own purpose rather than for the common good of Australians.    Bah!!

Of the three contenders today for the Opposition Leader role, the current leader, Malcolm Turnbull is the most honorable and isn’t that the most worthwhile virtue needed in a potential prime minister?    In correspondence, he’s danced around the idea of choice and dignity in dying, so he’s made no problems he hasn’t kept…..

I suppose it is no longer a secret, but I’ve been told that Dr Philip Nitschke and Dr Fiona Stewart have married in a quiet ceremony  in LA a week or so ago.  I wish them a long and happy life together.  I smiled with the knowledge wondering whether she’ll retain her ‘easy’ name of Stewart so she doesn’t spend the rest of her life spelling Nitschke.  Philip already has that drama.

This weeks Public Meeting and then the closed Workshop was the most comprehensive I can remember in some years.  The Workshop was open only to Members, and many were required to become Members on the spot to enable them to stay on.  Also we signed a disclaimer that we would not use any of the information provided to us, which seemed entirely sensible under current legislation.  The law is an ASS!

Dr Nitschke told us with dry humour that he’d had trouble in some parts of the world finding a venue to speak at.   I was quite shocked to learn that in 300 years of debating, Oxford University withdrew its invitation to Philip because other speakers black balled him.   Irving, the Holocaust denier was the only other person booted out in the debating team in Oxford University’s history.  Gawd, what an insult to Dr Philip Nitschke

What the standing room only crowd indicated to me was the growing sense of awareness that people should not and could not rely on their doctor necessarily from the ultimate relief of pain.

Dr Nitschke went through the requirements under the Law of suicide and that we must not assist people to die unless we’re prepared in Victoria to go to jail for perhaps 10 or 12 years.   He wanted members to be very clear about the ramifications of breaking the law.   He advised us that it is very sensible to have your end of life choices clearly stated in places readily seen……The moral was to Plan Now while still physically and mentally capable.   Do not beg someone to ‘help you die’ and then leave a minefield of legal disasters for those you leave behind.

I couldn’t say that I believed Dr Nitschke was happy and relaxed because my impression of him was the opposite.   I felt that ‘everyone’ wanted a piece of him and he had so very little time to rest us during a four hour session including an end of year get together.   The food was plentiful and provided by Exit members themselves.

Lindy Boyd was run off her feet but remained her happy, cheerful self almost to the end, until the impatience of members wanting ‘instant’ answers became a little overwhelming….Although we were all over 55, the rudeness of some members was embarrassing to me.   As Lindy said, some members had travelled hundred of klm from country towns to attend the Workshop and had a right to ask their questions and be listened to with respect.

Philip answers dozens of questions including one about organ donations.  Apparently the organs of a person known to have committed suicide will not be harvested for transplant.   (I believe there is no medical reason for this, but perhaps it has to do with the feelings of those receiving their gift of life, learning of the suicide.)

It was explained that simply placing a plastic bag over one’s head is a terrible way to die and that some medications also left the body in a mess.   To some extent the information provided was about suicide prevention, which is always a good thing when you’re not sure what you’re doing.

I had a little chuckle as occasionally someone would say “what’s your name, the face seems to be familiar’ and knowing how hopeless I am with names I didn’t think that would help them a great deal…Obviously it was the documentary “Do Not Resuscitate” they were trying to remember.

I was so glad I hadn’t Judy Bayliss along at the Meeting as it was quite a full day and parking was difficult.  I couldn’t imagine me pushing Judy’s wheelchair up the slopes of Malvern and the car was parked a distance away from the venue.  I would have needed a chair myself!

Australians who watched 60 Minutes this week will have been heartened by the news of a medical breakthrough for the treatment of Melanoma.     A malenona is a tumor arising from a pigmented mole.  Common in Australia because of our sun and we’re at risk even on overcast days as we all know, having had the lessons drilled into us for some thirty years now.   I watched bathers soaking up the sun on our beaches and wonder at people’s stupidity about their future health of the skin…..

Professor Grant McArthur told viewers that he is very optimistic about the result of research tests being undertaken into a white capsule known as PLX 4032 in solid tumors and melanoma.

One patient’s tumors had ‘disappeared’ off the radar while at least 70% of others participating in the clinical research research are better off.

11,000 Australians are diagnosed each year and 1500 die of melanoma.

The incidents of diagnose are not decreasing in spite of the campaign the Health Department has undertaken with it s Slip, Slop, Slap campaign……  It is estimated that one in twenty people will be diagnosed with the cancerous growth…..usually the smallest most insignificant little black mole that you occasionally scratch because its itchy.   Sometimes its on your back and you need a friend to tell you its there, others develop them on their head within their hair, and yet others on their feet, because of sandals being the norm.!

Melanoma according to doctors is the most common cause of death by cancer in the 15 to 40 age group and in fact, those older Australians diagnosed (that’s me) have a better prognosis than the younger victims of its sometime cruel radical treatment….

