The wealthy already had the option of travelling overseas for 'assisted dying'. This bill, and the initiatives for GP's to sign up their patients for 'do not resuscitate' orders, need to be considered in the context of the drastic welfare cuts being pushed through by Labour.
Great post. As a former NHS mental health support worker, and a mental health patient, I agree that the lack of psychiatric input into the assisted dying debate belies the attitudes to mental health patients and provision. No matter your views on assisted dying, this ‘oversight’ is important and highly relevant. Thanks for writing.
A significant number of suicides are in the elderly. Clearly there is a demand for facilitated death. Assisted dying meets that demand. How often does someone who is terminally ill with less than 6 months live expectancy, who is actively suicidal, detained under the Mental Health Act for suicidality, be effectively treated to the point where they say I'm so glad I was prevented from completing suicide, that would have been an absolute tragedy if I'd died by medically assisted dying? I'll guarantee virtually no one ever is saying that. Psychiatry doesn't cure terminally ill people with less than 6 months life expectancy of their suicidality - certainly not to the point that they say it would have been a tragedy of they'd been allowed to die a few months earlier.
This psychiatrist is living in lala land. If suicidality in the terminally ill was that easily fixed, no-one would be asking for assisted dying.
The wealthy already had the option of travelling overseas for 'assisted dying'. This bill, and the initiatives for GP's to sign up their patients for 'do not resuscitate' orders, need to be considered in the context of the drastic welfare cuts being pushed through by Labour.
Great post. As a former NHS mental health support worker, and a mental health patient, I agree that the lack of psychiatric input into the assisted dying debate belies the attitudes to mental health patients and provision. No matter your views on assisted dying, this ‘oversight’ is important and highly relevant. Thanks for writing.
A significant number of suicides are in the elderly. Clearly there is a demand for facilitated death. Assisted dying meets that demand. How often does someone who is terminally ill with less than 6 months live expectancy, who is actively suicidal, detained under the Mental Health Act for suicidality, be effectively treated to the point where they say I'm so glad I was prevented from completing suicide, that would have been an absolute tragedy if I'd died by medically assisted dying? I'll guarantee virtually no one ever is saying that. Psychiatry doesn't cure terminally ill people with less than 6 months life expectancy of their suicidality - certainly not to the point that they say it would have been a tragedy of they'd been allowed to die a few months earlier.
This psychiatrist is living in lala land. If suicidality in the terminally ill was that easily fixed, no-one would be asking for assisted dying.
You ask who is protecting these people from themselves. You miss the point. The people are being protected from you.