Thursday, 3 December 2015

Woman dies after winning court case to refuse dialisis (BBC 3.12.15)

Woman who refused treatment after losing 'sparkle' dies
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34991931
BBC News 3.12.15

Own thoughts:
I really can’t help feeling that a whole mental health perspective has been lost here.   One wonders if it will have implications later upon the treatment of suicidal people, negative it terms of the right to self-neglect or positive it terms of asserting the rights of the patient.  I also think that the reporters and professionals are desperate to paint this person as somehow shallow, or apart from society, as though they were bound to materialism and looks to a fault, or perhaps to be respected, almost like a religious choice.  I wonder what the family feel?  Maybe more will come out, or it’ll just be dismissed as force of will vs. the hippocratic oath.  Did she have any counselling?  Was she made to feel guilty after overdosing, to the point that she felt she didn’t deserve care later and to the point that she despised any doctors telling her what to do?  I’m projecting a little here.  It overlaps in my head with doctors being baffled by actively suicidal, yet lucid, patients. There’s something missing here.  Somewhere between statutory care and personal needs, something has been lost.

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