Assisted Suicide - a short reflection from a physician

I am writing this as a retired NHS consultant to highlight the critical importance of the upcoming vote on the private member’s bill aimed at changing the law in relation to assisted suicide.

Only a couple of years after I qualified, while working as a junior doctor and editing a newspaper called “On Call”, I had the privilege of meeting and interviewing Dame Cicely Saunders at St Christopher’s Hospice in South London. Dame Cicely was an inspirational figure who not only understood that end of life care was very poorly delivered in the UK (and, to be fair, everywhere else) but had the drive and commitment to fight for change. The national debate she initiated lead to the introduction of what we now call “the Hospice movement”. All over the country charities raised huge sums of money to buy the land, build the facilities and employ the staff to provide gold standard palliative care to as many people as possible at the end of their life. The Hospice sector is still doing amazing work, although the ability to do so is being seriously threatened by a failure of NHS funding systems to sustain support in line with inflationary pressures.

Meeting Dame Cicely lit a fire in me that has never gone out and I have seen the impact of the work she espoused up close - particularly as a volunteer at LOROS (the Hospice for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland), where I help facilitate a group for the recently bereaved, and have served as a trustee for over twenty years in two stints - with seven of those as Chair.

The basic principle championed by Cicely Saunders and her successors in Hospices was, and still is, that the pain and distress that may accompany the last days of life can ALWAYS be controlled if the right care is provided in a timely manner - and my experience has been that this is absolutely the case. Throughout the time I have been involved, I can honestly say that no one has ever suggested that they or their loved ones has found the services offered by our end of life care professionals wanting, regardless of the type of illness that has brought them to that point. Quite the reverse in fact - the many, many testimonials I have seen and heard speak of wonderful experiences of the “good death” that top quality Hospice care provides to patients and their families and friends.

In short, therefore, if health and social care services were adequately provided to all those at the end of life, there would be no need for anyone to request assisted suicide, and the moral dilemma facing physicians - whether to move to a position of actively ending someone’s life - would not arise.

What we now need to do is to use every method at our disposal to explain why this legislation is not necessary and, indeed, poses significant dangers. We must insist that the Government provides the resources required to provide high quality end of life care to everyone who needs it instead of taking the morally bankrupt, but possibly easier, option of opening the door to a disastrous scenario that completely devalues the legal status of God-given life.”

Robin

Professor Robin Graham-Brown KGCHS