Letters - 11 October 2013
From death and dying to government myopia
Death and dying
Further to Alison Leonard’s thoughtful and wide-ranging articles (30 August to 20 September), I believe the original intention of the Quaker Concern around Dying and Death was to produce a document entitled A Quaker view of death and dying. At the 2010 Quaker dialogue it was stated that it was too early to do this but, in view of NHS changes, it may be that such a publication has acquired a new urgency.
One of the speakers at the 2010 dialogue gave an account of the nightmare of her mother’s death as she was subjected to fix after medical fix. Elizabeth Hocking, of Cirencester Meeting, a retired consultant geriatrician, wrote to the Friend two years ago suggesting the elderly should have to opt in to resuscitation rather than opt out. The late Karol Wojtyla referred to modern medical practice striving officiously to keep people alive.
The internal market in the NHS may have encouraged overtreatment. A South London GP was prepared to accuse his local hospital, on television, of carrying out some hundred or more invasive procedures for commercial reasons and I have heard similar anecdotes. The new external market in healthcare can only increase commercial pressures.
I suffer from a number of serious illnesses and, whilst I am grateful to modern medicine, I have on occasion had to make my wishes clear very robustly. It, perhaps, behoves us to remember the words of Ecclesiastes:
To everything there is a season… A time to every purpose under the heaven A time to be born, and a time to die…
Michael Woolliscroft
Quaker faith & practice revision
Following on from Edward Hoare (4 October) I, too, support placing modern Quaker faith & practice within a clear historical perspective. I would also go further than answer the question now being posed to the Society about whether it reflects current faith and practice and urge that, in its opening, it should present our vision for the future of our Society.
Britain Yearly Meeting in 2006 fundamentally changed the role of Meeting for Sufferings (MfS) when it charged MfS with taking on ‘a visionary and prophetic role for the life of the Yearly Meeting, to draw our whole community together, to work for a better world’ and ‘to become a crucible for sharing and testing’ all the work.
In taking on their new responsibilities, MfS declared: ‘We understand that a crucible is a melting pot. Reactions take place, and something different emerges. Being a crucible means that MfS should become a vehicle for transformation, of ourselves and of the Society as a whole. There should be room for exciting change. Meeting for Sufferings should offer spiritual leadings. We should seek the leadings of God, and ask how God is working among us.’
Geoffrey Braithwaite
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