“I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgement, but never with a view to injure or wrongdoing. Neither will I administer a poison to anyone when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course…”
~ The Hippocratic Oath
This extract from the Hippocratic Oath remains basic to medical practise.
“Assisted dying” is a euphemism for facilitating the death of a sick person. If this Bill were to become law, it would fundamentally change the doctor patient relationship. It would also change doctor to doctor relationship.
Some proponents of the Bill have told of their actual experiences with dying loved ones. May I be forgiven for adding my own experience. My late wife outlived what we were told was her “best possible prognosis”, by seventeen years. Predicting death within six or even twelve months is impossible.
A P Cole FRCPE FRCPCH
Originally Submitted to Worcester News
The proponents of assisted suicide should not be naive enough to think that an assisted dying law won’t become a licence to kill the old and the weak. Apart from the fact that such a change in law would be an abhorrent and immoral development for both vulnerable people and health professionals, the history of the discredited Liverpool Care Pathway is a warning. Fragile human nature is not always immune to the abuse of invested power or resistant to coercion.
People need to be protected by Parliamentarians, whose first duty is to protect the public from dangers inherent in the repeated campaigns for assisted suicide. These campaigners overlook the first duty of health professionals; to do no harm. They also reflect the fact that it is the minority who wish to impose on the majority.
Hospice care is very dependent on charity funding., Therefore, lobbying for proper funding for this aspect of care, would be the positive, logical and compassionate strategy for people in need. It is becoming well known that patients who feel a burden to their families or carers account for many requests for this so called ‘care’ option.
The UK revolutionised Palliative Care. Any change in the law would not require the ever-growing expertise seen in this specialty. Assisted suicide would certainly be cheaper than the holistic care model of palliative care and no doubt, expected to become another ‘developed nurse role’.
Discussions about the possible future demedicalisation of such a change in the law, do not negate the fact that any care professional (medical, nursing or social) has a code of practice and a duty of care to patients.
All care professionals need to study the impact of the commonly-revered concept of ‘patient autonomy’ where despair can be the prevailing emotion. We need to instil in carers from undergraduate training onwards, the need to develop trusted professional expertise for symptom relief, including patients’ emotional, psychological and spiritual care needs.
Health professionals with a moral compass and conscience will refuse to act as ‘agents of the state’ should the law change. This will show their patients that they can have implicit trust in their good will, their care expertise and true, not false compassion.
This approach must be promoted for patients in need.
Helping patients to kill themselves must be considered as a taboo not only by the professions, but by society as a whole, which is to be judged by how it treats the most vulnerable.
Teresa Lynch, Nurse