Don terminally ill people need better care, not the option of an assisted death?
Terminally ill people should have both access to better care and the option of an assisted death if their suffering becomes unbearable. Whilst palliative care providers in both the voluntary sector and the NHS do excellent work, some people still suffer greatly and want to choose medical help to die. Even the best palliative care will leave some terminally ill people with unalleviated pain, and pain is not the only consideration, there are all the other distressing symptoms like inability to swallow or control saliva (constant dribbling), nausea, shortness of breath, constipation, itching and so on. The concern of people like Debbie Purdy is often not the pain – it’s about their loss of autonomy and dignity, as they see it. The House of Lords Select Committee on the ADTI Bill recognised that for some people palliative care is not enough. Furthermore, assisted dying is complementary to hospice care. It would only be an option once hospice care had been explored. 87% of patients who used
