SAVES is not affiliated with Exit International / Dr Philip Nitschke and opposes the public availability of a 'peaceful pill'.

A member sent us a copy of the following moving story but it was a while before we realised it was more than 20 years old. It is from the June 1977 issue of Readers Digest.

    It was six months ago that Irma and I first drove to the hospital. The doctor had been concerned about my wife`s occasional spotting. The gynaecologist, apprehensive about what his examination indicated, had suggested a hysterectomy.
    Following the operation, the surgeon came up to me in the waiting-room. After some preliminary, words he said, "It's terminal cancer."
    It's terminal cancer.
    In something of a whisper, I asked, "How long does she have?"
    "It's difficult to say. It could be six months to five years."
    Now lrma is dead, after six months, at 75.
    It was not over her sure death that I cried. It was for the ignominious way of her going: the degradation of the spirit that was once her, the flagellation of her body, the torture inflicted by medical ethics and by a society that values the flesh over the spirit.
    Irma recovered from the operation. She came home after three weeks in hospital. During her convalescence she was up and about. She was at table for meals. We visited friends, attended the theatre, dined out. The pills were effective: there was no pain.
    Had there been a remission? Were the doctors only mortals who had guessed wrongly? Were we witnessing a miracle?
    Two months of hope, then began the journey to the other shore. Irma was tired. Tempting her to eat was futile. Sedation was needed on a regular schedule. In vigils through the night, we reacted to a gesture, kept adjusting her pillow. Terminal cancer: please let her not have pain.
    In time, the burden of caring became too great, even with family members sharing the shifts. Exhaustion set in - physical, mental and emotional. The only alternative was the hospital. "There are to be no heroic measures," I said. "I just don't want her to have any pain."
    They said that they understood, but it was not to be. The first ten days there were a time for gratitude. The nurses were kind and compassionate. Medication was given as needed. Irma's position in bed was changed on schedule to prevent bed sores and to provide comfort. A tube hung from a bedside stand for intravenous feeding.
    Irma was not aware of the world - but she was comfortable. And there was no pain.
    Each day, I watched, wondered - dulled to what was taking place but grateful for the nurses concern.
    One morning of the third week, I entered the room and was startled. The intravenous tube had been removed from Irma'sarm. Instead, she was being fed through a tube inserted in her nose.
    She lay on her back in the bed, her hands tied to the rails. I asked why this had to be. "Because," the nurse said, "she was pulling out the tube."
    Everyone was considerate. The nurses changed her position every two hours, retying her hands to the rails. They provided pillows to support her changed position. I saw her that evening on her side, tied down for immobility. Only her fingers twitched.
    That night, at home in bed, I tried the various positions I had observed Irma take. I could hold each position for only 15 minutes, having to shift to relieve the tension, to release the straining of my muscles. But it was all right. Irma's position was being changed every two hours. She had no pain.
    In the fifth week, a catheter was introduced to catch her urine. Now the chemicals that dripped through the tube inserted in her nose passed through her body and emptied efficiently into a pouch at the foot of her bed. In this way lrma was being kept alive. I paled at the sight.
    The sixth week showed a change. Irma looked better: there was a flush in her cheeks. I wondered what this could mean.
    "We pulled her through pneumonia by suctioning the mucus from her lungs," they said. "She is resting more easily now."
    How thoughtful. The idea came to me: Irma will make a good-looking corpse, thanks to medical science.
    Through it all I was led to believe - by comments, by shrugging shoulders - that it would be a matter of only two weeks. It was always two weeks, by increments. At the end of three months I was told that Irma could no longer be kept in the hospital: she would have to be moved to a nursing home.
    That night I went to look over the nursing home they had chosen. I was disheartened. The place was dim; it seemed gloomy and desolate.
    The next morning, as usual, I stopped at the hospital. Irma's room was empty. She had been moved to the home earlier than I had expected. I hurried there. In daylight it looked better than it had by night.
    I found the room where Irma was imprisoned. Yes, that word was inescapable. She was receiving the same care and attention as in the hospital.
    Again the tube was inserted in her nose, again the catheter pouch hung at the foot of her bed, again her hands were tied to the bed rails.
    Irma's squirming had caused her sheet to slip off, and she was lying nude. I covered her and kissed her forehead.
    The nurses, again, were kind and compassionate. Sedation came on schedule. Irma suffered no pain.
    Another six weeks passed.
    Then at last, I was privileged to watch Irma being ferried across the river Styx. It had been a long journey, not because the river was wide - from where I stood, I had long since observed the opposite shrouded shore - but because the man-made current was almost, irresistible. The force of public opinion, of medical and legal ethics, had run furiously, almost vengefully, resisting Irma's passage.
    As I sat, patiently watching, I saw her finally reach the other shore and disappear into the mist of infinity. Her trials were over. It was Saturday, at 11:17 a.m. Society had claimed its last gram of flesh, and after a while I could stop crying.
    I left the nursing home. As I drove away, a seething anger swept over me. It was a fetish, nothing less, for society to worship the flesh while it destroyed the spirit.
    At any hospital, the dedication is heedlessly to prolong life. No, not just to prolong life but to do so by using ingenious devices that not only measure the semblance of life but also confirm that the machinery itself is functioning.
    Why had Irma been subjected to degradation that made a mockery of living? What does society want, and in heaven's name, why?
    The anger has not left me. It will consume me as long as I live. Why are those who value living so insensitive to dying? In memory of Irma - for all the Irmas of this world - I make a simple but heartfelt plea: let us rise, all of us, to defend the defenceless body against the machine.

Max is not railing against the absence of legally available voluntary euthanasia, but the loss of control at the last stage of our lives. This is a familiar theme for supporters of legalising voluntary euthanasia. Medical technology, such a boon when our health can be restored, becomes a nightmare when it is applied without reference to the spiritual values of the individual swept up in the health care system. Although we are not privy to Irma's wishes, it is not hard to believe that Max was in the best position to know what she would have wished.

So what has changed in 20 years? There have been changes in practices, at least in Australia. Nasal feeding tubes are now uncommon in situations like Irma's. Physical restraint is not as common.

But the feelings expressed by husbands and wives in the caring role has changed very little. Nursing homes and hospitals still tend to focus on life support rather than on the emotional and spiritual needs of their patients. It would not be surprising if a major factor in this is the absolute prohibition on openly acknowledging that death is now in the patient's best interests for fear of prosecution.