Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill — 29 Nov 2024 at 14:05

“You get to a point where you stop praying for a miracle and start praying for mercy.”

“There is currently no established system for identifying abuse or coercion in advance of a person’s death or for helping vulnerable people to make end of life decisions.”

“I wish to live as fully as I can and for as long as possible. But when the time comes”,

“the right to die with dignity and compassion”.

“through deep and meaningful conversations between doctors, patients and their loved ones we can dispel fear, reduce suffering, bring death and dying out of the shadows, and so allow patients and their families a better quality of life and quality of death”.

“We have brought ‘behind-closed-doors’ practices into the open and given dying people meaningful, transparent choices. Crucially none of the fears that were put forward as reasons not to change the law have been realised. The status quo was broken and assisted dying works.”

“a registered medical practitioner…who has such training, qualifications and experience as the Secretary of State may specify by regulations”.

“the intervention of a court would simply interpose an expensive and time-consuming forensic procedure”.

“Only those who believe implicitly in judicial omniscience and infallibility-and I do not-can possibly have any confidence in the efficacy of what is proposed.”

“we need to show we can do better at assisted living before deciding whether to legislate on ways to die.”

“a scheme which does not provide for an open and transparent process but, on the contrary, permits a secret process which can give us no confidence that it will enable the court to identify and prevent possible abuses.”

“the Leadbeater Bill falls lamentably short of providing adequate safeguards,”

“amount to nothing more than arbitrary restrictions, with no rational foundation.”

“Despite this prognosis I can honestly say that I am a happy person now. I feel lucky to have made it to 60. There is just one black cloud on the horizon for me, and it is the way that I will die. I am terrified that I will suffer a long, painful death. If I knew I had the choice to have a good death, these worries would disappear. Please change the law so I can live what life I have left, safe in the knowledge that I have a choice about how and when I die. If you do this, I will be able to live even more happily today knowing that I do not need to worry about the prospect of a cruel and painful death.”

“I apologise for adding to the thousands of emails you will be receiving. I just wanted to tell you why I oppose the right to die Bill. I know you are aware of the experience I had when my husband was dying. In hospital we had a dreadful experience because they had no end-of-life care and he suffered. Once in the Hospice it was a different story and he received the loving care he rightly deserved.

My argument is that, instead of assisted dying, we should be spending much more money on end-of-life care and funding the wonderful Hospice movement. Thank you for reading this.”

“Only recently, I was giving my condolences to a grieving woman who had lost her husband in the early hours. He had been given a few small doses of pain relief and mild sedatives over the last few nights for symptom control and had passed away peacefully at her side. She asked me in all seriousness, ‘Doctor, did the nurses give him something to make him die quicker last night?’ This was an awful lingering doubt that she had. I was able to firmly reassure her that, no, the medication would not have sped up his passing.

For her, and the vast majority of other patients, doctors are there to prolong life and palliate symptoms. Were this to change, then we would not be doctors in the eyes of many, but bringers of death, agents of a state which counts its weakest members as expendable and worthy of nothing but an early grave.

I do not want to be a member of a profession which has that reputation or role”.

“The only patients I care for, are those who are dying”.

“she was highly distressed, everyday she said she’d had enough and wanted to die-it was very undignified for her and it was heartbreaking to observe but be powerless to help.”

“it would be totally inappropriate for us to suggest or even imply that hospice and palliative care services can somehow address…pain in all circumstances.”

“In order that everyone dying in the acute sector can do so with dignity, the present situation has to change.”

“We have some amazing care givers in this country who provide the most compassionate care in the most difficult of circumstances & that gives great comfort. But I feel no-one should be forced to know how the book ends when they are only part way through it without having the choice of putting it down and choosing one with a better ending.”

“Death does not worry me at all. Dying a slow death with my dignity stripped away terrifies me. So when my time is right I will kill myself-alone and afraid. My sick dog will not have to die alone and afraid, but I am forced to do so. I want to die on my terms. How can this be right?”

“I’ve witnessed many end of life patients and I cannot say hand on heart that many of those patients had a peaceful death. I left palliative nursing as the emotional trauma became too much. There are neither the range of medication or symptom relief treatments available for many of the harrowing things people are forced to go through in their last days and weeks of their life.”

Debate in Parliament |