‘It’s patronising! Let people die with dignity’: Doctors clash over assisted dying bill

We speak to GP’s, physio’s and palliative care workers about the proposed assisted dying bill, and the opinion is well and truly split.

Transcript

00:00And as a GP I've seen plenty of probable deaths and I think there is a much better way and I

00:08I think it's patronising that we are not allowed to say what we want from something that is so

00:14important to us. Whereas in the NHS people can choose the colour of their pills, they can

00:21opt for just about anything, they can have a birth in a water bath or they can have a

00:28cesarean section, but for the really important issue that comes to us all in the end,

00:35you're not allowed to make a choice. I've worked in the NHS for over 20 years, I'm actually a

00:40physiotherapist by training and I am so happy to hear from a GP that he has been looking at

00:48the moral issues and the future, because the future is we cannot and should not keep everybody

00:55alive regardless and I sincerely hope by the time my time comes we will have respect for

01:02people's choices and I have seen many horrible lives at the end of life and I think it is only

01:10sensible and fair and compassionate that we allow people to make a choice at the end of their life

01:17and to die with dignity and in a timely manner and I agree it is patronising to think we should

01:25keep people alive regardless of what they want or their circumstances. I think one of the things

01:32that's really struck me about those who are on the dignity and dying side is that they've

01:39experienced very traumatic deaths of loved ones and their stories often come out of stories of

01:48pain and I'm a palliative care doctor myself and so we were just talking about the reality of that

01:56but also how this legislation, what would be the impact of this legislation

02:02and we're talking about, because the person I was with is another medic, I was talking to him

02:08about really what it's like to deal with vulnerable patients and the fact that actually for the vast

02:16majority of people they feel they have a lack of control in their lives so when this bill actually

02:23one of the elements of this bill is to say that the doctor can bring up the option of assisted

02:29dying, I was saying we become the agents of coercion then and so we were sort of coming to

02:39understanding that he felt that this bill was the start of a process. My personal feeling is it could

02:46be the start of a process but it's never going to take away from the fact that for the vast majority

02:51of people this bill causes a lot of risk for them.