02 Mar 2009 Vrindavan, India
Category: Death
Yesterday I talked about the situation when there is no hope for a person to live but when machines keep the body alive. My friend who told me about her client also said that she and her husband have given each other the following authorization: if one of them is in this condition the other one is legally allowed to tell the doctor to switch off the machines. I know Germany works with papers and signatures and I think it will be not only there. There is a big discussion in this world about mercy killing and in many places of the world governments want to make a law that if someone is in this condition and there is no chance to live without a machine doctors should be allowed to switch off the machines.
I think that in this kind of situation doctors should have the freedom of freeing a person from pain which is their duty. If someone is only suffering, what is the meaning of keeping him alive just with a machine? If someone did not sign this authorization and give this permission a doctor is not allowed to take this decision. It is the question of one signature. Even if they did not authorize anybody in their life to take this decision, nobody would ever want to be in this situation and choose to be only ‘alive’ by the help of a machine and suffering pain.
In India we always enjoy wonderful food from the Ashram kitchen and tonight we had something for the European taste: we had pizza and it was great!
Tags:: Body, Death, Freedom, Decision, Life, Pain
5 Comments
Posted By Swami Balendu
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If there is absolutely no way that a person would exist without the machines, then they are already gone. It is a machine that is living for the person. But sometimes the confusion lies in a situation where the person is in a coma, but could come out of it. They may have serious brain damage, but could potentially revive off of the machines. This is a harder decision to make. And some people put in their wills ahead of time that they'd rather die than be a brain-damaged vegetable. It should be up to the individual first. And if it's too late, then it's up to the family and medical staff to ask if this person could carry on a life without the machines.
Reply By Emily on October 10, 2011 02:01
My grandma is absolutely miserable, and has been for maybe the past 40 years. When she gets sick enough to go to the hospital I know she will be put on lots of machines, but she hasn't wanted to be alive for a long time. I don't think i support that. I think they should just let her go.
Reply By Ginny on January 04, 2011 03:49
There is lots of discussion about this in the states right now. It is interesting to think of all the ways people have dealt with death and dying. seems like we hold on to life without it's quality a lot.
Reply By Rachel on January 04, 2011 03:47
I agree that doctors should be allow to let their patients die. I think one reason that they are required to have extra authorization is so that it would be harder to charge them with malpractice if someone tried to accuse a doctor of murder or the like. It is unfortunately complicate and the system seems to have little respect for death or for human beings. It is a formality.
Reply By Satchel on October 20, 2010 05:35
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