Submitted by: Submitted by zxcvbnmlkjh
Views: 10
Words: 787
Pages: 4
Category: Societal Issues
Date Submitted: 09/01/2016 07:25 AM
The word euthanasia is derived from the Greek; meaning “good death”, it gives a terminally ill individual a way to die peacefully without endless suffering. Now imagine life being trapped to a sickbed with all sorts of medical equipment connected to you, being unable to do anything except having to endure the unbearable pain. The doctors tell your family that you have less than two years to live and that the disease will get progressively worse as time passes. As a dignified person, you have been asking for euthanasia, but it has not yet been legalised here in Australia. So the question arises. Should terminally ill patients be left to suffer or should they have the right to a dignified death?
Terminal diseases such as cancer account for more than a quarter of total deaths in Australia per year. In most cases, there is a major symptom of these fatal diseases that is associated with a severe and intractable form of chromo pain. When you think about the suffering these patients experience on a daily basis from not only the illness itself but also the complex treatment procedures, it just seems inhumane not giving them a choice of death over a life of misery. After all, why should someone who has been living permanently in a hospital also have to watch their loved ones suffering along beside them? For the ill patients it only makes the ordeal even harder to bear. People in this position would most likely want to alleviate their unsolicited pain and depression because of the physical and emotional burdens.
Despite the initial reaction that money should not be taken into consideration for a human life, the truth of the matter is that in our world today this has become a reality. Believe it or not, the average cost per day of keeping someone alive in the Intensive Care Unit is $10,000, which means keeping someone on life support for a month will cost roughly $300,000. This can lead the patients’ families to great amounts of debt. Life support extends the lives of...