MND patient’s relief at Swiss clinic option
BY HANNAH PHILLIPS A DAD with motor neurone disease has told of his relief at being given the green light to end his life at a clinic in Switzerland.
Retired heating surveyor Dave Finlay, 70, of Dundee, has suffered from the condition for seven years.
There’s no cure for motor neurone disease, which affects the brain and nerves.
The father of two said yesterday: “You basically turn into a vegetable. You can’t move or speak and the only way you can communicate is by blinking.
“People are dying terrible deaths.
“In Switzerland, it’s a peaceful way of going. You drink something and fall asleep. I envy people who die in their sleep.
“Nobody wants to die but I’ve accepted that if I don’t do it, I’ll end up as a vegetable, so when I start to feel like the condition is getting worse, I’ll go.”
Dave got in touch with a clinic in Switzerland two years ago and had to pay £3000 up front just for them to look into his case.
When he decides to go ahead, it will cost £10,000.
He said: “I was so relieved when I was accepted.
“The difference I felt in myself was amazing.
“My family understand what’s ahead for me so they know why I want to go and they support me.
“Ten per cent of people last more than 10 years and they’re usually bedridden or in a wheelchair, so I am lucky that I’m still moving about.
“The disease is moving through my body slowly and I’ve lasted longer than expected. But that’s also worrying because if I end up paralysed, we don’t know how long I’d have to live like that.”
Dave is calling for a law change so that people from the UK with long-term illnesses don’t have to go abroad to end their life.
He said: “Going to Switzerland is going to take years off my life because I’ll have to make sure I go before I start deteriorating.
“If I could do it here, I’d be able to last a bit longer and do it in my own time.”