´óÏó´«Ã½

Good Morning
Ìý
This week the news became very personal.
Ìý
The recent report on the Liverpool Care Pathway chaired by Baroness Neuberger recommended the phasing out of a procedure initiated in 2008, by which terminal patients can be denied water in the final stages of their life.Ìý
Ìý
The review panel heard horror stories in which dying patients caught in the cross-fire of limited beds and substandard treatment became ‘tick-box’ cases inÌýour palliative services.Ìý The end product: vulnerable people, literally dying of thirst in the heart of our so-called caring professions.
Ìý
But it wasn’t just news.Ìý It was for me, a poignant and painful throw-back to the events of my mother’s death 6 years ago which even now parade in my dreams in the stillness of the night.Ìý At 94, her small body diminished by age and pain.Ìý Her chattering humour silenced by a stroke.Ìý The personality of a fiercely proud woman located now, only in a single half-opened eye.
Ìý
And in those final hours, the – to me - incongruous decision to withhold water.
Ìý
It’s left me with eternal questions.Ìý Not only, did I do the right thing?Ìý But even more, did I agree to the bestÌýthing?...