Dear O Sung Wu and Suse,

We are investigating a nursing home for mum.
Simply because she needs all the extra care.
She can no longer manage on her own.
She's on a waiting list currently.
We've found a very highly-rated one with an
excellent reputation and of course my main
concern is the care that mum will receive there
with our help). I love my mum very much and will
still be involved in her care.

I don't think that I could agree to euthanasia.
But who knows what's around the corner. If she
really goes down hill and the quality of her
life is a very painful one - who knows. I know
that she would not want to be kept alive by
machines - and in pain.

Hi Foxy, yes it is difficult finding a good place to care for your parent, and you can imagine that it doesn't always go well, so it is good for her relatives to maintain a frequent presence at the home....just to keep the staff on their toes!

My mum has just moved to my city to live near us. She lives in an independent unit attached to a residential aged care facility. It is lovely there, with the beach just down a short pathway for her. She is still very mobile and drives a car at the age of 84.
You can imagine the staff at her village though, they remain vigilant with her because they all know me :)

Mum is not an advocate of legal voluntary euthanasia, and I respect that.
She has filled out the 'Advanced Care Directive' forms with her lawyer though, stating that if she has a catastrophic accident or illness that she is unlikely to recover from, or is in a vegetative state or similar, that she doesn't want any active treatment like antibiotics or to go on a ventilator.
I am happy to support that decision, while ensuring she is kept comfortable.

Hi FOXY...

I can only hope that all your careful planning you've undertaken to care for your dear Mum, works out exactly how you wish them too. Probably one of the hardest decisions families have to make is ensuring there's proper and adequate care for an aging, and unwell parent. Both of my two parents are now gone, so that decision is no longer one I need to embrace, but one I would gladly do so, if either of them had lived a little bit longer.

So many things I'd like to say to them, to explain and even qualify? Unfortunately it's all too late now, man's mortality is absolutely finite, consequently it waits for nobody?

If as this article says we have no right to make a person dead
Then why do we have the right to make them alive, after an accident, a heart attack,
A drowning ,a stroke.

Thier argument that death must only be determined by nature
Falls apart right there.

if death must only ever happen as nature dictates, and we can't choose,
Then why do we think we have the right to play God by allowing
People the choice to bring them back to
Life, sometimes to cope for years with debilitating injuries or with brain damage?

If we can't play God with death then it should follow that we
Can't play God bringing back to life

People should be allowed to choose to die in the case of old age or severe illness
Young healthy people ,no! they should not be given the drugs for
Euthanasia but be given medical help for their depressed mental state.

I believe at the age of 65,70,80 on, people
Are wise enough and have enough knwledge and experience of life to
Make their own decision about ending their own life.

She drives a car aged 84? And can afford to maintain it and pay for the fuel bill with the 15% of her pension the nursing home or the government leaves her, Suse?

With the 15% usually reserved for personal items, clothing replacements, washing powder for the communal machine etc.

In a dated survey done by an American professor of medicine, it turns out that it costs the government $70,000.00 P.A. to keep an old person in a nursing home and a drain on the rest of society, Whereas providing more or less the same service in their home, the overwhelming preferred option, the bil is reduced to $40,000.00!

A drain being the new buzz word when referencing old folk and the budget. And given nursing homes are funded exclusively by the federal government and in home aged care shared responsibility and a drain on state health budgets, there seems to be a covert imperative in state hospitals etc to get sick folks into nursing home care?

Where all too often the place is woefully understaffed and the possible source of horror stories of old folk left to lie in soiled nappies and urine soaked bedding for hours, if not days? Well they should have complained or used the(hidden or out of reach) buzzer!

If you want to make a case for compulsory euthanasia, that's it!

After all, the not for profit home being mostly a thing of the past and millionaires making fortunes from them?

Not to worry, given the baby boomers will soon make old folk a very large voting demographic.

Moreover some of us have long memories and are very outspoken and literate.

Choices about how to end your life?

How about a few connected to living it with just a modicum of quality! After all, very few have offspring as devoted and caring as you!?

Suseonline, " She lives in an independent unit attached to a residential aged care facility. It is lovely there, with the beach just down a short pathway for her. She is still very mobile and drives a car at the age of 84"

Good for her!

Suseonline, "She has filled out the 'Advanced Care Directive' forms with her lawyer though, stating that if she has a catastrophic accident or illness that she is unlikely to recover from, or is in a vegetative state or similar, that she doesn't want any active treatment like antibiotics or to go on a ventilator"

Fair enough too.

However a lot, almost everything, depends on the carer relative to be competent, watchful and diligent to ensure that all involved in the elder's care are positive and dutiful at all times. In the past year alone I have been close enough to elders in hospital to witness the very different daily life and expectations of a patient where the occasional nurse/nursing team has/have formed a negative opinion of the patient's future. Self-fulfilling prophecies do happen. Australia is not the very best example in the world of respect for elders and their 'usefulness'.

In the last instance for example, the children, grandchildren and grandchildren have their beloved and valuable nineties 'Ma' back at home and getting about, now semi-independent but still fully mentally on the ball and enjoying the company. Not the same person who was going rapidly downhill on a hospital bed with Endone and other tabs from dusk to dawn.