There is a way to die with dignity – and it has nothing to do with this Bill

The death of a beloved relative has taught me there is a way to die with dignity, and it has nothing to with the Leadbeater bill

Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email
Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email
We buried my second mother on Thursday; a woman without whom I probably would not be writing this column.
As my first mother was slowly drinking herself to death, my stepmother Bernice helped me and my two brothers navigate our way through the teenage trauma of it all with a reassuring maternal dependableness that had been sadly lacking throughout our childhood.
When our mother died as a result of her alcoholism, it was our father and stepmother who helped us not only to come to terms with our loss, but also to ensure that it didn’t have a Philip Larkinesque effect on the rest of our lives.
All the mourners said lots of kind things at the funeral. But one remark has stuck with me as I return to work today: “If it wasn’t for Bernice, you probably wouldn’t have ended up being a journalist.” I had always thought that I had so aggressively pursued a career in a bid to avoid turning into my mother; that it was all my doing. But on reflection, there’s no way I could have done any of it without Bernice’s support and guidance. No woman can succeed in life without the help of another woman, whomever she may be.
This is the first column Bernice will not read, and on Sunday, I will present the first GB News show that she will not watch. Next week, I will appear on This Morning, and there will be no text from Bernice, remarking on some aspect of the conversation.
Of everyone in my life, she was my most vocal and enthusiastic champion and words cannot adequately express the enormously positive impact she had on my life.
I have previously written about assisted suicide in the context of the death of my first mother. I argued at the time that it was in danger of robbing loved ones of precious final moments with their dying relatives – and warned that the Canadian experience suggested that it could create a slippery slope resulting in people taking their own lives for depression and other non-terminal illnesses. The thought of disabled and elderly people opting for assisted suicide for fear of being a burden to their families also troubled me greatly.
But the death of my second mother has given me a new perspective. I am now even more opposed to the rushed and ill-thought-out Assisted Dying Bill, which will be voted on next Friday, than I was before. What I’ve learnt from Bernice’s death is that the Government should not be legislating for new ways for people to kill themselves.
It should actually be legislating for more funding and support for hospice care, which is already assisting people to die in a far more humane and compassionate manner than any other setting.
Hospice care eases the physical and emotional pain of death and dying by letting people focus on living, right until the end. But not enough people can access it either as in-patients or outpatients, because it is chronically underfunded. Take the Peace Hospice in Watford, where Bernice passed away on November 6.
This remarkable charity, of which I am a proud patron, receives just 14 per cent of its funding from the government despite providing unparalleled palliative care for the local community.
I am loath to criticise the NHS since it cared for both of my mothers in their final weeks. But the sad truth is that it is too overstretched to provide the sort of palliative care that hospices can. I would wager that most people advocating for assisted suicide on the basis that their loved one endured a slow and painful death will not have benefited from hospice care or indeed, properly administered palliative care.
Bernice had been extremely agitated and distressed in hospital and hard-pressed staff at times appeared unable to cope with her rapidly deteriorating condition. Some doctors and nurses were excellent, including the palliative care team that referred her to the hospice, but others appeared out of their depth and could have benefited from more palliative care training.
We had no communication from her GP throughout her demise and so there was no one overseeing her care except my father, a retired family doctor.
But once she was transferred to the hospice, everything transformed for the better. She had her own room; we had one point of contact, a palliative consultant who was an expert in her field; as a family, we were cared for with as much compassion as Bernice.
Our only regret is that we couldn’t get her into the hospice sooner but beds are always in short supply and even the neediest of patients have to go on a waiting list.
It cannot be coincidence that in Canada, less than half of patients who opt for euthanasia see a palliative care team and only 15 per cent of Canadians have access to publicly funded palliative care at home.
In Belgium, where the assisted suicide laws are so liberal they do not just apply to the terminally ill but patients with psychiatric conditions and even children, two thirds of all dying patients do not have access to specialist palliative care.
According to the Australia Health Review, 59 per cent of dying intensive care patients are not referred to end of life care services. In June, all states and the Australian Capital Territory passed legislation creating an assisted suicide and euthanasia scheme for eligible individuals.
As Dr Claud Regnard, honorary consultant for St Oswald’s Hospice in Gosforth, has warned: “This evidence raises a serious concern that many who choose to participate in an assisted death do so not because it is the best choice from an array of good end-of-life options, but because it is the only option.”
Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, has said he cannot back the Bill, tabled by his Labour colleague Kim Leadbeater, because it would divert funds away from the NHS. But his prioritisation of the NHS when it comes to the provision of end of life care is part of the problem.
Hospices rely on fundraising to survive, and the charitable coffers have been badly affected by the cost of living crisis. Add to that hefty NHS pay rises, which have pushed up wage bills for hospices, and it has been a recipe for disaster for the sector.
The Budget made things even worse because, unlike the NHS, hospices are not exempt from the rise in Employer National Insurance Contributions. As Toby Porter, CEO of Hospice UK, has pointed out: “The number of people dying each year in the UK is going up significantly, and right now, hospices are making service reductions and redundancies.”
It is complete madness, not least when you consider how much hospices ease pressure on the NHS, and the fact that they ensure more people die in their preferred place of death, surrounded by their family, with the care they need. That, surely, is the definition of “assisted dying”.
So forget the Bill – it’s not what’s needed. What’s needed is more funding to ensure that loved ones can have as dignified a death as our beloved Bernice.
Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email