“I watched my father die”

My brother and I were called into the Melbourne hospital where he was located very early in the morning. I had to drive almost 2 hours to get there. We sat with him for the day.

I sat with him for a total of about 9 hours, my brother longer. He had a urinary catheter. I sat on the side of the bed where the catheter emptied. Not one drop of urine flowed while I was there. He was essentially already dead. I live in Gippsland and couldn’t just pop back and forward from home so I went home having said my goodbye as best I could. My brother who lived closer was able to return but, in the end, he went home to sleep.

I pleaded with the palliative and geriatric doctors to assist with his immediate dying. They would not. They stated they increased the dose of medication somewhat to “manage his pain”. I wasn’t convinced. I can guarantee he wanted to die. As it happened, neither my brother or I were present when he actually died.

Perhaps the hospital staff think they ministered to the needs of the patient. I do not. Neither did they adequately consider or treat the other patients involved, namely my brother and I and therefore also our extended families.

The reptilian brain maintains breathing and a heart beat when the rest of the body has essentially gone. My image now of my father, embedded in my head is a death mask with a horrible, rattling, interrupted breathing. I cannot erase it.

I have placed images of him in better times up at home to try to remove the image but without much success. Perhaps in some people this would now constitute PTSD! And yet it was imposed in the medical “caring” environment at a time the “patient” was totally unaware, but we were still there.

I pleaded with the medical practitioners to end his life. Indeed I was very well prepared to inject him myself (and I am able to inject, I could even draw up the required dose). My brother and I were his only family, and we were both in complete agreement as to what he wanted and what we wanted. But no, the hospital staff allowed it to drag out, and he died alone. Not that he knew it.

What an undignified and traumatic death.

While he was still communicating, all he wanted to do was to go home. Imagine, and perhaps it is just too hard for medical practitioners to do so, a more dignified death delivered at home or even in his hospital bed at a time when family could be there to share a toast and listen to some appropriate music and to watch him die peacefully.

Having gone through this awful event I now distinguish between VAD and End of Life. Essentially, he was dying. We knew it, the hospital staff knew it, the doctors knew it. At the end of life, all that should occur is for the patient to be able to die with some dignity and for those of their family to be present for the dying and to end the life before the slow demise drags on and communication is lost.

He was already wearing a nappie. To this man, my father, an ultimate indignity and disgrace. VAD deals with voluntary assisted dying, but in my opinion an additional focus needs to be brought on termination of life at the “end of life stage”. When everyone knows the person is dying and they are all happy for the person to die, this should be facilitated, sooner rather than later, at home and with family present.

I am making a donation in memory of my father. Hopefully this might assist your organisation to continue to work with politicians, doctors organisations and indeed training of young doctors to change the current abominable situation, imposed by others who have no right to make that imposition.

* Writer’s name has been changed for privacy reasons

Griefline provides nationwide telephone support for adults 18+ dealing with any form of loss, including the complexities associated with VAD. Their skilled volunteers are available 365 days a year on the national helpline at 1300 845 745.