As if we didn’t have enough to get our biopsychosocial teeth into lately – this latest event gives us opportunity to debate that ever popular yet seldom reconciled issue: Euthanasia.
This week the GMC has determined to suspend Dr Iain Kerr for 6 months following his decision to prescribe to an elderly woman who died from an overdose of prescribed tablets (Temazepam, anti-histamines and painkillers). Dr Kerr had (re)prescribed the Temazepam only three days after a failed overdose suicide attempt. She died 11 days later from a second overdose. The woman was 87.
Dr Kerr said he gave Patient A the sleeping pills as an “insurance policy”.
He told the hearing in Manchester: “She said ‘Give me something that I can take if things get too bad’ and I said yes.” [source]
It’s an issue that needs little introduction. Euthanasia has been on the agenda for some time and has caused significant controversy. However, some places have made up their mind that it’s not so difficult: [Wiki]
As of 2008, some forms of euthanasia are legal in Belgium, Luxemburg, The Netherlands, Switzerland, the U.S. state Oregon, and Thailand.
I’m not sure what the current status of debate is in the big offices where the important people sit and chat about our lives, but there seems to be some discussion about the message this latest sanction sends.
Even the GMC panel rejected a call to strike his name from the medical register.
Campaigners have taken this as a positive sign. Dr Michael Irwin, a former doctor with the United Nations, was struck off by the GMC in 2005 for trying to help a terminally ill friend to die. In the event his friend, who was suffering from prostate cancer, was too ill to take the tablets and died a few days later.
Dr Irwin, once chair of the pro-euthanasia organisation Dignity in Dying, said he felt the decision to suspend Dr Kerr could be interpreted as a positive sign.
He has already written to the Euthanasia Research and Guidance Organisation about the result. “I said, I do not want to sound too optimistic but in the recent past doctors doing the same kind of thing were struck off,” he explained.
He firmly believes that the UK will eventually permit assisted suicide, even predicting a time frame of 20 years, and he thinks Scotland could be first to make the change.
On the other side, there are the anti-euthanasia enthusiasts such as Alex Schadenburg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition – Canada and the Chairperson of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition – International who recounts accurate detail but only proffers this opinion:
It is very important that the GMC has given this case the appropriate attention rather than remaining silent our of fear of offending the politically correct.
To be fair, further reading of this site offers a balanced and sensible discussion and appears well worth reading for a non-hysterical PoV.
Care not Killing are more assured of the message this sanction sends:
We welcome this decision. The GMC has sent a strong signal to the profession and society at large that for a doctor to assist a patient’s suicide is both irresponsible and inappropriate and brings the profession into disrepute. Dr Kerr was very fortunate to avoid being struck off or convicted but the GMC have, on the basis of mitigating circumstances, decided in this case to temper justice with mercy. The message is however very clear.
Attempted suicides are almost always a cry for help and the appropriate response to find out why the person feels so desperate and to offer them appropriate treatment and support. Requests for assisted suicide are extremely rare when patients’ physical, social and spiritual needs are properly met.
There are some further interesting reported points to this event tho:
The lady was originally prescribed Sodium Amytal when she requested ‘something that I can take in case things get too bad’.
She requested and was prescribed the 30 Sodium Amytal in 1998, yet overdosed in 2005.
Prior to her overdose she disposed of the 30 Sodium Amytal because she was aware Dr Kerr was under scrutiny for his views euthanasia and didn’t want him to get into trouble.
She had originally disclosed to Dr Kerr that she had considered suicide so as not to be a burden on her family.
Patient A was an osteoporosis sufferer who feared becoming a burden upon her family and held Dr Kerr in high regard, her son told the hearing. [source]
That’s a lot of fuss, when she could’ve got some perfectly lethal paracetamol over the counter.
“ . . . she could’ve got some perfectly lethal paracetamol over the counter.”
Eeeek!
Temazepam and medication prescribed allows her to swiftly drift in to sleep then sweet oblivion.
Paracetamol does nothing swift. You take the tablets and feel no effects for days, as it rots your liver. You then have pain. Rather a lot of it, as your liver dies. Your liver no longer makes clotting factors to stop you bleeding. You start to bleed to death. You lose blood from every office (as in, from everywhere, you bleed from your mouth and nose and eyes and bottom and vagina and ears). Blood loss causes weakness, confusion so you’re bewildered and afraid, and a prolonged slow and painful death as you slowly lose your blood. The sheets are soaked in blood,, it reeks like an abattoir.
I’ve seen folk die from paracetamol overdose. It’s truly ghastly.
Oh, I wasn’t recommending it as a method. I know it’s nasty. I just think it’s pretty funny to yell at a doctor for prescribing something lethal when you can get enough paracetamol to kill you OTC for less than a quid.
(It’s the sense of humour depression gives you. Read some Dorothy Parker and you’ll get the idea.)
I like Dorothy Parker, but I only ever read her quips and quotes in passing.
And being brave – I think he was dead right to give her the option for a peaceful controlled death.
If he was responsible for ‘assisting’ the process then so too are pharmacists and nurses who dispense any medication that may result in death to someone with known suicidal ideation – and so too for Gillette.
Incidentally, whatever happened to Paradote?
Shrink> Can I ask you a favour? I have a friend who has a habit of now and then downing an entire box of paracetemol and then heading to A&E.
Can I forward your description above to him please? I’m trying to persuade him, when he feels he must self-harm by taking pills, to try something less bad for him… I’m not sure he realises quite how nasty death by paracetemol really is.
I will credit your web page.
Euthanasia accounted for an estimated 3,000 covert deaths [in the UK] in 2006.
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/news/p.....euthanasia
And:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/soci.....th.science.
Perhaps one of the unintended consequences of the ‘sanctity of life’ mind set is that hospitals have evolved into keeping people alive factories.
The blue phone goes at 4 o’clock in the morning.
A demented 85 yr old is rushed into A&E [presumably after being found 'dead in bed' by care staff in the nursing home.
Tubes may be inserted into the trachea, adrenaline pumped into the veins, if VF [or pulseless VT] is present doses of electricity are administered.
The autopulse hammers out chest compressions.
A short while later the body, perhaps having sustained rib fractures from vigerous chest compressions, or bleeding points after attempted cannulation of the arms, groin, or neck is ‘bagged and tagged’ then placed in a fridge in the bowels of the hospital.
It’s progess of sorts, I suppose ?
[...] those who recall previous debates will remember Ted and the ongoing debate on suicide. But I wonder how they would contend [...]