Former Labour health minister and NHS transplant surgeon Zubir Ahmed MP has backed the Prime Minister’s stance on the assisted suicide debate, arguing that the “choice between death without adequate care and a death prematurely self-induced is not a real choice”.
Writing in The Guardian ahead of Second Reading of Lauren Edwards’ assisted suicide Bill on Friday 11 September, Dr Ahmed asks “[w]hat kind of society are we building if, before we’ve fixed the systems designed to care for people, we introduce a system designed to help them die?”. As a former health minister who knows the system from the inside, he says that the care system is not in a state “which even makes that debate [on assisted suicide] appropriate”.
Writing only a few weeks after the Prime Minister said that the debate around introducing assisted suicide should not take place in a context where palliative and social care remain poorly funded, Dr Ahmed backs the PM, saying “choice between death without adequate care and a death prematurely self-induced is not a real choice”.
Complications during assisted suicide and medical concern about the Bill
Ahead of the debate in September, Dr Ahmed said he “fear[s] that the offering [of assisted suicide] has been somewhat mis-sold to the public. A state-controlled medicalised dying process is still a process – one where there remain risks of complication and suffering. The reality of assisted dying is more complex than the promise of a perfectly controlled death”.
“Many people imagine a system where a person facing a terminal illness can choose the exact moment and manner of their death, free from distress”. But this is not something on which the Bill can provide any certainty, since, as Dr Ahmed explains, a “patient who self-administers medication to begin the dying process may still experience complications”.
“The process may take time; it may require medical intervention. It may not happen where or when the person imagined. The promise of absolute control can therefore become something different in practice: an appearance of choice that does not always deliver the agency people expect”.
Dr Ahmed’s concerns have been confirmed by real-world data. In Oregon, where assisted suicide has been legal since 1997, annual complication rates with assisted deaths have been as high as 14.8%. Patients are reported to have experienced difficulty swallowing, drug regurgitation and seizures, and have even regained consciousness after ingesting the ‘lethal’ drugs. Other complications include vomiting and death taking many hours, including up to 137 hours (over 5 days).
Dr Ahmed is not alone among medical professionals who are concerned about the assisted suicide Bill. “Among those raising concerns about the bill’s dozens of flaws have been the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Complex Life and Death Decisions (CLADD) group from King’s College London, the Royal College of Pathologists, the British Geriatrics Society and numerous other medical bodies and care authorities”.
Palliative and social care is not a separate issue from assisted suicide
“[T]he state of our care systems cannot be treated as a separate issue from assisted dying”, Dr Ahmed explains, because a “person’s wish to die does not happen in isolation from their circumstances. It can be shaped by whether they feel supported, whether they fear becoming a burden, whether their family is coping and whether they have access to the care they need”.
Dr Ahmed reminds us that when Scotland debated its own assisted suicide Bill earlier this year, “85% of Labour MSPs voted against [it]”.
“And yet, on 11 September, MPs will be faced with yet another vote on assisted dying before the care systems are improved to a level which even makes that debate appropriate. Andy Burnham has his priorities right: this is the wrong debate at the wrong time. This is why I, and many others, will be voting against this bill, in pursuit of comfort, dignity and appropriate care for people who are vulnerable and dying”.
Dr Ahmed joins fellow Labour MPs Adam Jogee and Douglas McAllister who both came out in support of the Prime Minister’s position earlier this month, insisting that palliative care must be fixed before we consider assisted suicide.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “Dr Ahmed has joined other Labour MPs who in recent weeks have raised concerns in the media about the state of palliative care and how making assisted suicide legal under such circumstances could put pressure on people to end their lives due to a lack of available care”.
“This is a completely reasonable concern. Assisted suicide should not even be debated while the care system is struggling in the way that it is. Hopefully, MPs will recognise this issue and vote against the assisted suicide Bill next month”.
