Sir, Dominica Roberts (letters, July 11 ) is right in advocating palliative care, but it is not that simple. My father was dying of cancer, and a nurse came in to give him morphine injections. One night, she refused, saying the morphine would kill him. She also agreed that, without the morphine, the pain would kill him. So he died, presumably in excruciating pain. Would giving the morphine have been wrong?
NICK BEESON, Ilkley, W Yorks
Sir, It is the primary duty of any doctor treating dying patients to relieve suffering by any means necessary, even if life is thereby shortened, providing that there is patient or representative consent.
Guidelines that decree otherwise are inhumane and should be amended.
JOHN HODGKIN, Salisbury
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Sir, Dominica Roberts makes the usual mistake of the “pro-life” (ie anti-euthanasia) lobby in insisting on palliative care only.
When her time to die arrives let her have her palliative care, but don’t deny me the right to euthanasia.
PHILIP BANHAM, Rushden, Northants