Can someone answer: is it legal in Australia to assist an elderly person to get on an airplane to Switzerland while knowing well that their intention is to be legally killed there?

As an eighty year old I regard the right to end my life as a basic human right that no- one has the right to take away from me.

Meanwhile the hottest news today is the Brexit Live Blog count http://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2016/jun/23/eu-referendum-result-live-counting-leave-remain-brain-in-europe

reveals Remain and Leave are a near tie at with only a 0.1% difference.

I don't have any real issue with someone of sound mind choosing to end their own life! None, zero, nix, finito. But plenty when they with their cognitive abilities impaired or AWOL, want someone else to do it for them.

I have issues with people who think that mutating E coli doing the rounds around a nursing home, where the usual and only treatment is offered pimentel or something that simply suppresses the problem while the staff feed it with dairy and animal products in the diet?

And then use the problem they have created via a common management model, as justification for euthanasia? And if you've ever suffered projectile vomiting and equally projectile diarrhea, you'd likely ask for it?

Family member cooperation coopted on the above and below (I wouldn't treat a dog like that sweetheart) grounds outlined?

Severe dysentery can result in equally severe dehydration which when it begins to impact negatively on the fluid that surrounds the brain can result in some extremely unpleasant symptoms, dizziness, lack of coordination, loss of spatial awareness or environment?

Even if you are being rehydrated intravascularly or fed via a tube inserted in your nose, it just isn't good enough that the only food able to be introduced via this route has to be dairy based That is as good as a culture medium to fed the bug!

But could be a mixture of black tea honey and burnt toast that is pureed in a blender? Burnt toast and honey washed down with black unsweetened tea, a traditional way of staving the problematic bug, which as treatment would be assisted by isolation and proper (often missing) hygiene? Well old folks forget!

Yes euthanasia is a very grave matter that demands clarity, least it becomes a standard practise management model to maximise nursing home profit streams? And given that as a possible future option, why stop with informed consent? [Well she was very old very frail and half her brain was damaged by the stroke or subsequent fall.] And doesn't that have a familiar ring?
Alan B.

Just in the news was a story of an employee in Toowoomba being arrested for allegedly stealing prescription drugs. How could this be possible, given the checks and balances?

It remains to be seen whether the drugs were allegedly stolen to support an addiction, being stockpiled to support an assisted suicide, or other more nefarious purpose?

If it was allegedly stolen to support an addiction? I'd have some serious issues if reports are validated, with this person and an altered personality being placed in charge of helpless dependant patients, let alone a drug cabinet or even a club sized rubber covered torch?

[Nasty bruise, must have hit her head as she fell? Yes, whatever possesses old folk to want to get up and wander unassisted through our hospital halls during the wee small hours?]

Not everybody on staff is a potential thief, even though hospitals are notorious for folks losing valuables. People come and go! Nonetheless it is unusual to see a night nurse in a geriatric ward armed with such a formidable potential weapon?

Of course the staff are scrupulously honest, absolutely moral and would never ever prey on helpless patients placed in their charge? But if in the extremely unlikely event someone was so callous and indifferent to prey on old folks? Their helpless easy prey targets would be better buried, given dead folk tell no tales?

And who would be alarmed or even question if an old fogey kicked the bucket during the night when most of the sudden deaths occur? More so in some hospitals than others? Where an unusually high percentage is put down to an unusually high percentage of geriatrics?

Grave matters always demand clarity!
Alan B.

My Dad was recently euthanized in a Queensland public hospital as was another relative the week before, and the husband of a woman we met in that same hospital, who was euthanized a day later. All of these euthanized people were old, 90, 89, and 88, and all three of them had infections gained following operations carried out in a public hospital. All of these people were eating, drinking and reasonably lucid before being sent to Palliative Care and all were non compos an hour after arriving there. They were all filled with Fentanyl and a Sedative - both drugs being respiratory suppressants - and they all died within 4 days of being sent to Palliative Care. At a cost of around $1,000 a day to keep an old patient in Palliative Care, it is fiscally prudent to pop them off quickly and save the money for treating younger, more viable patients. So please do not tell me that Euthanasia is not being carried out by the medical profession in Australia. It is happening every day, right now!