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An important message

I normally ignore such polls but his one really threatens us in the UK as I fear those of us in healthcare at any level will be part of such a process.
We are way behind as one might expect as the public sees it as easy for doctors to 'do the deed'!

If you feel able to vote, you might also be able to forward this on to others who are concerned that too much weight will be attached to this poll in the forthcoming debates if it overwhelmingly supports revising the law on murder, which is the key question behind this.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9138710/Locked-in-sufferer-Tony-Nicklinson-delighted-at-winning-first-stage-of-right-to-die-court-battle.html
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Dutch mobile euthanasia units to make house calls

New scheme called ‘Life End’ will respond to sick people whose own doctors have refused to help them end their lives at home.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/01/dutch-mobile-euthanasia-units?intcmp=239

It would seem that you can ring for an assisted suicide in Holland and a mobile medical team will turn up to assist! how long before supermarket chains offer this as a new service!!

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Teenage Suicide in Oregon

Concerns are being expressed about the increasing numbers of young people commiting suicide by overdose. Oregon has permitted assisted suicide since 1997.

Follow the link http://vtdigger.org/2012/02/01/page-assisted-suicide-law-sends-contradictory-message/

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EU Directive

Does this EU Directive outlaw Euthansia

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2012/01/29/promoting-pro-life-interpretation-of-advance-directives-in-europe/

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NDY (UK) first Response to the Falconer Report

Dr Kevin Fitzpatrick is working on a detailed response to the Falconer Report and we will publish his thoughts in a short while. However I’ve reproduced below his initial concerns. We would welcome any views or comments you might have. Please feel free to post on our Forum page or send an email.

Initial Reaction to Lord Falconer’s Report on Assisted Suicide by Dr Kevin Fitzpatrick

The work of this group (never formally constituted as a ‘commission’ despite its name) was funded by wealthy supporter of euthanasia/assisted dying.

It was populated mostly with supporters of euthanasia/assisted dying.

Headline

The report states clearly (p19) that: ‘It is not the role of the Commission to promote a change in the law’ yet its headline is: the law as it stands, is inadequate and incoherent.

The report then immediately goes on to describe (what it views as) the ‘case for change’.

The whole endeavour and report of this group is to make a case for changing the law in order to allow euthanasia/assisted suicide.

But the work and the report is shot through with difficulties, many of them unresolved and even insurmountable, despite the tone and tenor of it.

Evidence?

Having spent so much time gathering ‘evidence’ from 1,200 responses, 6 public events, visits to Switzerland, Holland, Belgium and Oregon US, and commissioning ‘original research’, it is damning that the group was unable to fulfil its stated purposes.

In the first place, its wealthy patron Sir Terry Pratchett wished to have legal room to have an assisted suicide when his Alzheimer’s disease has progressed to ‘a certain point’. That point has not (cannot?) be determined in advance. In keeping with the problems associated with this and other mental capacity issues, the group found it would not sanction euthanasia/assisted suicide for anyone who has a difficulty with mental capacity.

In the second place, the task was to find a way to support people who could no longer physically take their own lives. In this case mental capacity is not the issue, but the physical capacity to e.g. inject oneself, was no longer present as a result of progressive illness. The group also recommended that euthanasia/assisted suicide should only be allowed for those who have physical capacity to do it themselves (whether pressing a button to activate a machine or to be able to take and swallow a poison). Thus the high-profile cases such as Tony Nicklinson, which generated so much ill-informed public sympathy, are not allowed by the terms of this report.

Thirdly, the arbiters of death are supposed to be doctors. This is a real problem since most doctors do not want to participate in euthanasia/assisted suicides. That means only the doctors who already believe in euthanasia/assisted suicide will come forward. But the point of euthanasia/assisted suicide is not that it is a medical decision – it is exactly the opposite, being a decision where medicine has reached its limits and it is decided that all further medical intervention is futile. Therefore end-of-life decisions are exactly not medical decisions – they cannot be. They are however moral decisions – but whilst the report recommends checking and re-checking the individual’s ‘settled’ intention and motivation for requesting euthanasia/assisted dying, it makes no effort to recognise that doctors are:

