₦airaland Forum

It's no new thing in clinical settings for Health practitioners to be confronted by terminally ill patients in hopeless situations pleading for their lives be ended “peacefully”. This practice involves giving patients lethal dose of some drugs with adjuvant analgesia to end the patient’s life, colloquially referred to as “mercy killing” or “physician assisted suicide”
Euthanasia; the term used to denote the above statement is defined as “the intentional killing by act or omission of a person whose life is felt to be not worth living due to persistent unstoppable suffering”.
Though illegal in Nigeria there have been situations where it is being practiced secretly without being reported. Euthanasia is prohibited by most religions but it is widely practiced legally in countries like Netherlands, Luxemburg, Belgium, Switzerland and some states of The USA.
There are two main types of euthanasia; Voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary is a type conducted based on patients’ request (consent) while the later is done without the patients consent (i.e. severely deformed children are euthanized based on their parents request). In Nazi Germany during the World War II, Many physically challenged where euthanized without consent.
Meanwhile the following phenomenons are not euthanasia:
• stopping a medically futile treatment where the burden of that treatment would outweigh the benefits;
• When a mentally competent person chooses to refuse treatment. Health practitioners cannot force patients to have treatment against their will and it is legal for a patient to refuse treatment. If the patient then dies it is not euthanasia.
Euthanasia is seen by many as a right of patient which must be granted when requested, while others argue that the role of health professionals is to preserve the sanctity of life, putting in mind the nightingale pledge and the Hippocratic oath.
Finally the unique function of the nurse as opined by Virginia Henderson is to assist an individual, sick or well, in the performance of those activities contributing to health or its recovery (Or to a peaceful death) so could her last statement be in support of euthanasia?
By Abdulmuttalib Musa Maibasira, RN
Niger state, Nigeria

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