Don Brand writes
Excellent Reith lecture this morning on medical approaches to end-of-life and what’s wrong with them (doctors too busy giving patients information, don’t ask them questions and listen to the answers. But the lecturer, a distinguished Indian/US surgeon, touched very briefly on assisted dying in the lecture, and this was opened up in the discussion. Chairman of Dignity in Dying in the audience, taking the party line, but a very measured response from the lecturer – he gave the view that it might be cruel to withhold the AD option for the small number of people who really were suffering intolerable and un-relievable pain and distress, and mentioned that AD was available in a number of US States. But he went on to quote the figures for Oregon, that less than 1% of people requested the prescription, and half of them chose not to use it; and compared that with the position in Belgium and the Netherlands, where the figures were around 4%, and the commonest reason people gave was that they didn’t want to be a burden. He felt this was very dangerous, and indicated that doctors had got too much power and responsibility in their systems. He was arguing strongly for supporting people to take control of the decisions in the final stages, asking questions that will enable them to say what they want and, as important, what they fear might happen; letting them decide whether and when to discontinue treatment; and making sure the option is available of going home with hospice services.
At the end of this part of the Q&A, the chair asked if anyone in the audience wanted to offer a different view from the DiD consultant, and nobody did. “Cowards” was the lecturer’s quiet response.