NEW DELHI: Law or no law, euthanasia in a surrogate form is practised in India. Instances of doctors scaling down medical intervention where patients have no chance of recovery arent unheard of. Such decisions are taken only after families are convinced they exhausted all options. The terminally-ill are allowed to sink till they breathe their last. In some cases, the de-escalation is so sharp that it resembles passive euthanasia — withdrawing life support to patients in a permanently vegetative state. The two key inputs needed to sustain life in the terminally-ill are ventilator support to help respiration and medicines to maintain blood pressure. The intensity of both is either reduced or withdrawn to allow life to ebb away. Doctors say giving this practice a legal framework is important to ensure death with dignity. Every week, we get at least three to four requests from families for discontinuation of treatment to kin -terminally-ill or in a vegetative state. Loss of hope of recovery is the main cause. Sometimes its because families cant afford the treatment, says Dr Sumit Ray, vice-chairperson, critical care medicine at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital. In cases where theres zero chance of recovery or improvement in quality of life the `end-of-life care approach is adopted on the familys request. Dr Deepak Agarwal, senior neurosurgeon at AIIMS trauma centre, says many families dump their kin in hospital and leave when theyre told theres no scope of recovery. Such people are mostly poor. I recall a poor woman whose husband had suffered a terrible spinal cord injury sending him into a vegetative state. She didnt have the money to get him treated, left him at the hospital and focused on finding a way to feed her children, he says. Shabnam, whose father died after prolonged illness, says: My father was declared brain dead. Doctors said even if he came off the ventilator -which was virtually impossible -his vision, respiration and limb movements were gone for good. We as a family decided to go one step further with the medication and then stop. What we decided that day was in a way euthanasia. (Getty Images photo) But, there are doctors who oppose euthanasia. We should be thinking of ways to save more lives. Euthanasia is not an option. There cant be greater service to humanity than giving quality palliative care to the terminally-ill, said Dr Sushma Bhatnagar, head of pain and palliative care at AIIMS Cancer Centre.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 10:24:26 +0000
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