Call to let doctors help terminally ill patients die

Top doctor says people who are dying need equivalent of midwives to help ease, and possibly end suffering and pain

The Guardian, Denis Campbell, health correspondent, Tuesday 1 July 2014

A hospice worker holds a patient's hand. John Ashton is the most senior doctor
yet to publicly back patients’ right to die. Photograph: Joanne O'Brien/Alamy

Doctors should be able to help terminally ill patients end their lives days or weeks before they die, one of the leaders of Britain's medical profession has urged.

Terminally ill patients should be provided with the professional equivalent of midwives to help ease the pain and suffering and if necessary shorten the end of their lives, said Prof John Ashton, president of the Faculty of Public Health.

He demanded a change in the law so that doctors caring for people who are dying can end their suffering by giving a lethal dose of drugs to those who want it without the risk of prosecution.

He is the most senior doctor yet to publicly back patients' right to die. In an interview with the Guardian he also:

• Argued for a national move to a four-day working week to combat rising levels of mental illness. He said: "When you look at the way we lead our lives, the stress that people are under, the pressure on time and sickness absence, [work-related] mental health is clearly a major issue. We should be moving towards a four-day week because the problem we have in the world of work is you've got a proportion of the population who are working too hard and a proportion that haven't got jobs."

• Raised concerns about the rising suicide rates among younger men: "There's something in the dramatically changed position of men in society vis-a-vis women and vis-a-vis the labour market that's affecting men's self-esteem and self-confidence as a result of this dislocation, with the reduction in their traditional role as breadwinners."

• Claimed child mental health services were in crisis: "We're not preventing problems in young people and we're not responding to them when they get them. People can't get seen, even when they're really ill."

• Attacked the lack of sex education in schools: "Classroom teachers will tell you boys are looking at pornography on their iPhones at the age of 11,12 and 13. This is where they're getting their sex information from, because we're not giving them proper sex and relationships education."

On assisted dying, he said: "All over the country people are spending their last days and weeks in major discomfort because their medical carers are not willing to accept that it's the end of the line and to give them the necessary sedation to just speed things up a bit."

Just as midwives help babies come into the world, some terminally ill patients in pain may seek the help of a health professional to end their life. "We have midwives; we need an equivalent of a midwife at the end of life," he said.

He also urged the NHS to stop "keeping people going at any price" when they are near death by doing everything possible to prolong their lives, such as using drips and trying other forms of treatment, which he described as "a big problem".

His remarks ignited a new row over doctors' role in end of life care. On 18 July peers will debate a private member's bill proposed by the former Labour minister Lord Falconer which wants terminally ill adult patients who have less than six months to live and who are mentally competent to be able to choose an assisted death in which a doctor would write the prescription for the drugs but the patient would administer them.

One religious group said Ashton's views were chilling and that doctor-assisted suicide would let doctors "play God" with dying patients and would see vulnerable patients being killed.

Ashton said: "I think a significant proportion of the population would like to feel confident that if it came to the crunch they could call on their doctor to help them out … if their quality of life is so poor and that it's only a matter of days or weeks anyway, that they would like to be able to draw down that gift of a [medical] practitioner." He stressed after the interview that he was speaking in a personal capacity on that issue.

The veteran public health expert, who held a number of senior NHS posts until he retired last year, said he would be happy for doctors "to stop treatment, to be more ready to prescribe the sort of medication that doctors do prescribe in terms of sedatives, comfort drugs and medicine … that means they will be more likely to [die] sooner rather than later.

"When doctors take this strident view that doctors won't get involved in this in any way I don't think they are in tune with what the public want to be able to get from their advisers. There is a narrow line between actively taking someone's life and supporting their passing, and that's the art of medicine."

He added: "Personally, I would like that for myself if I was in this position. I would like to be able to call on a doctor to help me take this last step."

Andrea Williams, the chief executive of the Christian lobby group Christian Concern, led criticism of Ashton. "To say that it's care for a doctor to kill is … a complete denial of their Hippocratic oath," she said. "A doctor is there to care for the patient, not to kill the patient. Midwives joyfully bring life into the world. It's not a doctor's place to play God at the end of life."

The medical royal colleges representing hospital doctors and GPs, whose members would be most affected by any change in the law, both said they were opposed to assisted dying being legalised.

But Prof Raymond Tallis, the chairman of Healthcare Professionals for Assisted Dying, a 1,000-strong group of doctors and nurses, backed Ashton. "It's totally appropriate that they should have the assistance of physicians if they have intolerable symptoms. It's very much the humane response to human suffering," said Tallis, an ex-professor of geriatric medicine at Manchester University.

Ashton had previously said that he "absolutely" supported doctor-assisted suicide. "As a humanist I believe each person as a citizen has an exclusive right to the final freedom – the choice of when and how to exit life," he told the BMJ.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: "The government believes that any change to the law in this emotive area is an issue of individual conscience and a matter for parliament to decide, rather than government policy."

