Death by Prescription. Part 3.

Depression and Longing for Death.

      In 55 years of medical practice I have seen very many cases of severe depression.  Many of them so profoundly depressed that they would have welcomed death.  In the early days there were few effective drugs and there wasn't much to offer them, except what later became known as cognitive therapy.  It didn't have such a grand name then, we just called it supportive treatment, then psychotherapy, perhaps so we could bill for it.  It was very time consuming and not every doctor's cup of tea.  In extreme situations the greatly stigmatized ECT was the only option and despite the massive emotional outcry against it, saved many lives.
      I had a patient many years ago who wanted to die so badly that he drove himself out to an isolated side road in Saskatchewan one night,  locked himself inside his car and slashed both of his wrists. As fate would have it, as he lay there exsanguinating, waiting to die, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police patrol car passed by.  In sparsely populated Saskatchewan that in itself was remarkable.  They stopped, broke into the car and  took the semi-conscious patient to the hospital to be transfused and sutured.  To cut a long story short after appropriate treatment including both pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy this man was able to resume a productive work and family life and function normally. 
      Although I have no doubt that in the early phase of the integration of the euthanasia culture it will be very carefully exercised and would not have been available to this man, I have been around long enough to observe just how permissive our culture is.   I am also cynical enough to know that measures that will save the health care system will become increasingly palatable as it becomes financially threatened and once the thin end of the  wedge has been introduced there will be no turning back!  It just isn't possible to get the Genie back in the lamp!!