  1. a) No better placed to make such moral decision simply in virtue of being doctors
  2. b) Are just as open to human frailties and can make mistakes (the ruling about junior doctors not working extremely long hours is just because of this human frailty)
  3. c) Can be influenced in so many ways by other pressures, just as anyone might
  4. d) May be the worst placed to make such decisions having developed a clinical (inured) view of death over some years of practice
  5. e) May be open to secondary gain

This last e) is never considered but to take two examples of doctors openly involved in euthanasia/assisted suicide: Dr Philip Nitschke is an Australian doctor who killed (at least) 4 people by his own admission, when the law in Northern Territories allowed it for a period. We do not know how much he makes from his books and travels around the world giving seminars ‘informing’ people ‘how to die’. We do not know how much the Swiss clinic makes from providing the ‘euthanasia service’. But there are other gains: the photo released in the press of Peter Smedley’s death showed two women at his side. One was cradling his head tenderly on her breast and the other was sitting at the bedside touching his arm lightly; the former was the doctor who administered the poison on which he choked to death, the latter was his wife of forty years, witness and bystander. We do not know what sense of power over life and death this doctor has, but it is truly chilling to listen o either of them speaking about their roles.

This is also important because good clinical governance is about patient safety. How can anyone feel safe in the hands of an avowed euthanasia/assisted suicide supporting doctor or nurse? That has not been raised as a question in the report which speaks of confidence in professionals (medical and social workers) but then also contradicts itself and argues that special training should be developed for these professionals.

There is no training which can turn anyone into a moral expert, not doctors nor family.

No patient can feel safe in the hands of a doctor ready to, or who already has been party to euthanasia/assisted dying.

Clinical governance demands everything be done to alleviate any suffering and protecting patient safety – the doctor’s role embraces both not just the first.

Anyone faced with the end of life can be vulnerable to all sorts of feelings and deserves more protection, not less, and the report actually makes a much stronger case for pressing forward in providing the best palliative care possible than for introducing a law for a tiny number of people, most of whom are, in fact, excluded by its findings.

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Spokesman for Scottish bishops concerned by Falconer report that pro-life groups call biased

The parliamentary officer  for Scotland’s bishops has deemed as ‘dangerous’  proposals released last week calling for the legalisation of assisted suicide in England and Wales.

Pro-life and anti-euthanasia groups throughout the UK have also united in their condemnation of the 400-page Falconer Report.

http://www.sconews.co.uk/news/15506/‘dangerous’-assisted-suicide-report/

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Disability charities evade questions over support for assisted suicide

Organisations providing services to disabled people – including disability charities and a hospice – have evaded questions about their links with a commission that has called for assisted suicide to be legalised.

The Commission on Assisted Dying concluded last week that assisted suicide could “safely” be offered to people who are terminally-ill, if they are believed to have less than a year to live, are over 18, and satisfy certain other “eligibility criteria”.

The report was described by horrified disabled activists as a “major attack on disabled people”.

Only one of the 11 commissioners refused to back the report’s conclusions, while several others – who all backed legalisation – have close links with organisations providing services to disabled people.

These include Dr Carole Dacombe, medical director of St Peter’s Hospice in Bristol; Baroness [Barbara] Young, chief executive of Diabetes UK; and Professor Sam Ahmedzai, a professor of palliative medicine at the University of Sheffield and head of the academic unit of supportive care at its School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

Others include Baroness [Elaine] Murphy, a vice-president of the Alzheimer’s Society; and Dame Denise Platt, chair of the National AIDS Trust (NAT).

St Peter’s Hospice declined to comment on whether it was comfortable with its medical director publicly backing the legalisation of assisted suicide.

A hospice spokeswoman said: “We do not want to make a comment about it. I do not need to explain why we will not be making a comment.”

A spokesman for Diabetes UK refused to comment on whether it was comfortable with its chief executive publicly backing the legalisation of assisted suicide.

Instead, he said the charity did not believe there was a conflict of interest with Baroness Young taking part in the commission.

A University of Sheffield spokesman said Professor Ahmedzai joined the commission “in his own right as an expert in palliative care and care in the last months of life, not as a representative of the university”.

