Respond to Dying Patients

It’s not unusual for terminally ill patients to say they want to die, but according to a group of Australian researchers many health professionals have no idea what to say in response.

Now in what they say is a world first, they have developed a set of guidelines to help doctors and nurses deal with the sensitive topic.

Dr Peter Hudson from the University of Melbourne, who worked on the project, said that a doctor or nurse might be seeing somebody at home or in an in-patient setting, with a life-threatening illness such as cancer. That patient might remark “I’ve had enough, I wish it would all end. From the research that we’ve undertaken, we were able to acknowledge that, in the most part, healthcare professionals feel unequipped to be able to respond to statements like that”.

“The basis of those types of statements might be that the person in fact is just having a particularly bad day and they’re acknowledging their concerns. For others it might be that they’ve actually been confronted with unresolved existential or physical symptom issues that need to be better managed. And for others, a very small proportion, it might actually be a cry for help for an expression of a desire for assisted suicide or euthanasia.

”Our guidelines assist healthcare professionals to be able to respond professionally and compassionately within the law, regardless of healthcare professionals’ own views on euthanasia.”