Against the grain.

摘要

Most nurses will have cared for the dying at some time. If you have, you will have felt personally touched by the debates about euthanasia that every now and then challenge the public conscience.Recently, it has been the Assisted Dying for the Terminally III Bill, moved by Lord Joffe. Nurses have followed proceedings with mixed feelings because this is familiar territory for us professionally, and perhaps even in our private lives.We can understand the call for assisted dying and we know it may be ourselves one day pleading for release. While the debates and arguments rage we are the ones who stand at the bedside and witness the suffering, time and time again. Even the doctors get to walk away, but we are there to the bitter end.