I have just read the article A Good Death by William Silvester and it is quite excellent re the importance of Advance Care Planning/ Directives which enables people to limit medical intervention and die naturally without going the euthanasia -medical killing route.

Intensive care specialist William Silvester knows better than most that dying with dignity is as important as living with it.

Some people might wonder if this isn’t euthanasia by stealth. It’s not. Euthanasia is the deliberate taking of someone’s life, using an active means, where that person would not otherwise have died. Advance care planning is giving people the opportunity to guide doctors ahead of time about whether they would want treatment if they are diagnosed with a severe or progressive life-threatening illness. In that circumstance, if the person dies it is due to their illness.

We all have a right to determine what happens to our body – whether you have cancer and turn down chemo or surgery, kidney failure and reject dialysis, or emphysema and choose not to go on to a breathing machine next time a severe breathing attack occurs. In the same way we have a right to choose now, we also have a right to guide doctors in the future.

The icing on the cake is how advance care planning for end of life also improves the care of patients’ families. We did a study at the Austin Hospital, published in the British Medical Journal in March last year, which showed that RPC (Respecting Patient Choices) significantly reduced the incidence of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in the surviving relatives of patients who died.

See also, Advance care planning and  ‘End of life’ & level of medical intervention.