Archive: January 2011

Right to die – when is it, and do you have a?

14 January 2011
Charles
No comments
Categories: Assisted suicide, Attitudes to death, euthanasia

Assisted dying, self-deliverance, euthanasia and allowing people to die naturally – all these are hot topics which can only get hotter. I’ve just had this email from CareNotKilling, and anti-assisted dying org:

Channel 4 are giving you the opportunity to voice your views on a series of short films about euthanasia, which are being shown on Channel 4 next week.

Next week ‘4thought.tv’ are exploring attitudes towards euthanasia, and asking whether it should be legalised in Britain.

The 90 second films will be airing after the news every evening on Channel 4 (around 7:55pm) next week.  Viewers can then share their own thoughts and feelings about euthanasia, respond to the individual films and reply to other viewer comments on their website www.4thought.tv

Channel 4 are interested in all thoughts related to the films, whether you agree with the speaker or strongly oppose what they say, and hope people will also share personal views and and experiences.

This is a great opportunity to make your views known on such an important issue.

Please watch and respond to the films online by going to: http://www.4thought.tv/

I’d not come across this Channel 4 slot before, and as I surveyed the schedule I reckoned I probably wouldn’t be able to make time to watch most of them. No worries. I can watch them online later and I can still leave a comment. I’ll be doing that for sure.

Over at the Exit blog I read this:

The religious right are already organised: the Independent Catholic News is urging people to respond online and the Church of Scotland is using its blog and facebook. The pro-choice lobby represents 80% of the population, yet when it comes to expressing our thoughts we are way behind. [Source]

Reading that after getting my email from CareNotKilling, I can see what they mean. Exit wants those who support its cause to be sure to get online.

Whichever side you’re on, you may want to do the same. Here’s the schedule:

Lesley Close – sister of an assisted suicide
Monday 17 January, 7.55PM on Channel 4
Lesley Close’s brother John had motor neurone disease. In 2003 Lesley accompanied him to a suicide clinic in Switzerland where she witnessed his ‘dignified and amazing’ death.

Martin Amis – luminary of the literary world
Tuesday 18 January, 7.55PM on Channel 4
Author Martin Amis believes that euthanasia is an evolutionary inevitability. Martin caused controversy by putting forward the idea of suicide booths on street corners and thinks that future generations will look back at how we have abandoned people to their longevity as ‘barbaric’.

Motor neurone disease makes my life richer
Thursday 20 January, 7.55PM on Channel 4
Michael Wenham was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. He believes his life is now richer than it was before his illness and that euthanasia is a selfish act that fails to take account of the feelings of those who are left behind.

A right-to-die activist speaks out
Friday 21 January, 7.25PM on Channel 4
Dr Michael Irwin believes that it is a doctor’s duty to ease a patient’s suffering and wants to see a change in the law that would allow doctor-assisted suicide for those who are terminally ill. He has personally accompanied patients to the Dignitas suicide clinic in Switzerland to help them end their lives.

A terminally ill doctor speaks out
Saturday 22 January, 6.50PM on Channel 4
Dr Ann McPherson has terminal cancer. Ann hopes that, when the time comes, she will be able to have the option of an assisted death in Britain.

A Sunday opponent hopes to round things off
Sunday 23 January, 7.55PM on Channel 4
Kevin Fitzpatrick believes that legalising euthanasia in Britain would be a terrible mistake and that many more disabled people would die as a result. Kevin believes that we should put our energies into improving palliative care services rather than trying to make it easier for people to hasten their deaths.

Botched embalming?

13 January 2011
Charles
5 Comments
Categories: Embalming, scandals

Here’s a strange tale.

Daniel Brennan died in Monklands Hospital, Airdrie, and was looked after  Donald McLaren Ltd, est 1912. I don’t know if there was a post mortem, but we are told that Daniel’s illness was a short one.

When Daniel’s mother went to see him at the funeral home she was appalled:

“I pulled the shroud back and saw him in a body bag and covered in blood and fluid going from one shoulder to another. The smell was atrocious. His face and neck were swollen and bruised beyond recognition and I can assure you that when I left my son at the hospital, his face was in no way disfigured or marked. I was totally shocked at the state of my son’s body. It was horrific. I’ll never get the picture out of my head.” [Source]

Mrs Brennan has filed a complaint with the NAFD. It looks as if the undertaker has waived the embalming fee.

