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DEAD GOOD ADVICE from Agony Aunt Euthanasia by Diana Forrest

Dear Euthanasia

I don't know where to turn. My pharmaceutical firm encouraged all staff to join their pension scheme, but it has gone broke and I now have only the stingy State pension to live on. I feel so desperate I could almost take an overdose of some of the stuff we make and end it all.

OLD TIMER

Dear Old Timer

What are you waiting for? A staff discount?

EUTHANASIA

Dear Euthanasia,

Professor Alan Williams says that at nearly 70 he has had a fair innings. He plans to hold back from using the NHS so someone younger can benefit.

I'm 71 myself and I still enjoy life. I've paid more into the NHS than a young person has, and I don't see why we can't both use it.

Yours vitally,

LIVELY

Dear Lively,

How selfish can you get!

Of course the NHS has its place - it would be wasteful to let economically active people die once valuable training had been invested in them. And, anyway, something's got to finance me.

But it makes me furious to think of free medical treatment thrown away on useless eaters like you. Isn't there an ice floe somewhere you could walk out onto? Don't just sit there enjoying life.

Yours angrily

EUTHANASIA

Dear Euthanasia,

I am a medical condition with an identity crisis.

When I was young, I was told that I was irreversible and as horrific as Death itself. How proud I felt! How simple everything seemed then!

But later I was told about other conditions. One in which a person could follow objects with their eyes was said to be nearly the same as me. I felt disturbed. Then I was told that a condition that allowed a slight degree of consciousness could be more feared than I was. I felt undermined and developed an inferiority complex.

Now this man Andrew Devine has recovered from me enough to communicate! After eight years! I am disturbed, undermined, and confused as well.

Yours passively

PERMANENT VEGETATIVE STATE

Dear Permanent Vegetative State,

Stop taking doctors so seriously! Concentrate on basics. Just wait till I am legalised. Once they can convince the families, doctors will be allowed to kill anyone who has you. They won't be able to recover from you then, will they?

Yours helpfully EUTHANASIA

Diana Forrest

EUTHANASIA SOLVES IT ALL

No. 2

Dear Euthanasia,

A Medical Education Trust leaflet by Dr. Robert Twycross, "A PAIN-FREE DEATH?" suggested to me that the pain I was suffering might be treatable. So I insisted on my GP referring me to a pain specialist. Now my treatment has been changed and I feel much better. I've thrown away my VES literature.

Who needs you?

IMPATIENT

Dear Impatient,

There is only one cure for pain, and I've got it.

Yours infallibly

EUTHANASIA

Dear Euthanasia,

If death is regarded as a medical treatment, won't hard pressed medical services be tempted to resort to it just to save money?

CONCERNED

Dear Concerned,

With any luck.

Yours fiscally

EUTHANASIA

Diana E. Forrest -