Euthanasia

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8. Having been involved in 4 different end-of-life situations with old people in the past several years

I think there are two different things going on. Yes, the medical establishment/industry will keep them alive in the spare-no-expense mode for as long as that can go on. Yes, they do that with very clear awareness of the financial benefits to the system of doing that. In other words, the system is being played for profit. But strangely, if you introduce a human dimension, the system will very easily turn around to the other mode, where they will accommodate the other kind of process, of allowing death to happen with the most humane methods of palliative care.

So I have concluded that the system is set up to wring the greatest possible amount of profit from the elderly by doing high-tech and costly treatments for as long as possible. But simultaneously very few of the medical people involved actually want to stop the family from bringing that to an end and allowing nature to take its course. The system wants the money, but the actual humans involved understand the situation and know how to deal with reality and bring the high-tech expensive medical exploitation to a peaceful natural end.

The problem here is that not everybody knows this or has the confidence or ability to clearly express their human wishes. Also, in many cases there is a lot of conflict within families, so that the medical system does not get clear directives from the family. Many people (not just medical people) have an intense fear of death and will do ANYTHING to keep a terminally ill loved one alive, even at the cost of torturing that person at the end of their life. It's not just greed. There a lot of things coming into play.