While I've no reason to doubt you, I also have no reason to doubt the nurse - a health-care professional, after all.

I can only reconcile the two positions by assuming that your wife and your mother fell into the "tiny handful" of patients that pain-killers could not help, a remarkable coincidence. This makes me wonder if those in favour of assisted deaths are focusing exclusively on that handful, while those who are against are looking at all people in the late stages of a terminal illness, whether in pain or not.


On another tack, I also wonder, is there ever a justifiable financial motive?