#Death #economist
Read an article in Economist about the trend in the medicalization of death of human beings.
The author talks about a book written by John Graunt ,a book that explains the randomness of death, the excitement that gives, the terror it evokes etc, He goes on to explaining the changes in the way death approach us, and ‘unintended consequences’ of delaying the dreadful enemy as much as possible with the help of modern science.
The author talks about a book written by John Graunt ,a book that explains the randomness of death, the excitement that gives, the terror it evokes etc, He goes on to explaining the changes in the way death approach us, and ‘unintended consequences’ of delaying the dreadful enemy as much as possible with the help of modern science.
In the preceding paragraphs, the author lists the consequences of this trend and the extent to which it has affected the lives of people who are at the brink of death and the people around them.Prolonging death of a person with a crescendo of desperate treatments aggravate the last days of that person and lives of others around him.
Having listed the agony of everyone, the author goes on about the importance of this issue and why it matters. Most of the people prefer dying at home rather than dying in the hospital.He concludes that death should be given to the terminally ill if they wish to die. He stresses on making the patients fully aware of their health and instead of the constant trauma they endure and that they should be granted a right to die if they intend to die.The author also talks about the importance of cutting down the pointless procedures to prevent death but funding more to support the terminally ill patients.He recommends taking those patients away from the hospitals and giving them adequate mental support.
He also points out that we normally do not talk much about death as its a sensitive topic, open conversations are required to saw changes to the system.
He also points out that we normally do not talk much about death as its a sensitive topic, open conversations are required to saw changes to the system.
My take;
Straying away from death by holding on to the aids of science, can be viewed as pointless and at the same time as a ray of hope to live again for the person who is undergoing the trauma.There are a lot of layers that makes up this issue a lot complicated than it is on the surface. There are numerous cases in which people recovered from their medical illness with their sheer willpower and courage. At times, the “desperate crescendo of medical procedures” are not fruitless.everyone who loves the patients is expecting the case of the loved one to be a medical miracle.Even though we can argue that this happens only in one in 1000 cases, its is still a beacon of hope for many. Hence cutting down the procedures can not necessarily be an effective solution for this problem.