I don’t get it. Why on earth did the undertaker allow the family see Daniel looking like that? Any undertakerly insights welcome.

What to pack for hospital

13 January 2011
Charles
4 Comments
Categories: coffins, Pauper funerals, shroud

There’s an engaging little story in January’s Funeral Service Journal describing the custom at Norwich Great Hospital, back in the medieval day, requiring those who had fallen into indigent, aged decrepitude (50+ female BBC presenters, for example) to bring with them, as their entry pass, a coffin. Not so different perhaps from today when you would be well advised to do just that were you unfortunate enough to be borne to Stafford Hospital, the sort of place that undertakers toast at Christmas parties.

But it turned out that the doddering ancients in Norwich Great Hospital thoughtlessly used their coffins as cupboards. Some of these coffins, when the time came to use them for their proper purpose, were found to be worn out. So the hospital changed the custom. Instead of a coffin, prospective entrants were required to bring £1 to pay for a shroud when their time came.

Coffins on the shopping channel

12 January 2011
Charles
11 Comments
Categories: coffins, Formality vs informality, funeral cost, funeral reformers

Newcastle undertaker Carl Marlow has, by his own accounts, been quiet for the last five years — busy building his business. For his fellow undertakers this was too good to last. Carl has never been one to take the view that the best way to achieve change is to work within the industry, and this is only one of a thousand reasons why the industry hates him. He’s a free radical and a bloody good servant to those he looks after. When it comes to offering choice he goes the extra mile: “You don’t have to have a hearse, you know. That’s two hundred quid you can put behind the bar afterwards.” I love Carl.

Now he wants to offer advice to cost-conscious, self-reliant funeral consumers and sell them coffins at affordable prices.  He says, in that disarming, conciliatory way he has: “I think funerals are a con. Too many people in an emotional frame of mind are paying too much money and there’s no need for it to be so expensive. It feels like a bit of a closed shop, and I’m trying to open it up a bit. We’re hopefully going to be putting coffins on shopping channels like QVC. We’re putting an application in and seeing if they come back to us. We’re not trying to be controversial. We’re trying to make coffins more of an everyday purchase and demystify the whole funeral process.”

Few people have done as much for the cause of death in the community as Carl. He likes to photograph his coffins, not in hushed and dignified surroundings, but in everyday contexts. He tells me he has raised eyebrows and smiles recently, carting coffins around the city, posing them against graffiti-covered walls and the like.

Having spent a happy half- hour on the phone to Carl I just had to tell you about it. The name of the new business is the Coffin Company. It launches any day. I’ll be sure to tell you when it does.

Death in the community

11 January 2011
Charles
9 Comments
Categories: Attitudes to death

Here’s an interesting idea: the café mortel, or death café. Never heard of it? No, I hadn’t either. It’s a Swiss thing, apparently. In the words of the Independent:

The concept, although a little morbid, is straightforward enough – a dozen strangers meet to have a drink and talk about death for a couple of hours. The participants in Paris were surprised by how straightforward the discussion was.

Death is a taboo subject in France, according to Swiss sociologist and death café pioneer Bernard Crettaz. “French people find it very difficult to talk about death,” he said. He says his mission is to liberate death from what he calls “tyrannical secrecy”.

“I am never so in tune with the truth as during one of these soirées. And I have the impression that the assembled company, for a moment, and thanks to death, is born into authenticity,” he writes in his new book, Cafés Mortels: Sortir la Mort du Silence, or “bringing death out of silence”. [Source]

This has really got my mind buzzing…

The Big Hug Appeal

11 January 2011
Charles
No comments
Categories: Uncategorised

The good people at Cruse have asked me to tell you all about their new appeal, which will enable them to support bereaved children. Of course, I am delighted to do so.

What is the Big Hug Appeal?

