A petition with over 9,200 signatures has been delivered to Downing Street by campaigners fighting against the proposed legalisation of assisted suicide.
The petition was organised by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) and called on the federal government to reform funding for hospices that provide end-of-life care, moderately than go down the route of state sanctioned suicide.
The petition states that the necessity for palliative care is predicted to rise by 1 / 4 in the following 25 years and that “the present model for funding hospices will not be fit for purpose”.
As such the petition demands that “long-term reform of hospice funding” be a component of the federal government’s 10-year plan for the NHS.
Terry Graham, SPUC’s Northern Development Officer, said, “The UK is facing a palliative care crisis. A Marie Curie study, published last yr, found that just about half (49%) of bereaved respondents were unhappy with the end-of-life care that a member of the family received, and one in eight made an official grievance.”
The petition was promoted by Dr Dominic Whitehouse, a palliative care expert. He spoke of the urgent need for more funding for end-of-life care.
“I’m only too aware of the desperate situation of many hospices, where lack of funding means they’re unable to deliver the extent of care needed by the local people,” he said.
“I would like to offer my dying patients the absolute best care available, in order that they will have a peaceful and dignified death.”
Third Reading on the Bill that may see assisted suicide legalised is on account of happen on 16 May.
The Bill passed Second Reading in November, nevertheless reports suggest that many MPs who voted in favour did so on account of the safeguard of a High Court judge being required to approve an assisted suicide. This was watered all the way down to a panel of experts at committee stage, apparently causing some MPs to reconsider their support for the bill.
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