• Question: what is your opinion on giving the elderly with terminal ilnesses helthcare?

    Asked by punx not dead to Siana, Sara, Richard, Peter, Carolyn on 6 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Richard Unwin

      Richard Unwin answered on 6 Nov 2015:

      Ooooh – there’s a great question. Personally, I think it’s about giving people choices, and about quality of life. If healthcare can maintain quality of life, even for a few months, then that time is priceless for both the individual and their families. However there comes a point when healthcare can do very little and the quality of life for a person is limited and my opinion is that people should have the option to let nature take its course at that point.

    • Photo: Sara Falcone

      Sara Falcone answered on 6 Nov 2015:

      Wow this is a hard question. I am for giving people the option to decide what they can endure and what they consider to be a reasonable quality of life. If healthcare is an option that can give time without affecting their quality of life too much, then they should go for it. However if healthcare cannot help to improve their quality of life anymore then I think we should let them go. But this is just the opinion of someone that is not in that situation, I don’t know if I would be so rational if I had a loved one in that situation.

    • Photo: Siana Jones

      Siana Jones answered on 6 Nov 2015:

      I really agree with these guys, it’s all about choice for patients. However, often healthcare is helping someone to be comfortable when they are in pain and not about increasing their longevity.

    • Photo: Carolyn Nielsen

      Carolyn Nielsen answered on 18 Nov 2015:

      I imagine that most of the healthcare given to elderly people with terminal illnesses would be to make them more comfortable, unless they are trying an experimental treatment to try and cure the otherwise terminal disease.

      How you would answer your question would also depend a little on whether you are asking in a country like the UK where healthcare would be free to the elderly person and paid for by the government, or if you are in a country where it is being paid for by the individual or an insurance company.

      Do you discuss issues like this related to science and medicine in school? It’s really good to think about this sort of thing from all sorts of angles.

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