Right to choose
IN EARLY June in Victoria my nephew's agonising suffering ended.
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He chose to have a voluntary assisted death.
He had tried heroically to bear and manage the frightful pain.
With his closest loved ones by his bedside and medical staff support he passed gently, with tranquility into his death.
I'm glad he had the choice to make.
You don't have to use what's available but don't prevent others from not having a choice.
Medical staff whose personal convictions prevent them from assisting someone to die should be able to hand over such cases to others able to cope.
J Breen, Newnham.
Council Amalgamations
WHAT a disappointing article from Barry Prismall (The Examiner, July 26).
I expected Barry's usual cogent arguments to back his stance.
All we got were platitudes about the ease of knowing councillors - a simple factor relating to how many of them there are.
What Barry didn't address was the duplications we see across the state, a waste of public monies.
Councils were set up in the days of horse transport where 10 kilometres was a formidable distance.
With the ease of modern communication, vehicular or airwaves, distances have shrunk.
Far better, for example, to have a well set up sports complex at, say, Campbell Town to serve the whole Midlands.
I believe it is time our councils were regional rather than district based, with financial resources ale to deliver on major infrastructure developments, not to imitate what a neighbouring town has, but to provide new, needed resources.
Regional councils would demand far less support from other forms of government.
Dick James, Launceston.
School details
WEST Tamar councillors Tim Woinarski and Peter Kearney are right to be concerned about the lack of available information regarding the proposed Legana Primary School; one essential item of information that is missing, and one that no one seems to be unduly concerned about, is exactly where are they going to put this very much overdue, but crucial, educational facility? (The Examiner, July 30).
It defies belief that bureaucrats, and governments, can seriously talk about planning for a new school when they haven't even decided on a site for it; or is to be a very much Australian "School of (in) the Air"?
Jim Collier, Legana.
To live with pain
I'M WRITING about helping the dying and terminally sick who should be allowed to go whichever way they choose.
My motto for myself, if I was ill and dying, is I don't want to live in pain.
I don't like pain, to be trapped and attached to tubes, my body being eaten away inside.
It isn't living, it's dying.
I would like someone to help me, it's my life, let me do with it as I like.
I am all for the voluntary assisted dying.
B Pearce, Bothwell.
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