We all face dilemmas every day, dealing with the difficulties of making decisions and fearing that we may make the wrong decision, which for some people keeps them trapped in indecision – which of course is a decision by default.
Few of us can have faced the life and death dilemma of Kay Gildersdale. How brave she was to help release her daughter from the living hell that she had been in for years. It has made me question whether I would be able to act as she did if one of my daughters was in such a position.
There is always that thought that tomorrow she may begin to recover or medical science may make a breakthrough and find a cure. I am sure that the loss of hope is the hardest thing to come to terms with.
I also believe that in not allowing someone we love to die, we are keeping them alive for us rather than any benefit to them. Their quality of life, they might say, has gone and they want to be gone too.
I am less clear about taking such a decision when the patient is not able to make the request or give informed consent as in the case of the mother who injected her unconscious son, when to her and the doctors there was no hope of recovery.
Whilst I understand that this case needed to be investigated, to rule out criminal intent, I think this was a case that merited the same compassion that was forthcoming in the first case.
This mother required a greater courage because she really did have to make the decision alone without being fully aware of what her son would have wanted and how do any of us know how we might react in similar circumstances.
Madeleine Richardson
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