Euthanasia: How is it done, and what’s it like putting down something you’ve vowed to care for? – Stuff.co.nz

STACEY KIRK

Last updated15:45, April 5 2017

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There are strong arguments and emotions on both sides of the euthanasia debate.

It's not uncommon for a distraught a pet owner, standing by Rover as he's put down in a veterinary clinic, to lament "I wish we could have done this to Grandma," MPs investigating euthanasia have been told.

Parliament's Health Select Committee is nearing the end of its inquiry into euthanasia, and its MPs requested for specific evidence to be given on the mechanics of the process by leading veterinarians and an anaesthetist.

While they hadsat through months of public submission hearings on the moral, legal and ethical points around euthanasia, little evidence had been given on the process itselfand what it felt like for the clinician performing it.

David Unwin/Fairfax NZ

MPs were told in committee today, that very few vets would opt to prolong an animals suffering, even though it's the thought of saving animals' lives that drew them to the profession.

Dean of Massey University's Veterinary School Jenny Weston said it was difficult to draw too many parallels between animals and humans, but few vets would prefer to prolong suffering rather than put an animal down.

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Wellington lawyer Lecretia Seales' was denied by the court a right to die at the time of her choosing with help from a her doctor. But her husband Matt Vickers carried on her fight, and with the help of former MP Marion Street, delivered a petition to Parliament, which has resulted in the parliamentary inquiry.

"As a profession, we don't have a compulsory requirement for a debrief as there are in other professions - where you can go and unburden your soul about what might be troubling you.

"I think there would be almost no veterinarians, who when there is a sick animal that's in pain, and there is no treatment available, would have any concerns about it," she said.

Often, while it could be a harrowing procedure for the owners, it was one they were most thankful for.

ROSS GIBLIN/FAIRFAX NZ

Matt Vickers, husband of Lecretia Seales, still hopes Government will put forward a bill to legalise voluntary euthanasia.

"Bizarrely it's one of the most appreciated things by clients - is you get more cakes and boxes of chocolates from grateful clients after doing a good job of euthanasing a much loved animal than you do for repairing a terribly fractured leg," she said.

Questions over whether pets would need to beeuthanasedas frequentlyif quality palliative care existed, were incomparable to a subsidised public health system, she said.

However the process with pets often triggered emotional responses if owners had also watched a loved family member suffer in their last years.

"Certainly, there's a majority of times when youreuthanasingsomebody's pet and the ownerwill comment that 'I wish we could have done this to grandma' and there's certainly a strong view that we are kinder to animals."

Asked about the issue of consent, Weston explained to MPs fundamental differences between animals and humans, and their relationships, made it difficult to draw comparisons.

"I always look at animals I've viewed as property, even when they are companion animals and are very much like a child for a lot of people.

"So it is very different for the medical profession, I would imagine, they would only be asked to assist somebody to die by that person," she said.

The animal belonged to a person,and if thatowner consented that they want it to be put to sleep then the vet would do that.

"And as a person, if you can't own your own body and say what you wish to happen, then I would not want to consider at all that a person is the property of another person who would," Weston said.

HOW IT WORKS

In the way the euthanasia process was carried out, it was typically very peaceful and not dissimilar between animals and humans.

"It's a huge overdose of an anaesthetic, so generally the drug enters the bloodstream and the animal just stops breathing, the pupils dilate and the heart stops beating," said Weston, in the case of animals.

"It works on the brain to shut down the activity on the body. So the heart will keep on beating for a minute or two and the pupils dilate instantly, which is a sign of brain function.

"So as long as you've correctly found the vein then it's usually very peaceful. Sometimes if, in particularly old and very-close-to-death animals, the circulation is compromised and it doesn't act as quickly."

But in those cases, the animal would have totally lost consciousness even though there might be apparentgasping and the expansion of the chest in the moments before they died.

New Zealand Society of Anaesthetists President Dr David Kibblewhite outlined a similar intravenousmethod for the committee, by which barbiturates were administered in humans. They could also be delivered orally, which was more common.

He was only able to speak on the processes he was aware of overseas, because while death could sometimes be an outcome of increased pain medication in a terminal patient's final days,no doctor in New Zealand had actually carried out the euthanasia procedure.

But it was not complicated, and in fact occurred on an almost daily basis as part of open heart surgery.

In that instance a person would be given a sedative and a muscle relaxant, and would then be delivered the barbiturate that would "arrest" or stop the heart.

A heart cannot be beating, or drawing oxygen, while a surgeon is operating on it. It's restarted once the procedure is complete.

In a euthanasia procedure it wouldn't be restarted.

"It's not all that complicated really."

-Stuff

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Euthanasia: How is it done, and what's it like putting down something you've vowed to care for? - Stuff.co.nz