1. The Dilemma
Aired: 9/7/2014
A story about love, mercy and the things people do to save the ones they love.
Pippa is a vet working in a practice based in north London. She is married to Shaun, a tree surgeon running his own outfit, and they are expecting their first child. She has been a vet for the best part of a decade and is beginning to struggle with the more complex ethical elements of her job, like putting down animals and the spiralling insurance and treatment costs that her patients regularly complain about. However, she shows remarkable grace when at work, treating all her patients with great care and attention.
Her widowed mother Angela is diagnosed with terminal cancer. She has expressed to her daughter that she is struggling to find the energy and the reserve to keep up the fight against her illness. Knowing that at her practice she has the capability to end a life mercifully, the daughter now has to make the biggest decision she has ever made - whether to help her mother end her life.