P C Jersild argues in a letter to the editor in DN’s View that the euthanasia is working satisfactorily in Oregon in the united states. It is not true. It has considerable shortcomings. The assessments at the euthanasia is so difficult from a medical perspective will never be safe enough.
P C Jersild writes that every person has the right to decide over their own death. It is true. There are no obstacles for a man to take his life. But it is not the same thing as it is a human right to get the help of someone else to take his life. The difference is enormous.
in Addition, is the development in the countries which legalized euthanasia is appalling. Opponents of euthanasia warn of the emergence of a slippery slope to euthanasia be given not only to the limited group of terminal ill patients, but with the time extended to more groups.
in all countries with euthanasia. For example, in both Belgium and the Netherlands is a very large percentage of patients do not dödssjuka and a considerable amount of have psychiatric conditions or dementia. In both of these countries is euthanasia even allowed for the children.
the Accuracy in order to assess whether a person has a maximum of six months left to live is about 90%. This means that many of the people who received assisted suicide in Oregon had been able to live longer than six months.
In Oregon, also psychiatric patients get euthanasia. This happens if the doctor assesses that they are beslutskapabla. For me, working in psychiatry, this is horrible. A psychiatric patient with dödsönskan is never beslutskapabel. Their dödsönskan is a symptom of a psychiatric condition.
to the patient and the treatment in the form of call and sometimes the addition of medications. Then the patient almost always with his dödsönskan.
Research from the Netherlands shows that over half of those who want assisted suicide have a psychiatric condition. In Oregon, it is only a few percent of those who received euthanasia as assessed by a psychiatrist.
To determine whether someone has a psychiatric condition is difficult. The correlation between the psychiatrists is low. For example, for depression, the most common condition in people who have a dödsönskan, is the correlation just 28 per cent.
psychiatrists have even more difficult to detect mental illness. It is certainly one of the reasons that the doctors in Oregon too seldom refer patients who desire euthanasia to a psychiatrist.
In Oregon, it is also possible to bypass the rule of no more than six months ‘ survival. If a patient cancels a life-sustaining treatment, and thus has a maximum of six months of remaining life, they can get euthanasia.
Thus, a 20-year-old with diabetes and ending their insulin or another 20-year-old with a deep depression and refuses to accept offered treatment to be eligible for euthanasia.
a selection of some of the problems with dödshjälpen in Oregon. All in all, it shows that the assessments on euthanasia is very unsafe and leads to numerous people being killed wrongly.
In all countries with euthanasia it is the doctor who writes out the lethal medications. If the healthcare system should be involved in the euthanasia must be subject to the same requirements as in all medical treatment.
A new drug would never be approved if it had deadly side effects, even if it was only a single death. With equally high requirements on the use of euthanasia will never be safe enough.
