Tuesday 8th February 2022
We've got death all wrong, say doctors
Louise Morse
Care for the dying needs a “fundamental rethink” and we need to get better at talking about death, dying and grief, said experts on the Global Commission recently. The report was published by a Lancet Commission on the Value of Death, which found that people in developed countries, like ours are often over treated as they die, and the health and social care systems are ‘failing to offer appropriate, compassionate care to people who are dying and their families.’ The report, in favour of good palliative care, comes at a good time as lobby groups and Baroness Meacher’s Bill promoting assisted dying has not gone away. Probably a combination of their often-tragic narrative and the stress of the Covid pandemic, ‘anxiety about death and dying appears to have increased.’ The Christian view brings comfort and reassurance.
The Commission said dying should be ‘a relational and spiritual process' rather than a physiological event, meaning that relationships based on connection and compassion are prioritised and made central to the care and support of people dying or grieving.’
The key is ‘A relational and spiritual process,’ and as Christians we have known this most of our lives. It’s been said in medicine for some time that doctors regard death as a defeat, a failure almost on their part. But the Christian view has always been that lives are a journey and will end as our spirits step out of our ‘earthly temples,’ out of these shadow lands and into the real life. A helpful booklet about this, What Matters in the End, was produced by four experts, including an end-of-life specialist nurse, that comforts with the Scriptural view and lays out practical steps to take.
The Commission’s statement said that’ our current systems have increased both under treatment and overtreatment at the end of life, reduced dignity, increased suffering and enabled a poor use of resources.’ And added that a fundamental rebalance in society is needed to re-imagine our relationship with death.
To do that we need to be able to talk about death more naturally at different times of our lives.
The Lancet Commission’s report is helpful in tackling the tenacious assisted dying lobby, which is determined to introduce assisted dying legislation in this country. With each push they avoid publishing the effects on countries where the legislation has been introduced. A survey in Oregon, USA where it is legal found that 65% of people who’d requested assisted dying did so others.
Encouraging news is that The College of Psychiatrists of Ireland has rejected the concept, saying that the Dying with Dignity Bill (2020) would pressurise vulnerable patients into ending their lives. In a statement paper the college noted that, ‘once introduced, assisted dying is likely to be applied more broadly to other groups, such that the numbers undertaking the procedure grow considerably above expectations.”
We are privileged in our housing and homes to enable the peaceful, compassionate, and spiritual end of life that the Lancet commission has commended.
