Help all of us towards a death with dignity

In the UK, the General Medical Council is holding a conference about the treatment of patients that are dying. The GMC wants to revise their policy for this kind of treatment because recently a man called Leslie Burke, took the Council to court because he did not agree with the doctors’ policy. The GMC thinks that end-of-life care is very important and therefore organized a conference about this subject. They would like to hear the opinions of as many people as possible on end-of-life care to make this type of care as sufficient as possible and to make the patient feel comfortable until the very end of his life. This can be by treating the patient until the end if the patient wants to, or just to prevent the patient from having pain in the last days of his life but not treating him for his disease anymore. The Council hopes to have a well-balanced policy after the conference.

I think that it is a good idea to take a critical look at hospital policies for end-of-life care. Every patient should be respected and taken care of in the best possible way, also when a patient is going to die and there is no treatment possible. To improve this care, they could respect the wishes of the patients more. After all, it should not be allowed that a doctor can decide whether you should live a little longer or if you should stop all treatment. I believe a doctor should give advice to the patient and give him enough information and then let the patient decide what he wants. If the patient is not in a condition to make this decision himself, the family should be informed and they should be allowed to decide what to do, possibly together with the doctor. This already happens in hospitals, but I think the patient should have a bigger role in making these decisions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepublic/2009/jun/03/gmc-end-of-life-care