I felt emotional when I heard the vote had gone in favour of Assisted Dying, especially given the narrowness of the result. I have sympathy, and empathy, for those who support the bill after watching their loved ones die in harrowing circumstances. I’ve also sat by relatives’ bedsides wanting their suffering to end.
We should all be secure in the knowledge that support and drugs will be made available, as appropriate, when the time comes.
She has previously faced pressure from health care professionals attached to her GP surgery to accept that there are no circumstances in which she would want to be taken to hospital. Luckily, I’ve been there to fend them off, but a more suggestible person or someone lacking an advocate could easily have agreed.
It is also impossible to avoid cases in which vulnerable people are encouraged (or feel they are being) to end their lives so as not to be a burden.
The Assisted Dying Bill passed by a slim majority in parliament (Photo: Joe Giddens/PA Wire)My view is that end-of-life care, and the process of dying, should never be so bad that patients regard taking their own lives as a better option.
Better funding for palliative care
But palliative care doctors have repeatedly stressed that their branch of medicine is under-funded. I believe proper investment in universal end-of-life care would remove the need for anyone to feel the need to end their own life early. That includes public funding for hospices.
The mood music from the current government is also that people with disabilities, the old and vulnerable, are not to be prioritised for funding; policy will make them poorer and their lives far more difficult.
A society that won’t fund proper palliative care but does fund assisted dying has gone quite badly wrong, in my view.
That might be any one of us.
To contact Samaritans, call 116 123 or visit samaritans.org
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