But he was unable to say whether the university was comfortable with Professor Ahmedzai backing the legalisation of assisted suicide.

The Alzheimer’s Society said Baroness Murphy’s position as a vice-president was an “honorary” role, and she was not a spokeswoman for the charity and was “entitled to viewpoints independent from those of the society”.

She added: “Alzheimer’s Society does not support a change in the law on euthanasia or assisted dying.

“However, we welcome a debate on all end-of-life issues and consult our members on an ongoing basis to ensure our position reflects their views on this important matter.”

A National AIDS Trust (NAT) spokeswoman said the charity was comfortable with the position Dame Denise had taken.

Deborah Jack, NAT’s chief executive, had earlier said in a statement that the charity had “no position” on Dame Denise’s membership of the commission because it had “not so far been relevant to our work as an HIV policy and campaigning organisation, nor has it been brought to our attention by people living with HIV, or organisations supporting them”.

But Dr Kevin Fitzpatrick, the former Disability Rights Commission’s commissioner with responsibility for Wales, and a spokesman for Not Dead Yet UK – the campaigning network of disabled people opposed to legalisation – said these organisations linked to the commission would be “understandably embarrassed” and disabled people would now avoid them “like the plague”.

He added: “The last thing you want is a doctor coming to your bedside who you know has already spoken out in favour of assisted suicide.”

 

Supplied by John Pring www.disabilitynewsservice.com

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Activists launch bid for funds to fight threat of assisted suicide

Disabled campaigners fighting to ward off the threat of legalised assisted suicide have been forced to launch a fundraising appeal to try to counteract the huge financial resources of their opponents.

Not Dead Yet UK – the campaigning network of disabled people opposed to legalisation – is run by volunteers, and has almost no funding to continue its battle.

The network decided to launch an urgent appeal for funds following last week’s report from The Commission on Assisted Dying, which was bankrolled by euthanasia supporters and set up by the pro-assisted suicide charity Dignity in Dying.

The commission’s work was funded by two pro-euthanasia multi-millionaires, the author Terry Pratchett, who has Alzheimer’s disease, and Bernard Lewis, founder of the retail chain River Island.

The thinktank Demos, which hosted the year-long commission, declined to say how much it had cost, and told Disability News Service that it was “not allowed to give out details of the cost of projects”.

Responding to reports that it had cost £500,000, a Demos spokeswoman said: “I cannot verify that. I would be very wary of using that.”

Dr Kevin Fitzpatrick, the former Disability Rights Commission’s commissioner with responsibility for Wales, and a spokesman for Not Dead Yet UK, said the network wanted to build a “grassroots response” to the commission’s proposals and “find a way to support the work that we are doing”.

He said: “We are doing this with a heavy heart and we really do not want anybody who cannot afford it to give anything at all. For those people, we would just be happy with their name and support.”

He said Not Dead Yet UK was hoping for a large number of people to sign up to giving as little as £2 a month to support its work, through its website.

He said: “In order for the public to be informed it has to hear both sides of the story equally.

“The problem is that because they have all the resources, their side is being promoted much more highly than ours.”

 

Writtten by John Pring www.disabilitynewsservice.com

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Caring for the Dying Debate at Westminster Hall

Unfortunately I can’t go to this but we will submit our concerns in writing. For further details please contact Stuart Ramsey.

David Burrowes MP has successfully applied for a Westminster Hall debate on the subject of assisted dying, to be held on Tuesday 17th January at 9.30am. The title is “Care of the dying” and the debate will focus on the recommendations of the recently published Falconer Commission report.

 

If you have any responses to the Commission report or a briefing on the subject of assisted dying of those with terminal illness that you would like made available to MPs taking part in the debate, please send it to me at stuart.ramsay@parliament.uk in the first instance,

Stuart Ramsay Office of John Glen MP

House of Commons

London

SW1A 0AA

T: 020 7219 1316

E: stuart.ramsay@parliament.uk

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A Supportive Daily Mail article!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2084706/David-Camerons-Welfare-Reform-Bill-Hiding-truth-way-achieve-it.html

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