For those struggling to cope with the loss of a loved one, the cold, dark days of winter can be especially hard. In particular, it is children who can most keenly feel this absence and the lack of a warming winter hug from someone they love can at times seem unbearable. It is at points like these that vulnerable young people can need extra support, and Cruse Bereavement Care exists to provide free, accessible care to any child that wants it.

As the UK’s leading child bereavement charity, Cruse provides:

  • Face to face care to over 2,500 young people every year.
  • Advice and support over a freephone helpline
    • Informative website: www.rd4u.org.uk, which includes a moderated messageboard
    • Information for carers, schools and parents, including the ‘ask the experts’ DVD
    • The ‘Every Bereaved Child Matters’ project, which aims to expand the services available to bereaved young people across England.

This winter, our ‘Big Hug’ appeal aims to raise funds to sustain this vital work and ensure that every bereaved child has access to support. We can’t replace their lost hugs, but with your help we can restore their faith in those yet to come.

How can I help?

As a charity, Cruse relies on public donations in order to provide its services for free. Your donations, however large or small, will help us to support children through the difficult winter months and ensure that they reach the spring with hope in their hearts and a brighter future in front of them. To find out more, please visit www.thebighug.org.uk, where you can donate and leave messages to show your support to the thousands of bereaved children across the country who will be grieving this winter.

For more information please contact the fundraising team at info@thebighug.org.uk or 0208 939 9547.

Pulling the plug

11 January 2011
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: Attitudes to death, Longevity, self-deliverance, suicide

I know I go on about this, but I think it important. Long, long life is getting to be a problem. Thirty years ago dying was a relatively brief, often unexpected episode. Clever medics can now prolong it – intolerably and expensively.

That last goodbye for most of us just keeps getting put off and the state has to find more and more money for more and more tottering and tumbledown folk. Not for me, I drink and smoke at lot, I’ll go down like a felled ox thank god when that big vein in my forehead goes bang. But you self-denying abstinence- and exercise freaks – how many years of decrepitude, double incontinence and dementia is it all buying you?

Here’s some food for thought, perhaps:

In the Jan Oldie magazine there’s an interview with a man called John Barnes. He’s eighty-something and fit as a flea. The interviewer asks him this question: ‘Have you found a way of coming to terms with death?’ And he replies: “You have to learn to accept that you don’t come to terms with it. Sometimes I think that people who’ve got blind religious faith and believe they’re not going to die are the luckiest. My feelings swing to extremes. Life seems marvellous when my old ramblers [he takes oldies walking] are enjoying sunshine in the country, when I’m holding an attractive girl in a dance, or when I’m entertaining a crowd of people with my songs. The rest of the time I wonder whether the NHS ought to be spending so much effort on keeping me alive.”

Over at the Morialekafa blog we read this:

Somehow I found myself last night in a discussion of what should happen to old people if there is not enough money available to keep them all alive. That is, would there ever be enough money available for health care for all, and if not, what about “death panels.”

You are all doubtless http://quotecorner.com/online-pharmacy.html aware of the claim that Eskimos would sometimes leave their old people to freeze to death when there was not enough food to feed everyone. There is little doubt that old people accepted this as a necessity and perhaps even volunteered themselves …

First of all, I doubt that anyone really knows very much about what happens to old people in the United States at this time. For example, it is clear that the suicide rate for those over 65 goes up rather sharply … I think it is entirely possible that many of these suicides are deliberate senilicides, carried out to relieve the potential burden on their survivors, but does anyone really know this? …

How much is a week of life, when one is ninety, really worth?

…

Where I worked for a time in the New Guinea Highlands, when a person is considered so old they are obviously near death, their survivors and others hold a funeral ceremony for them while they are still alive, to let them know they are respected and will be missed (also to placate their potential ghost so it will not hang around causing misfortune). These occasions, perhaps needless to say, are very emotional, the speeches can be endless, and the oldsters are sometimes overcome, weeping and even falling to the ground. This seems to me to be a more sensible and genuine way of saying goodbye and expressing grief than by feeling guilty and regretting you did not do and spend more to prevent the inevitable. [Source]

Now hop over to the excellent Death Reference Desk for a series of articles about Republicans and Tea Party nutters in the US who either out of stupidity or malignity have been confusing end of life planning (a now ex-component of the Obama Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) with death panels. [Source]

It’s a whole new ethical area, isn’t it? As abortion once was…

The International Necronautical Society

9 January 2011
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: Art and death

MANIFESTO

We, the First Committee of the International Necronautical Society, declare the following:-

1.That death is a type of space, which we intend to map, enter, colonise and, eventually, inhabit.

