Prue: Campaign for assisted dying
Bake Off star’s plea after brother’s cancer ordeal
PRUE Leith yesterday called for Scotland to ‘lead the way’ on assisted dying by making it a key issue ahead of the election.
The Great British Bake Off judge urged candidates vying for a seat in Holyrood to campaign against the current ‘lousy’ laws.
She also spoke about her heartbreak at watching the ‘barbaric’ death of her brother from cancer.
Miss Leith, a patron of Dignity in Dying, was taking part in the group’s Scottish online campaign launch.
She said: ‘I really hope that every candidate in the May 6 election will treat this as a priority.
‘Australia, Canada, New Zealand and many states in the US have already legislated assisted dying.
‘It’s high time the UK did and I’m trusting Scotland to lead the way.’ The chef, backed by Dignity in Dying Scotland, is calling for prospective MSPs to support a private member’s Bill on assisted dying at the next parliamentary session.
Miss Leith, 81, told how her brother David died in ‘agony’ eight months after being diagnosed with bone cancer.
She said his wife and four children had to watch his decline, with one daughter even willing herself the ‘courage’ to suffocate him to end his suffering.
Miss Leith said: ‘David was given morphine. The blessed relief would last three hours but the nurses would be unable to give him his next dose for another hour. So out of every four hours, one of them would be spent in groaning, crying, sometimes begging, agony. You wouldn’t treat a dog like that.
‘Two of my nieces separately and unknown to each other pleaded with the agency nurses to administer the drugs to increase the morphine dose.
‘One said to me that she sat for half an hour with a pillow in her hands trying to stick her courage to the sticking point, but she could not bring herself to suffocate her own dad.’
Mr Leith eventually died from pneumonia in 2012, aged 74.
Miss Leith said: ‘Dying of pneumonia is a horrible death. Basically you drown, slowly and painfully, as your lungs fill with mucus and you cannot breathe.’ Dignity in Dying Scotland says around 87 per cent of Scots support laws for assisted dying.
Among the places where legislation around the issue exists is the US state of Oregon.
Director of Dignity in Dying Scotland Alyson Thomson said: ‘We can point to the international evidence, such as Oregon, who have had a law in place since the late 90s and show how the law works there. Actually it protects vulnerable people, because at its core is transparency and fairness and empowerment.’
Miss Leith finished the event by urging Scottish party leaders to ‘think about their own deaths’.
She said: ‘I think most people would rather not talk about death and MPs are no different.
‘But they have a duty to think about it and they are going to have to think about it because it will be appearing before the Scottish parliament.
‘All they need to do is to recognise how lousy the law is at the moment.’