Letters: What about all those plastic ballpoint pens?

WITH all the current concern over "plastic pollution" and the end of single-use plastic bags, it has struck me that there seems to be another major item that seems to have been completely overlooked.

I refer to the plastic ballpoint pen.

There must be literally billions of them in daily use all over the world and equally as many used ones discarded daily. Apart from plastic, they also contain metal springs and ball ends as well as the remnants of ink. Really great to be put into landfills etc.

Let's start a campaign to dispose of disposable plastic ballpoint pens. Perhaps we could bring back quills.

DOUG PRICE
Castlecliff

Carols in the Barn

Thank you for your publicity for the inaugural Carols in the Barn at St John's Wood Fellowship with the donkeys and ponies.

I am delighted to say that the rain held off and about 80 people attended, raising $433 for Riding for the Disabled.

WENDY WARD
Aramoho

Homeless at Christmas

Some of us will be enjoying Christmas and, sadly, there are others whose lives are disrupted simply because they have not been able to find a place to call home by December 24.

This is the date that probably more than one person in Whanganui has been given to vacate their rental property. There are property managers who will say these people do not meet the standards required.

There is minimal emergency housing in Whanganui and, I understand, at present no vacancies. No surprise, then, if some of these people end up on the street to join the multitude of homeless.

Some of our loved ones are not able to live with their families owing to the nature of the diagnosis. If medication is missed they become irrational and unpredictable, meaning another person's life is at risk.

Therefore, because they have not been able to find accommodation and it is unsafe for them to be living with, in particular, a single elderly female member of the family, where do they go?

It might be preferable to have our loved ones housed in a supervised environment, but it is not always possible, as they have to agree to it. They also need to meet certain criteria — for example, a court order because they have physically hurt somebody.

If they murder a loved one, they will go to jail — and, guess what, have a home. A sad sequence of events, wouldn`t you say?

A MANION
Whanganui

Assisted dying

I disagree with F R Halpin (Chronicle letters; December 11) that assisted dying is the same as suicide.

Those who have lost a loved one to an untimely death by suicide are invariably traumatised and grief-stricken. Their anguish stems from the fact that they know the person was traumatised, desperate and alone at the time of dying.

By comparison, those who have lost a loved one to assisted dying are not traumatised, though they mourn as is natural. But they are usually at peace because they know the person was at peace and felt supported at the time of dying.

Palliative care does not help between 4 per cent and 8 per cent of patients — this is simply because some do not respond well to the medications available or because such medications cause worse side-effects.

For these patients, palliative care offers "terminal sedation", the practice of withdrawing food and water, and deeply sedating the patient until death. It can take up to two weeks for either the disease, the starvation, the dehydration or a combination of all three to end life.

Is terminal sedation the same as killing? I think not — it's an attempt at a gentle death and so is assisted dying. The difference is that the patient will not have to undergo those final days, even weeks, slowly dying.

Have a drop of compassion for both the patient and for the family at the bedside.

DIANNE COOPER
Kapiti

Send your letters to: The Editor, Whanganui Chronicle, 100 Guyton St, PO Box 433, Whanganui 4500; or email editor@wanganuichronicle.co.nz