Related Articles:

Assisted suicide campaigners fail to get supreme court to overturn ban

Assisted suicide campaigners await supreme court verdict on right to die

Top French court grants coma patient the right to die
Belgian law on euthanasia for children, with no age limit, will be first in world

Europe split on right-to-die regulations

French panel recommends legalising assisted suicide

Euthanasia declaration should be renewed regularly
Nine myths about euthanasia in the Netherlands


 "Current" Events –  Apr 10, 2005 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

"... The Ethics of Life

You, as a Human Being, are designed to appreciate and love life. But you put it in a box. You think you live once. You say, life is precious; make it count; keep it going at all costs; make it work. And the underlying thought is that because you only go around one time, all the purpose is wrapped up in one lifetime. Well, I'm going to give you something to think about, something that happened just recently that tens of millions of people all over earth who have the western news media know of.

It was all about one woman's life, and you know who I'm talking about. I'm talking about Terri [Terri Schiavo]. And I'm going to talk about Terri because, you know, she's here [speaking of the real Terri]! And I'm going to give you a perspective about Terri that perhaps you hadn't thought about before, and as I do it, she's going to watch.

It's very metaphysical, you know? This perspective is one from my side of the veil. Terri leaned into the wind of birth many years ago, just as you did. I was there, too. There were potentials laying in front of her - a track that she could take if she wished. There was no predestination, only predispositions of energy that laid before her: the parents she would have (which she had selected), the man she might meet or marry, the accident waiting to happen. All of these things were in her "potential track," and she could have chosen not to go there.

But like so many of you, she looked at it and examined it. These were the times we spoke to her and said, "Dear one, you're going into another Human lifetime that has a potential that's awesome - grander than most Humans on the planet will ever experience. You'll get to present something to tens of millions of people. You'll make them think about life. You'll change the legal system of your country. You'll awaken peoples' awareness to situations that need to be addressed with respect to morality, integrity, and even intuition. Will you do it?"

And I remember what she said. The grand angel who stood before me, who you now call Terri, smiled broadly and said, "I'm ready for that." And some of you cry in your sorrow and say "Why is this Human dead? How could such a thing be tolerated? Why would such a thing happen? Life is so precious." And I ask you this, as Terri looks on in her joy, would you take this away from her? Would you take that away from humanity, what she showed and did that resulted directly in her passing?

Start thinking of these things, perhaps differently. We've told you before that there are even those Human Beings who come in with a predisposition of suicide! What a horrible thought, you might say. "Kryon, could that even be appropriate?" And we say this: More than appropriate, it's by design! "But why should that be?" You might say. "What a horrible dishonorable death." And if that's your reaction, you're placing the whole grand picture in your own little Human box.

When you start examining it spiritually, without Human bias, you start to see that around a suicide there's this energy that develops. It's all about the family. Is there shame? Is there drama? Does it kick the family in the pants so that perhaps they might study things they never did - or perhaps they might they even look within themselves for spirituality? Blessed is the one that comes in with these tasks [like suicide]. There are so many of them who do. For these are the grease of personal change within families, and provide a gift that is grand!

You see, Spirit looks at these things differently. The curtain goes up, it goes down. You come and you go and there are profound lessons, some of which are taught harshly, by those who teach them through their own deaths.

"Well, what is it Kryon? Don't dodge the question with a diversion to suicide, for this isn't what Terri did. Is it proper or is it improper to have somebody in this vegetative state put to death by others around her?" Our answer: Exactly which Human are you talking about? You want a blanket answer, don't you? For six and half billion souls and paths, you want one answer for all. Well, you won't get one. For Terri, the answer is a solid yes. It was as it should have been. She came in with this grand opportunity to change the world, and she did it while everyone watched.

There is appropriateness in all things and sometimes you create for yourselves what seems to be inappropriate. Yet later you understand what the gift was within the challenge. Celebrate Terri, and don't think of this as a shameful thing that Humans did to her. Think of it instead as a book that was written for you to look at, one which pushes you to a place to ask, "What should we do about this now, personally? What should our legislatures do about this, if anything? How can we approach these things more humanely and with more honor? Is our culture addressing this issue? Are we addressing this issue personally?" Let's put these questions where they belong. It's not about "right to life"; it's about the appropriateness of "this life." Each case is individual, and some are profoundly given for the planet and for those around the individual.

Oh, as all of you came into this planet and leaned into the wind of birth separately, each was unique. Each of you has a different story, a different goal, but all have the same purpose: the elevation of the vibration of the planet. Sometimes it happens to many of you at the same time. We'll get to that before we finish. ..."

"THE THREE WINDS" – Feb 23-24, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Humanity, Home - other side of the veil, Wind of Birth - Birth, Wind of Existence - Life, Wind of Transition - Death) - (Text version)