ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM – EUTHANASIA

“I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel” ... The Hippocratic Oath

My 6 month old patient who was born Pre mature, under circumstances that would make even the gravest works of fiction and widest extent of imagination shudder in shock, is suffering.
I m sitting next to his crib and writing this piece .Believe me I wish no parent in my NICU should come and look at him . They are not prepared for this horror. You will have to carve up the selective deafness and blindness I have developed over the past few months watching this baby, and believe me they will suffer.

The medical surgical and theological aspects of his care have been exhausted. God seems to have given up and the cruel mockery is staring at me in the face.
There will be no change from this point on, other than worse, despite heroic efforts at worship and practice to salvage whatever little life that is left in him.

I have seen babies die and I have faced the horrific terror of breaking such news to parents, and believe me it was tough, but I found solace through material of the likes of Joel Osteen. May be it was “gods wish” , the “divine intervention” and we meager specks of little nothings have no say , in meddling with this “business” .

But no Joel Osteen, Deepak chopra, Eckhart Tolle could help me reconcile with this pain of suffering deep down inside.

Debilitation is painful to watch and even more-so when you see the parents loosing hope.
I have sought comfort in situations when parents have accepted the ill stroke of fate and are glad to have love vested even in a debilitated child .But what do I do when I know this little one is going to have to fight the battle of his remaining life alone .

Memories of my editorial in the college magazine on Euthanasia comes rambling back to consciousness. The theoretical discussion of pros and cons of Physician assisted suicide seemed very “literary” at that time. But today I am facing the dilemma in person; I am at crossroads, bound by complexities of law and morality.

When is it appropriate for a doctor to play god? Putting an end to this insurmountable suffering, the continuous flow of tears, the rigid body, the seemingly never aborting seizures, and the continuous frothing … seems to be a valid option. Where the ever loving maternal instinct has fatigued, the medical science has exhausted all options, even the doors of heaven seem slam shut, one wonders was this fate written by the same hand of God that wrote mine, or was this a rare glitch.

The critics of physician assisted suicide would argue, putting forth a solid argument, of morality.
But if you qualify to be alive while being dependent on feeding and breathing tubes , undergoing constant trauma of pain that is immeasurable , but clearly visible , I bet you this , if god himself granted this baby one wish , he would unflinchingly ask for a vial of sweet death .
It’s a dilemma not just faced by me, but anyone who has shared the pain of Aruna Shanbaug and many others like her would pray mercy killing would be made legal.

I can not help but think of the implications of the power any loosely passed legislation in favor of euthanasia, will have. It would not take too long before the argument of “right” to die, be twisted into a “duty” to kill.
I shudder when the lines of the movie "Judgment at Nuremburg” comes to mind while I write this -

Condemned German –“But we didn't think it would go that far."

American judge- “it went that far the very first time you condemned an innocent human being."