One gentleman in the 60 Minutes Report takes 8 of the PLX 4032 a day, and lives a  full and happy life (now covered with hat and long sleeves every time he leaves the house)…

Apart from the sun, the solarium has come in for a lot of criticism in kick starting melanoma.     Men as young as 23 were suffering the consequences of trying to impress the girls with their tanned good looks…..I had no such excuse being pale all of my life, but I suppose my Irish Scottish genes were showing the wear of an Australian sun…..I had not been sunburned since childhood, but it was enough to do the damage in later life….  Fortunately I was at the doctor’s about another matter and mentioned ‘this black thing like a fly, which I could only see on my back with a mirror”…..I was on the table within the hour to have the melanoma removed – caught early enough not to do too much damage, but after watching RPA and 60 Minutes this week, I am wondering if I am a sitting time bomb…..

I never went on to have further blood test or scans to eliminate damage to the lymph nodesl  Lymph is an almost colorless fluid that bathes the body’s cells, removing bacteria as it passes through the nodes.   The nodes produce white blood cells and antibodies to help the body defend against infection.

The beauty of the discovery of PLX 4032 is that only the cancerous cells are destroyed or made dormat (at this stage of discovery) leaving the ‘good’ cells alone unlike conventional chemotherapy…….

Congratulations Professor Grant McArthur in producing the possibility of a ‘cancer curing drug’ for malenomas which perhaps may go on and be developed as a treatment for other cancers.

While PLX 4032 appears not to actually cure the illness, but rather hold the possibility of death at bay – whilde investigations continue – it must be heartening news to those who need help today and tomorrow with stalling the cancer to a manageable stage…the cynic in me says, if it doesn’t then stuff up your kidneys or your heart leading to other dire consequences…..

What we need is an outright cure, to come off all the drugs……

The AGM was held yesterday in the Preston Town Hall starting at 2 pm, with perhaps over 100 people present.

I was deeply honoured that I share the prestige now with no less a personage than Upper House Member for West Metropolitan, Colleen Hartland to receive the Rodney Syme Medal for “outstanding work” for choice and dignity in dying……only the fourth to be issued and it went to a most deserving lady. Colleen is the Greens Parliamentarian who presented the Physician Assisted Dying Bill (unsuccessfully but not for the want of trying) into the Victorian Parliament.

I believe Ms Hartland was genuinely pleased that her efforts were acknowledged in such a spectacular manner……

I took along Judy Bayliss from the infamous Do Not Resuscitate, the 2006 Documentary filmed on SBS – still suffering badly with MS, from the age of 18 to 60 plus. I was pleased I had the energy the push the wheelchair into a ‘disabled unfriendly’ Nandos close to the Town Hall for lunch….There was the narrowest of ‘footpath’ that geared itself to allowing two inches on each side of the wheelchair….I was afraid Judy would fall out but I think she’d done all this before and took it in her stride. I on the other was a nervous wreck! but survived as we do…..(Be warned apparently Nandos do not serve COFFEE in any of their restaurants and I was appalled to learn this the hard way)

Judy insisted on pulling out weeds all along the driveway as I pushed her out to the car parked foolishly on the street over a nature strip with large roots. On tottering legs, I am very glad that Judy weighs only about 45-50 kg as I supported her weight across the divide….. Everything has to be considered in terms of wheelchair access, including pebbles on the front forecourt that defies wheels to be pushed through them…..one step up and down can become a drama in negotiation of the beast!

Judy with her striking purple hair, certainly stood out in the crowd….

The AGM was a good meeting:

Iola Mathews was the guest speaker and although I have a copy of her book from previously, I just can’t lay my hands on the title….Iola spoke of the difficulties of her mother’s death as distinct from her father’s which Rodney Syme spoke of in his book “A Good Death”… Rodney had asked the family to allow their father’s death to be a “Test Case” for the Courts but unfortunately the family decided that the frail elderly mother could not endure the drama associated with the legal system and so another opportunity was lost.

That is the real problem with death and dying. It is such an emotional time for all those closely concerned that opportunities to make media awareness for the general public is more infrequent than is good for the cause…..

Fortunately a benefactor had bequested a gift of $200,000 to DWDV otherwise they would have finished in the red this year even though membership is stable……While the Cancer Council of Australia is deserving of bequests, I think DWDV is actually more needy of generosity because its profile is much smaller while the work it undertakes in supporting choice and dignity in dying is vital.

With Lyn Allison stepping down as President, Neil Francis has again stood into the breech which he does so well……Rodney is Vice President, Janine Truter is Acting Secretary and Mike Tinsley is Acting Treasurer…Lyn will stay on as a Committee Member along with John Hont, Judith Jones, Mark Newstead, Max Sutherland and Tom Valenta.

The Auditor was Ross A Collier (Riverwood Group) at 111 High Street, Woodend, 3442, who gave generously of his time over a 10 year stint and for that members are very grateful to Mr Collier.

An article in the Herald Sun Wednesday October 28, 2009

“In Brief”

Support for voluntary euthanasia is on the increase in Australia, with a new survey showing 85% of the country in favour of it.

