My beloved grandmother also had a goitre operation and died two days later. She lived in a mountainous region of the United States, the Adirondacks. In such regions people generally don't get enough iodine in their diet, and goitres result. Now goitres are rare because salt is routinely iodised. That is one very desirable food additive.

My mother went into a nursing home because my father was physically unable to lift her when she had fainting spells and would collapse on the floor. At first her mind was good. She was labeled antisocial because she preferred to sit in her room and read rather than join the others and watch the soaps on daytime TV. She was not a soap fan before she went into the nursing home but was expected to become one. The staff talked to her as though she were a child, "We'll bring you a rubber duckie for your bath." My father was lucky enough to be independent all his life. He felt bad one afternoon and checked into a hospital. He died that night and was never an inmate of a nursing home. He lived on the sixth floor of an apartment building and at 92 would use the stairs rather than the elevator. Said it was better to wear out than rust out.

I am 90, and my wife is 79. I am still healthy - just have hay fever and am increasingly deaf. She is arthritic, has heart problems and hobbles around with the help of a cane. Bluecare, a Uniting Church agency, sends someone to us every couple weeks to vacuum, mop and generally clean. That is a great help. I do most of the hanging and taking down laundry and am learning to cook.

We belong to Voluntary Euthanasia of Queensland. If we could no longer live independently and had to go to a nursing home we would prefer to end it all. At least that's how we feel at this time.

I am quite happy to have lasted this long.

Suseonline, "Despite a poor opinion of medical staff resonating from both you and Onthebeach"

I really don't know how you arrived at that, but it is wrong. I have a high opinion and high expectations of professions and medical is no different. We have a number of medical specialists in the family. I usually don't correct opinions directed at me personally

Onthebeach. Ditto!

Suse, I'm not angry just tired to the point of outrage with all the excuse making and people who just pretend to care or feign interest.

I wasn't attacking you personally just using satire or black humor to make some points for those for whom the cap fits?

Complain?

What to a robot or the music channel? or the screaming SSES fax machine! The only advertized access line!

Even if I find a human who actually wants to listen? What about the next time I need to go to hospital and find I'm at the complete power of someone with a grudge and and access to some very powerful medications.

Oh dear, he was frail and elderly, given to panic attacks? Assumptions trumping fact?

We all know that there are often unexplained deaths in hospitals, where some "nurses" see it as their duty to turn down the life supporting oxygen and just because there's no evidence of cyanosis, ignoring as seems their want? That oxygen is implicated in all healing.

And don't get me started on statins, (management medicine) [substitutes for nutritional medicine,] where in a recent double blind, the patients who weren't given the placebo, all to a generic man, suffered from previously unknown and often debilitating cognitive impairment!

And in my view too high a price to pay for an extra nine months of existence along with the associated complete loss of any shadow of independance!

My opinion of you formed over the course of many chats, is that you are one of the angels who just love caring for folks, and are like me, a warrior social justice advocate?

And I apologize if my dark humor wasn't quite to your taste.

In my experience, the main problem with really decent folk is they tend to judge others by their often impeccable standards, and therefore miss some important signals?

I'm with O sung here, inasmuch as there are too many unexplained deaths in care, just dismissed as par for the course in old folk in aged care!
Bring on securitized CCTV! Rhrosty.

Good afternoon to you DAVID F...

You know that I have an enormously high opinion of you DAVID F personally, together with an immense respect for that intellect of yours. It's for this reason I sincerely hope at age ninety, and your good wife at age seventy nine, both of you continue to enjoy a reasonable level of health, and remain in fine fettle and mentally competent, as circumstances permit.

Moreover I sincerely hope you manage to escape the fiscal clutches of some of these nefarious nursing homes, and for many years to come. I'm of similar mind to you, there's no way I'll allow my miserable carcass to be consigned into the care of some '3rd person' speaking staff, of any nursing home, for the similar reasons to you I expect?

In fact I'm somewhat more fortunate then you perhaps DAVID F, I have a friend, who'll step in if need be, and take my side should any well meaning relative wish to deposit me into the care, custody, and control a nursing home, (aka; God's waiting room) his name; Sturm RUGER Esq.

I would disagree...

Simple reason is that sooner or later people will start to overuse such a possibility, claiming they want to end their lives due to some negligible and stupid reasons, such as simply getting old, getting bored, having a bad day and so on...it might sound crazy, but unfortuantely, we as a species do not have much of common sense and we will certainly do this.

Dear JDavis89,

What may seem a negligible and stupid reason to you may seem reasonable to someone else. it should not be up to you or anybody else to decide for someone else who wants to end their life.