THE END OF LIFE CHOICE REFERENDUM - 5

 HOW LONG IS SOMEONE GOING TO LIVE FOR?

Doctors are reasonably good at making predictions about groups of people, for example, what percent of patients are going to respond to a particular treatment, or what percentage of people with a specific cancer may be alive 5 years later. However, doctors are not always as accurate at predicting outcomes for individuals, for example, will this particular individual get well with this particular treatment. It is because there are so many other variables at play.

 

It was many years ago when a very close friend, whose father had been on a ventilator for 6 weeks, asked me to accompany him in a meeting with the treating consultant. The consultant suggested to turn the ventilator off as my friend’s father had not regained consciousness for 6 weeks. My friend asked him to wait for two more days for family reasons. Two days later his father opened eyes for the first time after 6 weeks. In the next few weeks and months, he came off the ventilator, went home, went back to work, and lived for another 11 years. 

 

While the case above may be an unusual one, it does highlight the risk of telling an ‘individual’ how long they are going to live for, and them making life and death decisions based on those ‘predictions’.

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