The result from the poll, conducted by Newspoll on behalf of Dying with Dignity NSW, saw a five point increase in support from the results of the last survey, conducted in 2007. The poll found 84 per cent of Victorians supported euthanasia.

end article:

I have just finished reading the personal experience of Miklos Somogyi who set out to document the indignity of dying – a journey filled with his pain and rage as John Elder wrote in his Age Newspaper article on August 2, 2009. (published previously on this blog) But what I have is a 16 page personal account arising out of a prostate cancer which wasn’t diagnosed in time to prevent secondary cancer in his spine. Perhaps it is the same article John Elder used to write his article in the Age, but the style is much more personal as one could expect.

Dr Somogyi, a retired mechanical engineer of 72 is working on a project involving a computer program for the complicated mechanical components in 3D, a 5 year project in the making. The software is almost complete – he just needs another year of life and mobility to achieve his dream……

Miklos speaks of the day to day dramas of dealing with just living and surviving the treatments, the hospital system and his lovely caring wife Erika, who at the age of 72 herself is far from fit and able to shoulder the burden of being his carer. But she finds that strength because “she has to” as carers of really ill people do throughout Australia (and world wide)…

I received this gift of his story through a friend and now have a phone call into their residence to seek permission to publish it. I don’t know whether he is going to write a book , but I can’t think he would have the energy to focus on it now….
I am hoping to just post his story on the internet as is and hope all the politicians throughout Australia read it!

Dr Somogyi will no doubt seek his own methods to exit life on his terms when he has had ‘enough’, but I believe his story should be shared because he deals with attitudes to palliative care as the recipient of it, firsthand.

I felt I sat with him as he wrote his story………

I could feel his pain, imagine his grief at his loss of life style, and wonder at the strength of Erika to take him home and lovingly feed him her home made cooking while learning the skills of a carer….My brother in law used to bring me chicken soup for the soul food in hospital, and I relate so much with the human touch of home cooking…..

‘Death tourism’ leads Swiss to consider ban on assisted suicide
Wednesday 28 October 2009 19.37 GMT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/oct/28/swiss-consider-ban-assisted-suicide

The Swiss government is considering restricting or even banning
organised assisted suicide in an attempt to reduce so-called “death
tourism”.

Swiss authorities want to ensure euthanasia is a last resort for the
terminally ill, amid fears their current laws on assisted suicide could
be open to abuse. A study last year suggested more and more people
seeking help to die in Switzerland did not have a terminal illness.

“We have no interest, as a country, in being attractive for suicide
tourism,” the Swiss justice minister, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, told
reporters in Berne, adding that more foreigners were travelling to
Switzerland to die.

About 100 Britons are believed to have ended their lives at the Swiss
clinic of the right-to-die organisation Dignitas, including the
conductor Edward Downes and his wife, Joan, and Daniel James, a
23-year-old who was paralysed after a rugby accident.

The Swiss cabinet, which is divided on the emotive issue, sent two
proposals into the legislative process for consultation, which will last
until 1 March: one for tighter regulation, and the other for an outright
ban.

The Swiss parliament is said to prefer the less drastic route, which
would set down strict guidelines for assisted dying groups to follow.
The new rules would include requiring patients to obtain two medical
opinions proving their illness was incurable and probably fatal within
months. These doctors must state that the dying person had the mental
capacity to assert their wish to die, and prove they had held this wish
for some time. The new proposal would also require assisted dying groups
to provide better written records to stop organisations profiting from
patients wanting to die.

“Suicide must only be a last resort. The government believes that
protection of human life must be uppermost,” the Swiss justice ministry
said in a statement.

Assisted suicide should be restricted to the terminally ill and not be
available to chronically or mentally ill individuals, the ministry said,
adding the government wanted to promote palliative care and suicide
prevention.

The new rules would also “prevent organised assisted suicide becoming a
profit-driven business,” it said.

Widmer-Schlumpf said a ban could force people to act illegally. But her
colleague Pascal Couchepin, head of the federal department of home
affairs, said: “For me personally, assisted suicide is a death project,
and I support life projects.”

Every year around there are about 400 cases of assisted suicide in
Switzerland, 132 of which involve patients from abroad.

Assisted suicide has been allowed in Switzerland since the 1940s if
performed by an individual who is not a physician and who has no vested
interest in the death.

Euthanasia is legal only in the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium and the
US state of Oregon.

In July, the right-to-die group Exit agreed rules to govern assisted
suicide with prosecutors in the city of Zurich which it hoped might
eventually form the basis of national regulation.

The proposals are open for public comment until 1 March, after which the
government will send a draft law to parliament.

Postscript: this article was reproduced in the Age Newspaper Oct 30, pg 10….
It governments were really concerned “about preventing organised assisted suicide becoming a profit driven business” why doesn’t the Australian government make it easier for people to die a good death instead of lingering in terminal pain for six months or six years……The nursing homes cannot cope with many of the frail elderly living past their ‘use by’ date, nor can these homes be adequately staffed by suitably agreeable personalities, in the role of a carer for the humanity rather than the profits such institutions provide.