Another option: Palliative Care

Does Palliative care make euthanasia unnecessary?

I am going to show you two rooms

What do you think happens in Room One?

What do you think happens in Room Two?

• Hospice care is a system of care that helps those with an incurable illness to focus on making the most of whatever time is left. Support is also offered to those close to the patient, and many hospices also offer care during the bereavement period

• Hospices are no longer just for the last days of life. They now offer a range of support, often alongside active treatment for an illness. The focus of modern hospice care is on helping people to live well until they die - to help with suffering, be it emotional or physical.

• The principles of respect, choice, flexibility and dignity are those that underpin the hospice movement. High staffing ratios and a huge number of volunteers allow families the time and space to address what's troubling them. This is rarely possible in a busy hospital ward.

Watch the clip and take notes on what the doctor says.

• You can be admitted to a hospice for help with a particular problem such as pain or nausea, or you can go for a week to give your family a break.

• Hospices also offer expert care at the end of life. Dying in a hospice can bring families peace and allow a closeness which isn't always possible at home, where there are many other distractions.

• Most hospices have teams of doctors, specialist nurses, family support departments, chaplains, physiotherapists, dieticians and complementary therapists whom you may be able to access without being admitted.

• You can attend as a day patient or an outpatient. Some hospice services aren't based in a building at all and focus on providing hospice nursing care in the patient's home.

Watch the clip

• Watch the following video clip and take notes on the discussion that takes place.

Task – Committee decision• Look through your card and try to

argue for the money going to what you need it for.

What issues does this raise?

Go fishing!

‘Hospice care is a better response to terminal illness than euthanasia’ Do you agree? Your answer should express more than one viewpoint and include Christian teaching. ‘Fish’ for the most useful statements and teaching below, by drawing a fish in the box. Rank them in the order that you think would make a good examination answer

Hospices provide care for terminally ill patients – not to cure them but to make them comfortable, maximising their quality of life; very loving places

In a hospice, the patient and their relatives are helped to prepare for their death. Death is seen as a part of life. “There is a time to be born and a time to die”

Hospices usually rely on charitable fundraising to survive; they are places of care and began as Christian i

Christians teach that we should treat others as we would like to be treated. We want to be treated with dignity and suffering goes against that. EU means a good dignified death

All Christians believers believe that life is sacred because it is given by God. Hospices value sacredness of life more than Eu does.

Many people fear that they will die in pain, with no dignity. Liberals say God is loving and would not want us to suffer

Euthanasia is legal in Holland & Switzerland but not in the United Kingdom where hospices replace them.

Christians, believe that suffering can help make us stronger. Jesus suffered, so maybe we should not avoid suffering in the way euthanasia does. Hospices care for people who suffer

Euthanasia means ‘a good death’ & is sometimes called mercy killing.

Some would say that God gave us free will & intelligence to decide when to end our lives through medical intervention

Anne Turner ended her life in the Dignitas clinic. She died surrounded by her family after a lethal injection. It was her choice

No Christian denomination officially supports euthanasia although passive euthanasua

God alone has the responsibility to take life and we humans have to accept that.

Drugs given to deal with pain will often shorten life, but this does not count as euthanasia. It is called ‘double effect’

One of the 10 commandments says ‘Do not murder’

Youth in Asia?