Doctors in Scotland are speaking out against proposals to legalise assisted suicide.
Concerns have been raised because the Scottish Parliament prepares to think about laws to vary the law that has been brought forward by Lib Dem MSP Liam McArthur.
Scottish A&E consultant Dr Calvin Lightbody told The Sunday Post that there must be more honesty in regards to the reality of assisted suicide.
“I feel we’ve got to spell out the reality that not everyone choosing assisted dying slips away quietly,” he said.
“Around 10 per cent will suffer seizures, vomiting, prolonged dying or other complications in the method.”
He expressed concerns about a scarcity of opt-out provision for doctors who cannot provide assisted suicide on grounds of conscence, and said he feared that legalising assisted suicide “may also destroy trust patients have of their doctors”.
He desires to see the expansion of palliative care provision within the NHS as a substitute.
Respiratory physician Dr Robin Taylor, who is predicated in west Scotland, said there have been “good reasons” why assisted suicide has not been legalised so far.
“I actually have been asked eight to 10 times by patients to finish their lives after diagnosing a terminal illness,” he said.
“But the Hippocratic oath of greater than 2,400 years old still stands. It obliges me neither to kill my patients nor even discuss killing them. There are good reasons for boundaries.
“If we open the door to assisted suicide, it’ll profoundly affect the NHS and the challenges of medical practice will increase hugely if assisted dying is taken into account a treatment option.
“We are already battling staff retention due to the current pressures.”
He warned of a “slippery slope” in other countries where assisted suicide has already been legalised.
“After initial laws designed to permit assisted dying in mentally in poor health patients were passed in Canada, legislators are actually being asked to reconsider. That’s an example of how ‘slippery slope’ laws has huge consequences,” he said.
“This included a teen aged 19, who was granted it due to anorexia nervosa.”
He believes a greater way forward can be to make palliative care a “mainstream option within the NHS not mainly funded by charities currently”, and improve the standard of the care on offer.
“We have to devote ourselves to higher palliative care,” he said.
“It remains to be patchy and is determined by charitable funding. Medical care rightly prioritises saving lives. But when someone is nearing the top of their natural lives, priorities need to vary.
“Research amongst junior doctors showed that in over 50 per cent of end-of-life cases, they desired to offer palliative treatments but felt obliged to treat in a cure not care way.”
