Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not know if this is a question or just something for us to think about based on the contributions. It is something I have been thinking about for months now, namely, the idea of burden. In some cases, there might be a person who has lived a completely independent life and becomes terminally ill or develops some sort of progressive disease. It is that very transition existing that creates the idea of burden in their mind because they never want to live a life where they have to rely on others. I get a bit stuck on the idea that burden is somehow related to all the external factors. In some cases, of course it is. Of course, some people will feel like a burden if they do not have family support, a home care package or an accessible home. There are some things that can alleviate the burden on people and would result in them not choosing this. For me, and it might be an issue to discuss with the psychologists when they are in, it is the idea that you could probably meet the needs of every person that comes up, in terms of the psychosocial needs, family support, finance to meet their needs, access to medicine, all the physical supports and fully supporting the family, and still somebody could say, regardless of all of those factors, that it does not change the internal psychological factor that they still do not want their family or anybody else having to do this for them. Sometimes burden is not only about the external supports, but about a person's wish to live independently.

When that independence is completely stripped from them, they may decide that they do not want to live with any sort of reliance on other people. I sometimes think we need to maybe tease the idea of burden out a little and away from only the things that seem like external supports to reduce burden.