RIGHT TO DIE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5223, 6 January 1928, Page 3

RIGHT TO DIE.

MEDICAL VIEWS;

“HOPELESS” CASE PROBLEM.

Great interest has been aroused by the declaration of a doctor at a Sheffield inquest that he would have hesitated to have done anything to save the life of a man whom he believed to be suffering from the effects pf laudanum poisoning, and who had been an invalid for many.yeiars. The case has given rise to the question : Has a doctor the right, by withholding his skill, to allow a man to die and make no attempt to save his life when death is considered certain to follow any treatment ? Many prominent doctors hold that in hopeles cases where, patients are suffering great pa’n from a malady which must prove fatal, it is not humane to prolong life by artificial means. Others hold the view that the agedong maxim of the, medical profess’on that “while there is life there is hope” should never be aban-, dpned under apy circumstances.

The British Medical Association is understood to hold that the doctor’s mission is to maintain life by every means within his power, but many doctors contend frankly that while their primary duty is to save life are engaged upon’a m’ssion of mercy, and should not hesitate to prevent unnecessary suffering, even if by so "doing the patient dies sooner than if other steps had been takep. Sir William Arbuthnot Lane, the eminent surgeon, said to a reporter : “Legally, there is no question that the doctor’s duty is to do all in his power to maintain life under all CircumMorally, he has an obligation to minister to the needs of a patient and at the same time consider thd anguish pf the relatives of a person who is slowly dying under the tortures of some drqadful disease. My own view is that the doctor should ‘do unto others as he would be done unto:’ It is the doctor’s duty in such cases to relieve the suffering rather than to prolong if. Take the case of a man who is (lying from some disease, such as cancer. It is only a quesion of time, and the longer his death is in coming the greater the amount of pain he will suffer. If in his agony he takes more than the normal amount of opiujn prescribed to deadepi the pain I do not think any doctor would interfere. I do not think a doctor’s, refusal to submit the man to drastic reactions to overcome the poison would be either unfair or inhuman.”