In the final programme, the panel discusses the difficult ethics surrounding treatment withdrawal.
A man in his late sixties was admitted to hospital with a chronic lung condition. When asked about future treatment, sometimes he wanted everything to be done to keep him alive. At other times, he wrote statements such as 'I want to die'.
How much do 'living wills', override doctor's opinions on the best interests of their patient?
"I'm a nurse and midwife who is over 60 and long standing protagonist of voluntary euthanasia. I attended a man with lung cancer who was compos mentis, but attatched to a ventilator. He'd been this way for over a year before I meet him, and he did not want to stay alive. The law says that we were not allowed to help him to die.
I am VERY aware of the expinditure of resourses to support the elderly and dying, but that is only part of the reason that I would like to have the right to be helped to die." Elizabeth
"I witnessed a close relative who suffered a stroke and took over a week to die with no hydration or nutrition. I have no way of knowing how much she may have suffered during that week and nobody seemed to care or know either.
I believe the fear of being accused of hastening a death inhibits doctors from fully effective palliation and worse, prevents them from giving the patient unequivocal reassurance that they will take very active measures to prevent suffering during the final phase of a life." Anthony
"I hope that Lord Joffe's Assisted Suicide Bill survives its future passage in Parliament. It has all the safeguards, and will get rid of the need for sympathetic medical staff to have to take action to alleviate and ultimately end life in a dignified way." Gerald
"Genuine public debate over these issues, and therefore increased understanding, is long overdue.
In the case given, there was some discussion of the need to assess the motivation of the 'next of kin' who was against withdrawal of his friend's treatment.
But what about the motivations of all the others in the team - medical staff, chaplains and members of the ethics committee? How do they avoid bringing their own personal "baggage" to the decision? Or is it precisely that "baggage" (be it religious conviction, personal experience or otherwise) which enables them to cope with such heart-wrenchingly difficult decisions?" Angus
"If you do everything possible to help every patient, that may deprive another patient with a better chance of survival, or who would have a higher quality of life." Margaret
"It is misleading to refer to Mr Leslie Burke as suing for the right to demand particular treatments. What he is demanding is, in own words, not to die of thirst. In other words to be killed deliberately by starvation and dehydration.
This was also the main issue in the Terri Schiavo case, where letting her die involved removing her feeding tube and then starving her to a slow lingering death over two weeks." Francis
"I have a strong religious faith (I am a Quaker) but I feel strongly that life should not be prolonged when quality of life is gone and the patient is suffering.
I think that doctors are in a very difficult situation. Such great advances in medicine have been made that many people seem to think that death can be prevented forever." Julia
"The Mental Capacity Bill will be welcomed by relatives of Alzheimer's patients, so I hope the panel has not created needless fears that patients may not be able to "change their minds" and be held to outdated advance decisions.
The Code of Practice that will accompany the Bill sets out guidelines for the wording of any binding advance decision, which will need to be highly specific, informed and applicable to the patient's medical state at that point.
Finally, the Rev Ted Morris' view that death is a kind of healing for patients who are plainly never going to recover was very refreshing, and regains my respect for members of the clergy like him, after the Terry Schiavo case." Sarah