2. That there is no beauty without death, its immanence. We shall sing death’s beauty – that is, beauty.

3. That we shall take it upon us, as our task, to bring death out into the world. We will chart all its forms and media: in literature and art, where it is most apparent; also in science and culture, where it lurks submerged but no less potent for the obfuscation. We shall attempt to tap into its frequencies – by radio, the internet and all sites where its processes and avatars are active. In the quotidian, to no smaller a degree, death moves: in traffic accidents both realised and narrowly avoided; in hearses and undertakers’ shops, in florists’ wreaths, in butchers’ fridges and in dustbins of decaying produce. Death moves in our appartments, through our television screens, the wires and plumbing in our walls, our dreams. Our very bodies are no more than vehicles carrying us ineluctably towards death. We are all necronauts, always, already.

4. Our ultimate aim shall be the construction of a craft1 that will convey us into death in such a way that we may, if not live, then at least persist. With famine, war, disease and asteroid impact threatening to greatly speed up the universal passage towards oblivion, mankind’s sole chance of survival lies in its ability, as yet unsynthesised, to die in new, imaginative ways. Let us deliver ourselves over utterly to death, not in desperation but rigorously, creatively, eyes and mouths wide open so that they may be filled from the deep wells of the Unknown.

1This term must be understood in the most versatile way possible.It could designate a set of practices, such as the usurpation of identities and personas of dead people, the development of specially adapted genetic or semantic codes based on the meticulous gathering of data pertaining to certain and specific deaths, the rehabilitation of sacrifice as an accepted social ritual, the perfection, patenting and eventual widespreaddistribution of ThanadrineTM, or, indeed, the building of an actual craft – all of the above being projects currently before the First Committee.

Declaration on the Nature of the Future (2010) here.

Website here.

Interview with Stephen Critchley here.

Death’s a bummer

7 January 2011
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: Attitudes to death

I am indebted to Nurse Myra over at Gimcrack Hospital (where the nurses are pretty and the doctors are pissed) for telling me about JBS Haldane (1892-1964). Nurse Myra does a fine line in rare people, most of them bonkers, and JBS Haldane is an outstanding specimen. Find out more at the Usual Suspect.

In 1964 Haldane was found to have bowel cancer and, after surgery, wrote this plucky poem.

Cancer’s a Funny Thing

I wish I had the voice of Homer

To sing of rectal carcinoma,

Which kills a lot more chaps, in fact,

Than were bumped off when Troy was sacked.

Yet, thanks to modern surgeon’s skills,

It can be killed before it kills

Upon a scientific basis

In nineteen out of twenty cases.

I noticed I was passing blood

(Only a few drops, not a flood).

So pausing on my homeward way

From Tallahassee to Bombay

I asked a doctor, now my friend,

To peer into my hinder end,

To prove or to disprove the rumour

That I had a malignant tumour.

…

The microscope returned the answer

That I had certainly got cancer,

So I was wheeled into the theatre

Where holes were made to make me better.

…

A third much smaller hole is meant

To function as a ventral vent:

So now I am like two-faced Janus

The only god who sees his anus.

…

I’ll swear, without the risk of perjury,

It was a snappy bit of surgery.

My rectum is a serious loss to me,

But I’ve a very neat colostomy,

And hope, as soon as I am able,

To make it keep a fixed time-table.

So do not wait for aches and pains

To have a surgeon mend your drains;

If he says “cancer” you’re a dunce

Unless you have it out at once,

For if you wait it’s sure to swell,

And may have progeny as well.

My final word, before I’m done,

Is “Cancer can be rather fun”.

Thanks to the nurses and Nye Bevan

The NHS is quite like heaven

Provided one confronts the tumour

With a sufficient sense of humour.

Haldane died shortly after writing this.