Dognitas

I have been watching the debate around the assisted dying bill with much interest. While I believe that the passing of the bill was needed, the mechanics of how it will work are still to be determined.

This will require the practicalities of who, when and where a human euthanasia can be carried out after the big why this is required is confirmed.

From the discussion on news programmes, big emphasis is put on the welfare of medical staff. Several boundaries for medical staff who work in a euthanasia role are already being established. These include ensuring practitioners get enough mental health support related to each event.

There is also a call for the number of events or the time taken around each event to be limited. Finally, there was a discussion around how staff involved in the euthansia process would balance this with other health care roles.

Questions

Which brings forward several questions for human and animal euthanasia. Looking at this from both the human care and animal care situations there are similarities and stark, stark differences between the two.

Death, no matter when or where or who, if it’s a soul you care for then the emotions remain broadly similar.

The emotions also remain for the staff who are part of the care journey. While I’m not a fan of some aspects of nursing care plans, the Roper Logan and Tierney model used by Orpet and Jeffrey categorises death as an activity of living.

It is with this attitude that I approach the comparison of the assisted dying bill for humans and the euthanasia of animals. An act of living is to be carried out with dignity and respect for all involved.

With this in mind the emotional rollercoaster of patient euthanasia is perhaps more varied than the plans for the human assisted dying bill. But once established, could the way the NHS approaches practitioner care around human euthansia be something we can utilise with employers to improve the working practices in veterinary clinics around the highly emotional act of euthanising animals?