What is Euthanasia

Mrs X has anywhere from hours, days, or even weeks to live. We all know she is going to die. She's on a continuous infusion of morphine, anti-emetics and anti-anxiety drugs, plus having intermittent boluses of morphine. Some nurses are very generous with their extra boluses of morphine, and others not so, although it always depends on how much pain she seems to be in.

Mrs X has a large tumour in her bowel. The surgeon had tried to cut it out, but upon opening her up had quickly closed her back up as there was nothing he could do. The wound had since broken down, parts of her bowel had fused together and she had bowel motion coming out of her abdomen.

At eighty six years old Mrs X was a strong woman, and had lingered in this state for 120 days. Anyone else would have died. She wanted to die, she asked us to end it. We nurses took turns looking after her as it was too much for one person to cope with.

Mrs X hasn't woken in the last 24hrs, although her eyes did briefly open once as she cried out in pain, but I don't think that really counts.

Nurse Y gave Mrs X the maximum allowed bolus of morphine, which didn't seem to help with her pain. She was still crying out as another spasm of pain twisted her body, as the air was forced through her vocal chords.

Thirty minutes later nurse Y gave another maximum bolus of morphine, within the allowed limit of course. Her pain did seem to settle.

Later that afternoon Mrs X died. It may have been hours, days, or even weeks earlier than she was due.

It was legal, specifically it was not defined as euthanasia as it was prescribed by a whole team of doctors. It was right.

In reality it was euthanasia.